Oona Tikkaoja // January 2004
1. Diverse Learners According to Law
2. The Concept of Inclusion
3. My Concept of Individuality
4. Sources
There are not very much text about special education in the act and law of vocational education. A student can be taken in special education because of a handicap, illness, delayed development, personal disorder or some other cause (Laki ammatillisesta koulutuksesta 20 §). A student with special needs has a right to get all the expert services s/he needs and it’s possible for her/him to get books and other study equipment for free (Laki ammatillisesta koulutuksesta 38§).
Every student with special needs will have a Personal Plan for Organizing
Teaching, which has to include
1) the degree s/he is studying, along which curriculum basis the studies are
organized and the student’s personal learning plan
2) what is the reason for taking the student to special education (-> 20§)
3) what special services the student will get (-> 38§)
4) what other supporting services the student will get
It is important, that the teaching is adapted so that a student will achieve as much as possible the same competence than s/he would in the mainstream education (Asetus ammatillisesta koulutuksesta 8§)
In basic education the principles are quite same kind than in vocational education. If a student has minor problems, s/he has a right to get special education on the side of normal class teaching. A student can be also moved wholly in the special education, which can be arranged in connection with the “normal” education or in separated groups (Perusopetuslaki 17§). The laws don’t discuss very much about inclusion, which I am interested in. In the next chapter I briefly define the concept and after that I reflect my own teaching a little.
Inclusion briefly means that every student has an equal right to study and act in our common society. The aim is to avoid inequality and improve the learning of all students, not only add a minority of invalids or learning-problem-students in the average group (Väyrynen 2001, 15-16). I think this is very interesting approach because we are not trying to artificially put the “others” in the major group but to think everybody is an individual with her/his varying personal needs.
Education is a very important part of a human life nowadays. It gives opportunities and forms a person’s future. Because this it is really unequal to deny proper education from some minorities, who are maybe just classified as a low-performing group by the majority but who could have many valuable skills if they were allowed to develop them although they may have problems in some other areas. (Mänty 2000, 71-73.) We have to change our system so that everybody can act in it (Hautamäki, Lahtinen, Moberg, Tuunainen 2001, 185). I found a good example about this in a book called The Daughters of Egalia, which discusses about a matriarchal society. One man in this world wants to be a diver but the common faith thinks it can’t be possible, because the men were supposed to use special underwear and everybody thought it would not be possible to build a diver’s suit for that underwear (But it succeeded, after all). So we think some kind of people can’t manage in our society but do we really consider how could we help them to succeed?? I think inclusion is a very good idea but the implementation can sometimes be hard for teachers. But of course we can’t nowadays either say “my class has to contain only calm and clever students” because every group contains always certain level of individuality. The question is, what is considered to be too different in our society – and that is a question we can affect because it is mainly a mindset.
As an artist and art teacher I don’t have difficulties to treat students as individuals. In art and media courses giving help and advice is very individual in nature because all problems are unique. Students also work at their own pace, so the aspect of time is very flexible too. I have still highlight I have never taught for example a handicapped student so my experiences concern only the differences in learning strategies and skills, motivation and personal variety.
I believe everybody has personal interests and abilities and my job is to help finding and strengthening them. I also see human as multidimensional being – all the different aspects of humanity affect for example cognitive processes. Personal learning experience is very important because you learn things, which are alive to you. Because that the other important thing is to bind the content to reality so that it doesn’t just leave on the level of loose facts. So I take the students as responsible entities who have a will to learn and who have interest at least towards some things in the world.
The faith in interest can be seen in my teaching so that I always stress the importance of enthusiasm – I hope the students choose for example assignment topics according to their hobbies etc. Of course I also try to plan the tasks so that it is easy for the students to use their own interest areas. This is quite easy to implement in art and media courses. Stressing the learners’ own interests has a motivational ground but as well it binds the student more tightly to learning. A learner is in a “dangerous” situation when learning new things: s/he can be afraid of embarrassment, the shame of “not-learning” etc. (especially teenagers), but using their own expertise as a part of learning can calm them down. I believe also that a student learns more affectively when also her/his feelings are took account in the learning occasion. We also have more possibilities to spontaneous discussion, when there are some aspects in which the students are experts.
Väyrynen, Sai (2001) miten opitaan elämään yhdessä? –inkluusion monet kasvot teoksessa Inkluusion haaste koululle –oikeus yhdessä oppimiseen. Murto, Pertti, Naukkarinen, Aimo & Saloviita, Timo (eds.) Jyväskylä: PS-kustannus
Hautamäki, Jarkko & Lahtinen, Ulla & Moberg, Sakari & Tuunainen, Kari (2001) Erityispedagogiikan perusteet. Helsinki: WSOY
Mänty, Tarja (2000) Koulutus integraation tukena teoksessa Erityispedagogiikka ja aikuiskoulutus. Ladonlahti, Tarja & Pirttimaa, Raija (eds.) Helsinki: Palmenia-kustannus
www.finlex.fi:
Asetus ammatillisesta koulutuksesta 6.11.1998/811
Laki ammatillisesta koulutuksesta 21.8.1998/630
Perusopetuslaki 21.8.1998/628