The day I slammed the door on an old man..

The Center was located in an affluent commercial area with numerous offices and businesses. It was located on the second floor, so we did not get visitors who would walk in out of nowhere. But there was this old man who occasionally walked up the flights of stairs to the Center with his two assistants. During Chinese New Year, he handed out angpows. Sometimes, he gave out cheap toys to the kids. And every time, he drilled me as to why a university graduate would want to spend her time teaching children with disabilities. A harmless and curious visitor who wanted to do good deeds, I thought.

Then one day, this old man came on his own to the Center. This time, his assistants did not come with him. He was standing between the door and the table where I was having one-on-one with my student. As usual, he started questioning me about my reasons for pursuing this line of work. I was slightly annoyed that he kept wanting to talk about that issue. All I wanted was for him to leave the room so that I could start my session with my student. The conversation went something like this:

Old Man (OM): But you are a university graduate, I’m sure there are better jobs out there.

Me: This is what I want to do. Besides I’m also pursuing further study in special education.

OM: But they (the kids) are “cacat” (handicapped). What’s the point of spending your time here with them? Go find something better to do.

Me: But they can still learn. And I want to do this.

OM: They are useless to society. They have no value.

Me: That’s not true! They are valuable. Their parents love them. God loves them.

OM: Better send them to hell!

Me: You have to leave now. I have to teach my students (Closed the door on the old man).

Few days later, my boss, the director of the Center who was also a parent of one of my students, came to talk to me. The old man told her that I “slammed” the door on him. He explained to her that he was questioning me about my single status and I got upset by that so I threw him out of the room. My boss thought that that behavior was totally out of character for me. I told her what the old man said, and her eyes popped open with disbelief. Anyway, she said she would talk to the old man.

I was really upset that day but as I thought over the situation, I realized he was not just an ignorant old man. This old man took his time and energy to slowly walk up those many steps to come into the Center to curse my students. I’m glad I slammed the door him. Ever since that time, the old man never came visiting.

Self-determination in a nutshell

Self-determination has been defined as “acting as the primary causal agent in one’s life and making choices and decisions regarding one’s quality of life, free from undue external influence or interference” (Wehmeyer, 1992).

Many individuals with severe disabilities have little say in basic life events. They don’t get to choose where and who they stay with or what and where they eat. A majority of them are unemployed and poor. They seldom participate in leisure activities. They have few or no friends. They are not part of any social networks. A life of no choices, no friends, no financial stability, no job satisfaction, no fun, and no quality of life. If you think about it, this is one very sad life to live.

And that’s where self-determination comes in. Self-determination is a contemporary best practice in instruction of individuals with severe disabilities because it emphasizes teaching these individuals skills to be self-determined. It involves teaching choice-making, decision-making, and problem-solving skills. It involves supporting the individuals to be as independent as they can be. It involves providing supports so that they can initiate and complete a task without relying on others to do it for them. It doesn’t mean having them do everything on their own, it just means providing them the skills and supports to experience a satisfactory life.

I guess an analogy would be a baby who is learning to walk. A wise parent would hold out a hand and provide just enough support so that the baby can do baby-steps across the room to where s/he wants to go. An unwise parent would carry the baby everywhere and baby does not learn to walk and does not get to go where s/he wants to go. An uncaring parent would leave the baby on the floor. An individual with severe disabilities is like a baby who will never walk on their own.

So like everything else in this world, self-determination does not take place independent of the community. Unfortunately, it is easy to ignore those who are weak.

Inclusion in a nutshell

Inclusion is a term used to describe the ideology that each child, to the maximum extent appropriate, should be educated in the school and classroom he or she would otherwise attend. It involves bringing support services to the child (rather than moving the child to the services) and requires only that the child will benefit from being in the class (rather than having to keep up with the other students)(Council of Exceptional Children)

Inclusion is actually not a contemporary practice. For years and years, advocates for children with disabilities have been pushing for inclusion. Although the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not specifically say inclusion, it says that children with disabilities should be educated in the least restrictive environment (LRE). For some kids, LRE would mean the general education classroom with normal kids. And for other kids, LRE might mean spending their school day in a combination of general education and special education classrooms. And for some other kids, LRE might mean the whole day in special education classrooms.

That sounds fine and dandy. Unfortunately, even in the “progressive” USA, more and more kids are not being included in general education classrooms. Many kids with disabilities spend their whole day in special education classroom with no social contact with normal kids. I’ve observed emotional support classroom for children with behavior problems, and these kids even spend their lunch-time and recess away from normal kids. This has come to a point where a group of parents in Pennsylvania has filed a class action lawsuit against the Dept of Education for violating the rights of children with disabilities to LRE. So, although inclusion is not new, it has not become a reality for many children with disabilities.

Inclusion is also an idealism that I’ll have to leave behind when I return to Malaysia.

The grass is not always greener

I remember the days I was back in Malaysia and I would read about special education in the United States. I looked through the very thick Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) documents. I read numerous books about the intensive Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) programs for children with autism. I read about the extensive funding and services individuals with disabilities receive. It almost seemed like the United States is a nirwana for individuals with disabilities.

But now that I’m in the United States and I’ve observed in special education classrooms, both at the elementary and high school levels, and I’ve seen programs for adults with disabilities, I realized the grass is not always greener. While there exist strong special education and disabilities laws that require certain things to be done, there also exist a higher moral law where accountability is a big issue.

I’ve seen children with emotional behavioral disorders in a room filled with adult helpers and yet not much teaching and learning takes place. I’ve seen high school special education classrooms where the students listened to their iPods while the teacher was leading a discussion on “current events”. And a current event could be last night’s wrestling match on TV.

Maybe I’m only seeing some of the worst case scenarios. But it does make me reflect on some of my former students in Malaysia, I wonder if they would do any better if they were in the same classrooms that I’ve observed here. Although back home, teachers without the special ed degrees struggled to teach the special kids, at least they were trying. When I see a special ed classroom that’s not functioning well here, it is very disturbing to me.

I wonder if the effects of
Law - Human Element = Human Element - Law?

“Belimbing, tembikai, betik”: What do I teach next?

In my first job as a special education teacher at the House, they already have an established program, so I only had to do what I am told. When I moved on to the Society, I was working at the vocational center and there was not much teaching going on. Most of the time, the students were packing drinking straws, and I had to make sure that the products were of acceptable quality and that the students were being watched over. Then I started my first real job as a special education teacher at the Center, and that was where my troubles began.

The Center was started because some parents were not satisfied with the education their children with Down syndrome were receiving at the special education classrooms in national schools. The purpose of the Center was to enhance/supplement the education of the students. The Center was functioning more as a tuition center rather than a full-fledged school. The students were coming in for three hours, twice or three times a week. The students were of varying elementary ages and functioning levels.

When I started as the head teacher at the Center, I was in charge of everything-from teaching, acquiring teaching resources (making, modifying, searching and buying), and even collecting school fees from the parents. However, my biggest problem was that I did not know what to teach. There was not a curriculum in place that I could follow. Although the Center had a copy of an early intervention program, most of my students had already outgrown that. The center had an individual education plan (IEP) for each student, unfortunately the IEPs were the cut-and–paste sort, with no appropriate goals or behavioral objectives that I could work towards.

So the program that I developed and stuck with was that each month, the assistant teacher taught a theme (e.g. fruits, vegetables, types of emergency services, types of automobiles, etc) and one/several concepts (e.g., up-down, left-right, front-back, etc). There was a new theme and a new concept each month. The assistant teacher also taught some basic mathematics. While I worked one-on-one with the students: teaching reading in Bahasa Melayu or the alphabets (depending on the student), and also working on cognitive and fine motor skills. Both of us worked on gross motor skills together.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), some of students progressed faster and us, teachers, were not able to keep up with them. Some of the students learned the theme and concepts in one week, while others did not manage to grasp the lessons even at the end of the month. Before the end of each month, I had to come up with a new theme and concepts for the next month, make the teaching materials and work on homework sheets. After close to a year, I ran out of themes and concepts because we have gone through most of the common things around us. At one time, I wanted to modify the national curriculum for my class but when I looked at the different textbooks, it was overwhelming, and I did not know where to start.

Now that I know more, what would I have done differently?

a) I now realized the importance of a curriculum to tie everything together. I would insist that the administrator and the consultant provide a good curriculum. Even if it means to modify the national curriculum, time and resources should be allocated for the teachers to work on modifying the curriculum.
b) The consultant, teachers, and respective parents should come together and write up a workable IEP for each student. The IEP does not have to be an extensive document, but just several appropriate and realistic goals for the student. (A topic for a another day)
c) Instead of working one-on-one for reading, I would separate the students into two groups. The advance group would work on reading in Bahasa Melayu, while the basic group would work on the alphabets. (A topic for another day)
d) Instead of whole group instruction for mathematics, I would separate the students into two groups. The advance group would work on addition and subtraction, while the basic group would work on basic number skills.
e) I would also like to include a stronger element of lifeskills and social skills in the curriculum.