1.4 Inclusive Education

Inclusive Education is well-known as the most effective way to give all children a fair chance or opportunity at attending school to learn and advance the knowledge and skills they need to succeed, regardless of any challenges they may have like physical disabilities and so forth (UNICEF, n.d.). It means diversity of children in the same classrooms, in the same schools, learning and having the same opportunity and access to education resources, activities, and events equally and unconditionally. Education around the world has seen the importance of inclusive education and become one of their teachers’ competencies that should be implemented. For example, teachers of Kiribati were aimed at and trained for inclusion in education as one of their competencies as children with disabilities join and study in school academically.

In the Kiribati National Teachers’ Service Standards Framework, Inclusive Education is classified as the fourth competency under the first standard known as ‘teaching and learning methods’ – teachers should have the ability to promote inclusion in education and how to advance student knowledge and skills through their plans, teaching and learning process, teaching strategies, and implementing the syllabus. To emphasize this, I will discuss one of my teaching practicums that will portray strengths and weaknesses while focusing on three indicators of this competency, inclusive education. These three are engaging both boys and girls equally in all activities, developing inclusion strategies to address the learning challenges of all students, especially those from marginalized groups, and ‘employing tactics that support learners whose first language is different from the language of instruction.

 To start with, let’s see how I implement the first indicator of this competency, engaging both boys and girls equally in all activities. Throughout the lesson, the first thing I tried to do to implement this indicator is to group them doing the group activity at the most possible ratio of both genders as a group. In this way, each group of students has both genders to work as a group. Also, activities in this lesson are suitable for both genders to engage and immerse themselves in and also provide the same opportunity for them to make an effort toward learning. It is important and beneficial to students to give them the chance to be part of the activity, as they will also be able to develop crucial social skills amongst each other.

Moreover, students can sometimes make some unexpected behaviors in the learning environment, thus it could lead to hardship in teaching for teachers. But, as long as inclusion becomes one of the essential inputs in education, teachers were supposed to make a great effort toward aggressiveness, low self-esteem, and many more. By doing this, inclusive education was involved and promoted in the learning environment. Recently, I have tried many times to avoid and stop this kind of misbehaving in the classroom, but unfortunately, the learning always gets messed up and chaotic. Sometimes I avoid and ignore hyperactive students to make the teaching load lighter, but it also does not work at all. Therefore, to achieve the intended learning outcomes, I applied some inclusion strategies like jigsaw grouping, games and hands-on activities, and also some supplementary materials for extra practices (refer to appendices). As a result, all students including the aggressive ones were engaging and enjoyed the learning process, and also the learning had been utilized well by students.

Furthermore, I found that most students have some behaviors that prevent them from speaking the language of instruction. This issue is common in most schools in Kiribati and that prevents most local students from success. So, this issue must be solved right away for students to succeed in their studies. In one of my observations recently, I did manage to find some tactics that also assist in catering to students’ needs. These are using a variety of reactions (gestures) like facial reactions, game activities, and effective and attractive resources (refer to observation 2). This really helps students in their academic progression and can promote high self-esteem. Therefore, in the lesson that I delivered recently, I tried some of these techniques to make this lesson more welcoming as well as inclusive to all students in the learning environment (refer to appendices).

To conclude, inclusive education is one of teachers’ competencies that provides the best opportunity for a child with unique needs and the ability to attend and access to all properties of education. It also allows students with disabilities to attend regular studies in schools. However, this competency can be achieved by implementing some indicators that help teachers to promote inclusion in education. In addition, it has some essential outcomes for students that can boost them academically and physically through their talents, even if they have some challenging personalities. Thus, this could avoid and prevent odd behaviors from teachers like bias and many more that could bring segregation to students while learning.

References

UNICEF. (n.d.). Inclusive Education. www.unicef.org. Retrieved from: https://www.unicef.org/education/inclusive-education.

Inclusion BC. (2018). What is Inclusive Education? - Inclusive Education - Inclusion BC. Retrieved from: https://inclusionbc.org/our-resources/what-is-inclusive-education/

Future Learn. (2021). What is inclusive education, and how can you implement it? - Future Learn. Retrieved from: https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/what-is-inclusive-education.