Special Ed Schools, Assessing, Evaluating and Teaching Special Children
Education is one of the most significant inheritance that a person can receive from his or her parents. It is a universal fact that such is also the responsibility of parents to provide their children with the appropriate education because this would help them once they enter the real world and beyond the comfort of the home. Around the world, the youth are considered the futures of each society and letting them have a nurturing and progressive education is relevant because they would eventually contribute towards the success of each society. As such, society is dependent with culture that is defined by Olivier Serrat as:
"The totality of a society's distinctive ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge and that which exhibits the ways humans interpret their environments" (1).
With this in mind, a society with a single culture would have a united ideas, beliefs, values, knowledge and environmental view in as far as the definition of Serrat is concerned. However, what about societies dealing with special children coming from different cultures? Will diversity among these cultures create a dilemma for special education institutions in assessing and evaluating their performance? How can culture affect the way these students are learning?
According to Dr.Terry Bergeson, B.J. Wise, Douglas H. Gill, and Anne Shureen in their manual entitled "Evaluation and Assessment in Early Childhood Special Education: Children Who Are Culturally and Linguistically Diverse," they have pointed out that:
"Assessment is a general reference to the process of gathering information about children that includes many different purposes and instruments, such as screening, program development, and monitoring progress... whereas evaluation refers to a variety of procedures used to determine whether or not a student is eligible for special education and related services" (3).
For a culturally diverse special education, this would be a more challenging responsibility for teachers because the needs of each person are unique in as far as their own individual uniqueness is concerned. In this light, special education schools must acquire the most effective tools needed in assessing specific needs of special children as well as programs that can help them evaluate progress of these students.
Since adolescents with special needs coming from different cultures require various approach so that teachers can successfully assess and evaluate them, each assessment tool and evaluation program should be tailored fit in terms of language used and manner of speaking. It would also be appropriate for teachers to use specific actions utilized from each country or community that deals with their own special students. Benchmarking would be a significant approach on this strategy because teachers would be able to compare and duplicate best practices coming from various special education schools around the world.
Because diversity among cultures can create a dilemma for special education institutions in assessing and evaluating performance of these individuals, it would also be appropriate if the faculty of special education schools would have varied ethnicity as well. This is to assure parents that the school would have a varied view in terms of the ideals, beliefs, practices, customs, and knowledge of their culture. This would primarily concern those parents and their children who just came from another culture recently and are still adjusting in terms of integrating their lifestyle with the present culture that they are interacting with. Unless parents and special students with different ethnicity have already stayed in a particular society for long and would have already adapted to its customs and norms, then such would not be a problem. However, certain approaches in terms of assessment and evaluation must still be considered in terms of how they view themselves as different compared to other students and the upbringing that they get at home. Because culture eventually affects the way students learn, and this is also the same with ordinary schools, special education schools must always consider that culture is something that is learned and respected. Teachers, among others, should and foremost recognize this fact in order to be successful mentors for children with special needs. With this in mind, teachers must always have a properly prepared lesson plan and the relevant background of understanding the difference of culture within the classroom. In this way, teachers would become successful in terms of establishing the necessary rapport to be able to convey proper learning through the assessments that he or she has made and the evaluation on what approach is needed for a person with special needs to learn.
"The totality of a society's distinctive ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge and that which exhibits the ways humans interpret their environments" (1).
With this in mind, a society with a single culture would have a united ideas, beliefs, values, knowledge and environmental view in as far as the definition of Serrat is concerned. However, what about societies dealing with special children coming from different cultures? Will diversity among these cultures create a dilemma for special education institutions in assessing and evaluating their performance? How can culture affect the way these students are learning?
According to Dr.Terry Bergeson, B.J. Wise, Douglas H. Gill, and Anne Shureen in their manual entitled "Evaluation and Assessment in Early Childhood Special Education: Children Who Are Culturally and Linguistically Diverse," they have pointed out that:
"Assessment is a general reference to the process of gathering information about children that includes many different purposes and instruments, such as screening, program development, and monitoring progress... whereas evaluation refers to a variety of procedures used to determine whether or not a student is eligible for special education and related services" (3).
For a culturally diverse special education, this would be a more challenging responsibility for teachers because the needs of each person are unique in as far as their own individual uniqueness is concerned. In this light, special education schools must acquire the most effective tools needed in assessing specific needs of special children as well as programs that can help them evaluate progress of these students.
Since adolescents with special needs coming from different cultures require various approach so that teachers can successfully assess and evaluate them, each assessment tool and evaluation program should be tailored fit in terms of language used and manner of speaking. It would also be appropriate for teachers to use specific actions utilized from each country or community that deals with their own special students. Benchmarking would be a significant approach on this strategy because teachers would be able to compare and duplicate best practices coming from various special education schools around the world.
Because diversity among cultures can create a dilemma for special education institutions in assessing and evaluating performance of these individuals, it would also be appropriate if the faculty of special education schools would have varied ethnicity as well. This is to assure parents that the school would have a varied view in terms of the ideals, beliefs, practices, customs, and knowledge of their culture. This would primarily concern those parents and their children who just came from another culture recently and are still adjusting in terms of integrating their lifestyle with the present culture that they are interacting with. Unless parents and special students with different ethnicity have already stayed in a particular society for long and would have already adapted to its customs and norms, then such would not be a problem. However, certain approaches in terms of assessment and evaluation must still be considered in terms of how they view themselves as different compared to other students and the upbringing that they get at home. Because culture eventually affects the way students learn, and this is also the same with ordinary schools, special education schools must always consider that culture is something that is learned and respected. Teachers, among others, should and foremost recognize this fact in order to be successful mentors for children with special needs. With this in mind, teachers must always have a properly prepared lesson plan and the relevant background of understanding the difference of culture within the classroom. In this way, teachers would become successful in terms of establishing the necessary rapport to be able to convey proper learning through the assessments that he or she has made and the evaluation on what approach is needed for a person with special needs to learn.
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