Disability and education

Thinking about our visits to Domino Preschool, our Assistive Technology Workshops, our various school visits, and what we've been discussing in our academic classes, what did you discover about how disability affects students' capacity to be successful in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students with a variety of special needs to be successful in school?

As with socio-economic status, it depends on the school and, also, on the disability of the children.

I’ve discovered in that visits that if the children have people to help them, assistive technology… then they are more likely to be in a mainstream classroom, following the lessons without any problem. I haven’t heard about assistive technology until I have been here, and it’s something that I find very interesting. Only by giving them a small object, a small improve… they can be much more independent than before, letting them live a better life. Also, I’ve realized about the importance of the social health care to pay this objects (especially in the case of high tech objects) because they are really expensive. Anyway, now I now that a small thing can make a difference. Also, I’ve found interesting the idea of one of the woman in the assistive technology project, as she said that every of us have different disabilities, but some of them interfere in our normal lives.

In Spain there are also different ways of seeing disabilities, but in general children with disabilities are in mainstream classrooms, only some of them are in special classrooms if the disability makes them unable to follow and adapted curriculum in a mainstream class. I think is something necessary for this children, because they can learn in a normalized environment, and their classmates can grow up in a opened and different environment, which will let them see the disabilities of their classmates as something that make them special but not worse,   and it’s very easy for children to follow a classroom, but the problem is that teachers have to be more prepared for that. I think that all the future teachers should learn how to deal and help students with disabilities, being able to prepare for them assistive technology and also knowing how their disabilities can be counteract with other abilities that they will have.              

I think that we, as teachers, have a big part in the process of including children with disabilities, especially in nursery school and preschool, as children have us as a model. The way we will talk with children with disabilities and also what we think about them will make de difference. Even if we don’t realize what we are doing, we will take more care and listen more children that we think can learn better or we think they are more interested. So we have to know that children with disabilities learn differently of other students, but they learn. 

Socio-economic status and education

What did you discover about how socio-economic status and poverty affects students' ability to be successful in school? In what ways is this similar to your home country? In what ways is this different than in your home country? As an educator, how do you understand your role in assisting students from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds to be successful in school?

Here, I've learnt that it depends very much on the support that school gives to children from low socio-economic backgrounds. For example, in Holmes Elementary school children are helped in all the ways that they can be helped, they have support not only in content, but also in social problems that they might have. However, in other schools they might not have that support, so they would find more difficulties that, sadly, will probably affect their school life.

I think in Spain is pretty much the same, but it depends not only in the school itself (community) but also in the type of school it is. In Spain we have public schools, payed by the government, private schools, payed by a private business and then mixed schools, runned by private iniciatives and also the State. So, in the public school money is more limitated. They try to help children with special programs, bringing them food, with more staff and attention....but they can't be compared with the private schools, where they have much money and also a reputation (it means that they will not accept a poor student, they will try to help them in a selfish way so people can see that they are doing a great job). The problem is that is difficult to poor families to afford private schools, although there are some important scholarships that let them enter in a complete new world for them. The mixed schools (we call them concertados) are free and receive also money from the state, so in some of them are doing a great job helping students from lower socio-economic status.

I think it's also very important the fact that us, teachers, have to be prepared to deal with this reality in our countries. This has to be reflected in our training for being teachers, so it’s something to adapt in our university system.

For me, the most important part is trying to involve the family. If you got them, then you also got the children and, of course, the sooner the better. The families have to feel that the school is the way of the success of their children, understanding the school as a secure place to learn, share, live… We have also to be very involved, really caring about the children and the family and not only about being recognized for what you are supposed to do as a teacher. As we have talked, having high expectations for the children can make them believe in themselves and then succeed, giving them a book can make them realize the importance of reading, listening to them might give them the opportunity to learn that everybody can participate and has the right to be listened. Giving them that opportunity they will be able to participate in the society in terms on equality when we compared them with students from high socio-economic status.