sister_luck (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sister_luck) wrote2012-11-08 06:28 pm
sister_luck) wrote2012-11-08 06:28 pm
Them and us.
This is not a well-researched post. I'm just throwing out some observations:
At school we've been discussing the fact that German schools are way behind in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Currently the federal states are writing laws to make sure that parents can send their children with disabilities to mainstream schools. Of course this also means closing lots of the special schools (most children with disabilities attend highly specialized schools) and possibly saving a little money in the long-term.
Caveat: I try to use the most acceptable terms to write about disabilities and people with disabilities, but I'm not a native speaker of English, so I might not always use the right words. No offence is intended. Feel free to call me out on my use of disability terms.
So, what does our school want to do?
Shout "Yes, we are willing to start doing this and will start accepting a small number of students with disabilities (behavioural, learning, physical what have you) from next year while also fighting for more ressources.", or mutter "We're okay with this in general, but we're not advertising this fact and instead keep making plans on the quiet" or play dead "We don't really want this."
This has been discussed on several levels in school, twice with all teachers present.
What I took from this:
I get that people worry about ressources, about getting enough support from specially trained teachers, receiving additional training and the need for more rooms. The financial aspect is certainly important. I also understand that as a teacher you worry about being able to give the adequate support to all your pupils and that on a personal level you are a little afraid because you don't know much about people with disabilities.
But it upset me that there were several people who voiced opinions that indirectly said: "We don't want these people here, because they are not like us and what if they are kind of icky and poop in their pants." Who directly said: "I want to have a special needs teacher or teaching assistant with me at all times, because I don't want to be alone with someone with a disability."
It upset me, because we already have people with disabilities at our school.
Lots of kids are undiagnosed or underdiagnosed because the parents are worried that with the label of "behavioural disability" or "learning disability" the school won't allow them in. This means that we lack the ressources to help these pupils. Or that they will be stigmatized by classmates and teachers. Oh, and we already have a kid in our school who poops in his pants, but it's even more of a challenge because his special needs are undiagnosed. There are some emotional and behavioural problems and there are all sorts of problems at home, but we don't have anyone who has the training to diagnose him and because his parents aren't cooperating nothing much is happening.
The people worrying about classroom sizes ("We can't have someone with a wheelchair, we don't have the space") conveniently forget that there is a teacher who uses a wheelchair. She was there, listening to what her colleagues said. Most of them don't know that a couple of years ago we had a girl with cerebral palsy at our school who was a wheelchair user. She would have benefited from a truly inclusive school because then she could have had physical therapy during P.E. lessons. It would have been an enormous help if we had had someone who helped us with her wheelchair on trips and excursions.
It made me especially angry because we have teachers whose own children have disabilities and who would like to send them to regular schools. It must be a highly emotional subject for them. They were not included in the discussion in any way.
It also left me frustrated, because it doesn't fit my idea of what a teacher should be like, this willingness to exclude part of the population just because they're different.
The fact that we voted for the middle ground doesn't make me particularly happy, because of the way the voting process was organised, but that's a different story...
At school we've been discussing the fact that German schools are way behind in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Currently the federal states are writing laws to make sure that parents can send their children with disabilities to mainstream schools. Of course this also means closing lots of the special schools (most children with disabilities attend highly specialized schools) and possibly saving a little money in the long-term.
Caveat: I try to use the most acceptable terms to write about disabilities and people with disabilities, but I'm not a native speaker of English, so I might not always use the right words. No offence is intended. Feel free to call me out on my use of disability terms.
So, what does our school want to do?
Shout "Yes, we are willing to start doing this and will start accepting a small number of students with disabilities (behavioural, learning, physical what have you) from next year while also fighting for more ressources.", or mutter "We're okay with this in general, but we're not advertising this fact and instead keep making plans on the quiet" or play dead "We don't really want this."
This has been discussed on several levels in school, twice with all teachers present.
What I took from this:
I get that people worry about ressources, about getting enough support from specially trained teachers, receiving additional training and the need for more rooms. The financial aspect is certainly important. I also understand that as a teacher you worry about being able to give the adequate support to all your pupils and that on a personal level you are a little afraid because you don't know much about people with disabilities.
But it upset me that there were several people who voiced opinions that indirectly said: "We don't want these people here, because they are not like us and what if they are kind of icky and poop in their pants." Who directly said: "I want to have a special needs teacher or teaching assistant with me at all times, because I don't want to be alone with someone with a disability."
It upset me, because we already have people with disabilities at our school.
Lots of kids are undiagnosed or underdiagnosed because the parents are worried that with the label of "behavioural disability" or "learning disability" the school won't allow them in. This means that we lack the ressources to help these pupils. Or that they will be stigmatized by classmates and teachers. Oh, and we already have a kid in our school who poops in his pants, but it's even more of a challenge because his special needs are undiagnosed. There are some emotional and behavioural problems and there are all sorts of problems at home, but we don't have anyone who has the training to diagnose him and because his parents aren't cooperating nothing much is happening.
The people worrying about classroom sizes ("We can't have someone with a wheelchair, we don't have the space") conveniently forget that there is a teacher who uses a wheelchair. She was there, listening to what her colleagues said. Most of them don't know that a couple of years ago we had a girl with cerebral palsy at our school who was a wheelchair user. She would have benefited from a truly inclusive school because then she could have had physical therapy during P.E. lessons. It would have been an enormous help if we had had someone who helped us with her wheelchair on trips and excursions.
It made me especially angry because we have teachers whose own children have disabilities and who would like to send them to regular schools. It must be a highly emotional subject for them. They were not included in the discussion in any way.
It also left me frustrated, because it doesn't fit my idea of what a teacher should be like, this willingness to exclude part of the population just because they're different.
The fact that we voted for the middle ground doesn't make me particularly happy, because of the way the voting process was organised, but that's a different story...