SPECIAL EDUCATION NEEDS

By

SPECIAL EDUCATION NEEDS

Introduction

Special education is an integral component of the public education system. It includes the collective means by which children and youth with disabilities are provided an appropriate public education. Though special education as a professional practice has existed over a century, only in the past 30 to 40 years has it assumed a position of prominence and relevance in our schools.

The history of service to persons with disabilities extends back to the eighteenth century. Early attempts at humane treatment were initiated by Philippe Pinel and his student Jean Itard in their work with the mentally ill. Their methods of treatment were widely known, accepted, and employed in both Europe and North America.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, the father of modern psychiatry, applied and extended the work of Pinel and Itard in the United States after the Revolutionary War. Rush developed the concept of moral therapy (based on Pinel's philosophy of “moral treatment”) and public education and support of children and youth with behaviour problems. This was the initial suggestion that individuals with disabilities were due the same educational rights and privileges as other children.

CHAPTER 1: PERSONAL

The personal

'To begin understanding, we need to start with the understanding of ourselves'. (Gerazi, 2001, p. 59). In this section I shall narrate my personal experience of learning in an environment which does not encourage inclusion. I have decided to begin this writing with a tale of my own learning, I consider that in doing this the reader will be able to understand the stages of my personal development better, and more importantly because, 'academic thinking, researching, and writing should move freely between the personal, the theoretical, and the political/ institution dimension of experience' (Middleton, 1995, p.91 cited in Gerazi, 2001, p.59).

I shall also narrate briefly my recent experience at the very initial stage of this research which eventually necessitated my choice of review of literature as a method of writing this piece of work. I shall conclude the section with the purpose of this research.

This is my story

My experiences in a culture where children with SEN are never brought to schools, on one hand and my decision later in life to become a teacher and enrol for a course in SEN, on the other hand made me skeptical and critical concerning the way I was taught as a child and how I chose to learn what was being taught. A critical look at my teachers discouraging attitudes towards my behaviour and learning further made me to be more determined on the kind of teaching and supports I would like to be able to provide for my own students in other to develop and encourage their preferred way of learning.

Arrangement of desks in rows with the teacher's table facing us was a characteristic of our classroom, these desks were arranged in a way that there could be possibly no much movement among us, I can imagine how our teacher must have found it difficult to walk in between the rows and I must ...