“…. there will always be a group of pupils who – however
they are labelled – are likely to have difficulties in accessing the everyday
classroom learning experience.” (The
Making a Statement project – final report” Webster & Blatchford, Institute
of Education February 2013.)
I looked at this report in my previous posting. It is an
interesting report, worth, in my view, the time spent in reading it. But
…. And it is the “buts” that I keep
coming back to.
Take the statement above, which appears in the concluding
paragraph of an early introductory section “The policy context”. Is it just me,
or is that an odd sort of statement?
One obvious “but” is this: “But, hang on a minute, if ‘there
will always be a group of pupils’ who ‘have difficulties in accessing the
everyday classroom learning experiences” is it not possible that the ‘everyday
classroom’ is not the learning environment they should be in? That, of course,
is the basis of the argument for special schools.
Beyond the obvious, there is a bigger “but”. What strikes me
as odd is the way the statement appears to ‘blame the pupils’; the pupils, it
is said, “are likely to have difficulties”. It’s in the verb, the ‘having’ of
difficulties.
Is not the truth of the matter that if any pupils ‘face’ or
‘experience’ difficulties, it is the
teacher, the pedagogy, the curriculum, that is the ‘difficulty’?
As with the lack of training provided to teachers of
children with statements of special educational need, which the authors
acknowledge but which fails to influence the main conclusion of their research,
so here in this perspective on the responsibility for the interaction, the
‘elephant in the room’ is missed entirely: it’s the teachers, their lack of
training, their limited understanding of specific disabilities, of alternative
pedagogies and appropriate curricular arrangements, that should be concerning
us.
------------------
Footnote:
The ‘elephant in the room’ is something of a cliché. A more
recent, similar expression of the same might be the ‘dancing gorilla’. Take a
look and have a smile.
I looked at this report in my previous posting. It is an
interesting report, worth, in my view, the time spent in reading it. But
…. And it is the “buts” that I keep
coming back to.
Take the statement above, which appears in the concluding
paragraph of an early introductory section “The policy context”. Is it just me,
or is that an odd sort of statement?
One obvious “but” is this: “But, hang on a minute, if ‘there
will always be a group of pupils’ who ‘have difficulties in accessing the
everyday classroom learning experiences” is it not possible that the ‘everyday
classroom’ is not the learning environment they should be in? That, of course,
is the basis of the argument for special schools.
Beyond the obvious, there is a bigger “but”. What strikes me
as odd is the way the statement appears to ‘blame the pupils’; the pupils, it
is said, “are likely to have difficulties”. It’s in the verb, the ‘having’ of
difficulties.
Is not the truth of the matter that if any pupils ‘face’ or
‘experience’ difficulties, it is the
teacher, the pedagogy, the curriculum, that is the ‘difficulty’?
As with the lack of training provided to teachers of
children with statements of special educational need, which the authors
acknowledge but which fails to influence the main conclusion of their research,
so here in this perspective on the responsibility for the interaction, the
‘elephant in the room’ is missed entirely: it’s the teachers, their lack of
training, their limited understanding of specific disabilities, of alternative
pedagogies and appropriate curricular arrangements, that should be concerning
us.
The ‘elephant in the room’ is something of a cliché. A more
recent, similar expression of the same might be the ‘dancing gorilla’. Take a
look: http://bit.ly/12fCFxa
I looked at this report in my previous posting. It is an
interesting report, worth, in my view, the time spent in reading it. But
…. And it is the “buts” that I keep
coming back to.
Take the statement above, which appears in the concluding
paragraph of an early introductory section “The policy context”. Is it just me,
or is that an odd sort of statement?
One obvious “but” is this: “But, hang on a minute, if ‘there
will always be a group of pupils’ who ‘have difficulties in accessing the
everyday classroom learning experiences” is it not possible that the ‘everyday
classroom’ is not the learning environment they should be in? That, of course,
is the basis of the argument for special schools.
Beyond the obvious, there is a bigger “but”. What strikes me
as odd is the way the statement appears to ‘blame the pupils’; the pupils, it
is said, “are likely to have difficulties”. It’s in the verb, the ‘having’ of
difficulties.
Is not the truth of the matter that if any pupils ‘face’ or
‘experience’ difficulties, it is the
teacher, the pedagogy, the curriculum, that is the ‘difficulty’?
As with the lack of training provided to teachers of
children with statements of special educational need, which the authors
acknowledge but which fails to influence the main conclusion of their research,
so here in this perspective on the responsibility for the interaction, the
‘elephant in the room’ is missed entirely: it’s the teachers, their lack of
training, their limited understanding of specific disabilities, of alternative
pedagogies and appropriate curricular arrangements, that should be concerning
us.
The ‘elephant in the room’ is something of a cliché. A more
recent, similar expression of the same might be the ‘dancing gorilla’. Take a
look: http://bit.ly/12fCFxa