Report
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Explanation: teaching in a classroom including a v.i. child supposes certain requirements for the classroom teacher, essential to ensure that the special needs of the v.i. child will be met. The "FLUSS-project" focuses on these aspects.
In sharing information about existing or planned set-ups for the training of classroom teachers of visually impaired children the group concluded that there are great differences among countries in terms of scope, scale and resources available. The participants agree, however, that certain special skills will be required of such teachers. Since the conditions vary so widely, it was suggested that it is recommendable to start with the needs of the child.
The teacher must be familiar with the visual situation of the child and its functional implications. To begin with, teachers must know that they will have to ask the most important question: how much can the child see? They will need to understand the different implications of having a totally blind vs. partially sighted child in care, so as to be aware of what problems might come up. In the case of totally blind children teachers ought to be familiarised with basic technical questions, like the type of aids used, orientation & mobility and ADL concepts understood as a technical way to come closer to blind child; likewise, for partially sighted children teachers ought to know the principles of technical and optic aids and when/how they are used by the child. For practical reasons, however, these issues do not need to be studied at any greater depth except for what is needed in a classroom/school environment.
It has been recognised by the participants that vi children come to regular schools without certain basic social skills, especially as regards non-verbal behaviour and communication; teachers should be able to identify such deficiencies and take measures to correct them, for which they may need some extra skills.
The presence of a vi child in a group of sighted children may elicit all kinds of attitudes and responses in both the peers and their parents. Surveys in Yugoslavia have shown that a significant number of parents mind their children having a vi classmate; surprisingly, those who minded most were parents with best education. The experience of French teachers, on the other hand, shows that if blind students are allocated additional time in written tests, their sighted peers can find that unfair and questionable.
The classroom teacher therefore has to be equipped with the necessary knowledge to handle these kinds of questions/objections from parents and other students. The teacher must remember, however, that his/her goal is to adapt the vi child to the classroom environment, not the other way round; if there are problems with parents or other students because of a vi child in a class, there may be something wrong with integration in that particular class. Teachers must be sensitive to the special needs of a vi child and, once a problem or need has been identified, they should know where to look for help, i.e. they must be aware of the resources available.
Having a vi child in class will typically require additional work from the classroom teacher, which may result in misgivings or discouragement. O the other hand, if teachers are to be effective in what they are doing, they must believe in what they do. To prevent discouragement and such like reactions, teachers need to be made aware that the extra work may prove exciting and rewarding. Their confidence must be built up so as to help them believe they can cope with the challenge of teaching a vi child.
A particularly engaging question was whether regular classroom teachers need to be taught special didactic knowledge and techniques applicable to the teaching of vi children and, if so, where such knowledge should come from, the key two alternatives being the teacher training college/university vs. the itinerant teacher. The participants agreed that while some special knowledge is indispensable, it may not be practical to try to burden the regular teacher with in-depth university level learning. Besides, as it was the itinerant teacher or the resource centre, as the case may be, that was preferred as the source of such knowledge, the general sentiment was that it is neither fair nor reasonable to expect the regular teacher to learn what took the itinerant teacher some 4 years of study at a special education facility.
On the other hand, participants emphasised the need for regular communication and sharing of information between regular teachers. As a matter of confidence development, teachers should know that there will be an opportunity for them to continue that education by way of workshops, feedback and support from the resource centres. In terms of grading the special knowledge, the preference was for a certain basic body of general facts administered in the very beginning, to be followed by more specific information given at a time when it is required in the course of work with a particular child/group of children, when it can be customised correspondingly.
In summary, the classroom teacher will need to:
There are sometimes objective reasons why when it is really difficult to synchronise the activities of a vi child with those of the rest of the class in reaching the same teaching goal. A typical example is the sequence of teaching Braille letters vs. the traditional sequence of teaching print to sighted students (additionally compounded in some languages where the same letter, modified by diacritics yet perceived as essentially the same sound, is equivalent to several different Braille letters). Still, the participants expressed a strong preference for the child staying in the regular class as much as possible.
Apart from objective reasons, there may be certain subjective considerations, e.g. some participants were concerned whether the use of some devices, notably Braillers, was not too obtrusive in the regular classroom. Technology seems to be able to solve the problems, according to some participants. In Germany, for example, many blind children use computers, which are not noisy at all. In Norway the path is somewhat longer and children gradually go through regular Braille, followed by the Perkins Brailler, to a computer with 6 keys imitating Braille, to a computer with regular keyboard. According to those who saw it, the sight of a crowd of children gathered around the one blind child using a computer is very much inclusion stimulating.
In conclusion, the participants agreed that the vi child should stay mostly in the classroom and be taken out as seldom as possible, or even, when worded more radically, taken out of the classroom only when absolutely necessary.
Prior to the discussion of the issue the group was given a current definition of a Multiply Disabled Visually Impaired child (MDVI), formulated by the European Union of the Blind, namely: a child with at least 2 disabilities of which one is visual, and who requires a special teaching approach/curriculum as a result. The group most typically includes children with cerebral palsy or mental retardation apart from visual impairment. Typically, too the size of the population is constantly increasing.
Since that population of children is frequently found in various facilities due to their non-visual disability, the natural question is whether these institutionalised vi children are at all subject of our teaching interventions, and there was little doubt among participants that they are.
The next issue is whether there is room for such children in regular classrooms. While there is general agreement that these children should be integrated whenever possible, it is also recognised that for a number of children that may not be an appropriate option. Firstly, the children themselves may feel out of place and, secondly, they might not receive the special service they need, either.
The general conclusion was that it is the parents of MDVI children who ought to have the final choice; besides, if mainstreaming were to lead to the elimination of all special care institutions, we might miss some opportunity to give a MDVI child the proper service he/she requires.
The role of the itinerant teacher was by participants from some countries expressed in terms of general wishes/expectations, in other countries it seems to be more clearly defined, in others yet it is part of a framework of principles.
In Bulgaria there are three groups of tasks of the itinerant teacher: 1. to support and help integrate the child; 2. to support the regular ordinary teacher in his/her integrative efforts; 3. to support parents of the vi child.
In Germany the work of the itinerant teacher is governed by one important principle, namely to educate all the relevant persons in the environment of the vi child; consequently, itinerant teachers are rarely seen in the classroom working directly with the child.
A common experience that was reported by participants was some kind of friction that develops between the regular teacher and the itinerant teacher, more often than not caused by the regular teacher's fear - justified or otherwise - of being bossed around by the resource teacher. It is therefore of vital importance for both parties to recognise that the relationship between them is strictly symmetrical, that neither is boss or subordinate, and that they both have something to learn from working together.
In many cases the positive input of the itinerant teacher consists of helping the regular teacher to formulate and express more clearly his/her goals for a given lesson or classroom procedure.
The itinerant teacher may know the needs of the vi child better but he/she is not a specialist in any particular subject and is not expected to be so. Instead, his/her role is to assess both the child's and the regular teacher's needs and to take appropriate measures, which may include organising additional training for the regular teacher. The itinerant teacher may also make a valuable contribution to the production of textbooks.
In summary, the itinerant teacher has the following role in the additional training of the regular classroom teacher:
The various responsibilities of the itinerant teachers require them to possess certain unique skills and characteristics. They will work in various types of settings and will combine field work with armchair or office type work. Because of that they need to have organisation/management/logistic skills in order to secure trouble free management of their workload.
They are required to have sound theoretical knowledge of their speciality and to be able to apply it practically in a variety of contexts. Whenever they discover an issue requiring attention or whenever such issue is reported by the regular teacher, they need to be able to refer the child/teacher to the best suited solution provider, therefore their knowledge of the field must also include the knowledge of all the resources available (human, technical, etc.). Such knowledge must be constantly updated.
Itinerant teachers must have certain interpersonal skills; given the reported risk of friction between regular and itinerant teacher, the latter needs to be able to establish an equal terms working platform where neither party is dominated by the other. Because the itinerant teacher works mostly with people, it is important for them to have counselling skills.
Finally, the itinerant teacher must understand that he/she alone cannot be a specialist in everything and be prepared to work in a team.
In the discussion of the implication of the previous days' output the participants refined their findings and enriched them with new reflections. The standards/competencies of the itinerant teachers were reinforced to include the following:
One implication of the growing number of Multiply Disabled Visually Impaired children is that the traditional emphasis on visual impairment will have to change, shifting much more towards MDVI children. It is interesting to reflect that while in the past specialisation of itinerant teachers and other service providers was getting ever narrower, now that they increasingly deal with MDVI children, their knowledge must be ever more comprehensive.