Case Study of Inclusive Education

SD Rejoices, public elementary school In East Java province, Indonesia School region : rural; lower-socio economic area School outcomes : the number of pupils entering secondary education from this school Is 95%. Drop-out rate Is around 5% with various reasons such as move to the city with parents trying to find Jobs, early marriage, helping parents to work In the farm and move overseas to Join parents become migrant worker.

Brief description on Tommy: several schools in Mammal, East Java, have requested Inclusive education training.

This request is based upon the experience of Rejoices primary school when they have student with behavior problems at their school. As a programmer officer responsible for this area, I studied the documents and made some observations in related schools to make rationale to allocate budget for this request. According to the report by the school, Tommy has had a behavior problem since beginning of primary school.

He has problems with his interpersonal relationships and sometimes shows an aggressive behavior towards his friends. He has low academic achievement though he has passed all subjects.

In the third year in primary school, his teacher has given various interventions with minimum success resulted to solve his behavior problem. Tommy has difficulties in listening to teacher during the class, and he gets bored easily that in the end he will make some trouble that will annoy his friends. He often teases some of his friends, especially girls, and some of them even cry.

When the teacher tries to punish him, he regrets his behavior and is sad to be punished. However, the punishment seems to have no effect on him since he keep bothering his friends, either during class or outside the class.

Although it has been noticed from the beginning of his year in the school, the school has not properly responded his behavior problem. It is because the principal, Mr.. Pared, does not understand how to handle children with behavioral problems. Tommy Is famous among teachers as ‘naughty boy and all of his teachers had given up on him.

It Is only during his third year in primary school, his teacher, Ms. Way, tried to help him to have a proper manner In class so that he could learn In class. She tried to mingle him among good students to give him peer tutorial and she also tried to make personal approach with Tommy. However, without the support from school, It was difficult for the teacher alone to handle Tommy’s behavioral problem. When Tommy Is In grade 4, he Is back to his usual behavior because his 4th grade teacher could not handle him.

The situation has gotten worse after several parents had complained to the schools that Tommy had bullied their children. It was only then the school acted. Mr.. Pared had a meeting with all teachers that had taught Tommy since TLS grace until now.

He wants to nave some Teacake Trot teen on now to anneal detent with behavioral problem like Tommy. Mrs.. Way, Tommy’s third grade teachers shared her experience when he was in her class. She said that Tommy’s behavior is Just to get some attention from other people. It is because Tommy lives in an environment that is lacking of care and love by his parents.

What she did in the classroom was Just giving personal attention to Tommy and creates classroom activities that made Tommy feels belong. After hearing Mrs.. Way explanation, Mr.. Pared ask her to share her experience in the next school’s meeting to give collegial support for other teachers.

He also decided to make home visit to meet Tommy’s parents. Based on the interview with his parents, the school suspects that Tommy is a victim of abuse and neglect at home. His parents has minimum attention to Tommy’s educational need since they have to work long hours on the farm.

Sometimes between harvest times, his father will be away for several months to find a Job in the city as temporary construction worker. In the mean time, his mother is busy taking care of his youngest sister.

Tommy has a big family consisting of five children and he is the fourth child in his family. His oldest sister married when she was 16 years old and has moved to her husband’s house. His oldest brother has already moved to the city to work. His second older brother is still studying in Junior high school in his village.

Reading this report, I remember a statement by Larsson & Frisk (1999, cited in Bland et al. , 2009) that students with low socio-economic status tended to show behavioral problems.

Tommy’s aggressive behavior towards his peers, based on my conclusion could be emerged because he felt rejected by his peers and teachers by labeling him as ‘naughty. A study by Cole et al. (1990 cited in Bland et al. , 2009) confirm that rejection by peers, teachers, and unbiased observers towards elementary school student lead to aggressive and disruptive behavior. Other than that, Mr.

.

Pared found out that Tommy receives physical abuse from his parents at home. His parents are still holding an old view that corporal punishment is the most effective way in disciplining children. The school found out about this matter from the statement accidental said by his parents when asked about Tommy’s behavior at home and how they respond to it. Several punishments are given by his arenas, among them are locking him in his room for hours, hitting the face or pinching his ears, some inappropriate words also used by his parents to address him.

All of the findings from Tommy’s parents apparently have connections to Tommy’s behavior problem in school.

Nevertheless, school still felt that they need to make an assessment about Tommy’s behavioral problem because his ‘abnormal’ behavior is out of common norms according to his teachers. In the meantime, school does not have the resources to hire a psychologist to make a diagnostic about Tommy’s behavior problem. Other than the funding source limitation, it will be difficult to find a psychologist in a remote area like the village where Tommy lives.

Even though there is no psychological assessment made for Tommy, based on the teachers’ assumption Tommy could have, what they have heard, of ADD. Because of the limitations of the school, an individual assessment made for Tommy could not be done and teachers accept their assumption about Tommy’s behavioral problem as ADD.

Tommy’s third grade teacher, Mrs.. Way, was unsure about the label since she knows Tommy well. According to Mrs. Way, Tommy’s behavioral problem is only emulates goal to attract toner people’s attention slice nee never get one at none.

However, Mrs.

. Way feel that the best way for Tommy now is to be labeled ADD because with a psychological diagnosis exist, it makes people more sympathetic to him than Just having a behavioral problem. After all of this process, Mr.. Pared as the principal in this school choose not to exclude Tommy and send him to special school for children with behavioral problems. The main reason is the only special school located in this village is 8 km away from Tommy’s home.

Tommy’s parents would not afford to pay for the transportation. Mr..

Pared said that if this school does not accept Tommy, he feels very guilty to make Tommy not receiving any education at all. When I meet Mr.

. Pared, he said at first, the school was abandoning Tommy because he and most of the teachers does not know what to do and never received any training on inclusion. This is why Mr.. Pared seek for help to find out how the school can accommodate Tommy.

Mr.. Pared went to see the supervisor responsible for Rejoices Primary School. In Indonesia, the supervision of schools is using cluster approach, which each cluster can consists of five to seven schools.

Mrs.

. O’Hara, the supervisor for this cluster happens to be a national trainer for. She had the experience in assisting schools through changes and resulted in an increased academic quality of schools. However, the experienced of Mr..

Parade’s school is also new to her. She has heard about inclusive schools being implemented by few schools in the city to accommodate diverse background of learners, but she doesn’t know how inclusive education works. She went to talk to one of the staff in Education Office in Mammal district, Mr.. Jon. When Mr.

.

Jon heard about the problem that SD Rejoices aced, he remember that there are several schools in Mammal district that had the same problems, those schools even have children with different abilities that he previously think that they should belong in special schools. However, when he sees the fact that those children are benefiting by participating in mainstream schools, he changed his view and accepted the idea of inclusion. After the report made by Mrs.. O’Hara, Mr.

. Jon tries to find support from other organization for assistance. It was then, I was involved in Tommy’s case to find appropriate education for him.

Reading the report from Rejoices primary school, I know that this issue is very important. The school context may be an especially critical factor for the psychosocial development of children who are vulnerable, because of their experience of additional risk factors (Bland et al.

, 2009). We can not deny the various background of learners. The Slamming Declaration in 1994 stated that non-inclusive education system will lead to increasing number of people that will be excluded from participation in the economic, social, political and cultural life (UNESCO, 1994).

In addition, UNESCO and he UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (COSEC), identified education is the primary solution to help children coming out from poverty (Giovanni, 2009). All international documents, including Slamming Declaration in 1994 and Education for All framework in 2000 has given an affect in developing countries like Indonesia in terms of awareness. However, those international treaties have little effect on the implementation of inclusive education initiated by the government.

This Is Owe to various problems sun as Autumnal sources, lack AT capacity AT teachers Ana emitted support group in supporting inclusive education. The policy of Eunice to accommodate Slamming statement in its policy? International political will have an effect to schools in grass root level, like Tommy’s school. The Rationale for Inclusive Education The first problem emerged in implementing inclusive schooling is attitudes and believes of teachers and parents. Some of them believe that inclusive education would result in the lowering of school standards. This is the common problem emerged in applying inclusive education.

Hoodwinks & Devotional (2009) also identified this problem when they conducted a study about perspective and practice of teachers in India toward inclusion. Many teachers in India believe that children with disabilities should be taught and benefiting more in a separate system. These believe, however, could not be supported by strong evidence. Based on the study conducted in I-J, inclusion has no negative influence on academic achievement of an inclusive school (Farrell et al. , 2007). This is due too range of strategies to reach the study goal without affected by the presence of children with special needs.

Mrs.. Rain’s strategies to employ a special instruction for Tommy is an example of what Farrell et al. , explain about a sophisticated systems of flexible and individualized provision (Farrell et al. , 2007, p.

141). According to his teacher’s observation, Tommy who has behavioral problem is benefiting more in an inclusion setting than a segregated setting. He is learning to cooperate with friends during the group work, understanding the rules in the classroom, and learn to control his behavioral in the classroom. Mrs..

Rant, his fourth grade teacher, applies a concept of Joyful learning.

She makes Essen plan every month and applies cooperative learning in her classroom. Every time before she started her class, she would show the lesson plan for that day. Vaughn et al. , (2007) explain that presenting an outline to students will help students with disabilities to organize information, take notes and identify key ideas. Mrs.

. Rain always thinks about Tommy when making the lesson plan. She would make a group activity and also individual projects. She would create a different instruction for Tommy, like giving him more time to do his project and a different form of individual task so he would not get bored.

She encourages students to form a study group to help each other in their individual projects.

Through all of these activities, Mrs.. Rain sees a fast improvement in Tommy’s behavior. According to Mrs.. Rant, Tommy’s friends also receiving benefits in inclusion setting, the parents notice that their children have more tolerance for people with different abilities.

This is good for their emotion development as they exposed to diversity and respecting the diversity. OK- Nine Roles Ana Irresponsibleness AT leasers Ana Principals In creating Inclusive Classroom Having Tommy in their school has forced Mr..

Pared to make changes in the school’s policy and rules. There are several policies that will affect all regulations at Tommy’s school such as teacher’s skills required for conducting inclusive classroom, adjust necessary physical environment in the classroom and the whole school, make adjustment in the materials used for teaching learning process and provide sufficient funds to support these changes.

According to…. (.

.. ), Mr.. Pared as principal should act as leader to make changes in school to perform inclusive education. As a leader, Mr.

. Pared has to make planning and designing for necessary policy changes.

He asked for several teachers that he thinks have high commitment for inclusive education to Join him in the process of planning and designing. Several meeting were conducted to identify steps to be done in applying inclusion at their school. Mr.

. Pared, then give Job distribution for teachers for each steps needed to be done. Mr.. Pared realizes that in order to make inclusive education program at school successful, he had to involve all stakeholders related with the provision of inclusive education such as teachers, children with or without special needs, parents, and community in the process.

As Symphonies & Patina (2009) suggests that exposing beliefs, ideas and experiences to those involved in the implementation will lead to the understanding of inclusive education concept. The dialogue was held between teachers in the school, parents and key persons in the community to socialized school’s plan in creating inclusive school. Mr.. Pared asks teachers particularly to encourage students to respect inclusive values which can be embedded in their teaching learning process.

The role of parents and community in supporting inclusive schools also identified during the meeting.

Their main task is to provide resources, both financial and human resources. By working together in supporting inclusive education, meaningful social relations between stakeholders implies in producing values of inclusion respected in the whole community (Alluvial, 2010). The first program agreed in the plan is to conduct in-service training for all teachers. Mr.

. Pared coordinate with local Educational Office to discuss the funding resources for this training. However, because the scope of the training is only covering one school, the Educational Office staff is reluctant to provide funds.

There are no funds allocated for capacity building at school level in Educational Office budget. However, they suggest that the school should use funds from School Operational Funds which is a block grant provided for schools regularly to support teaching learning activities. Mr.

. Pared mentioned that he already allocated some of the funds to support the training. However, these amounts of funds are not enough. Therefore, the only additional support he could rely upon is through contribution from parents and The materials delivered in the training consist of: (1) understanding communities. F children with special needs and inclusive education.

This understanding is important to deconstruct the medical and charity model believed by most teachers in a translator Tort Inclusive coeducation (Synonymous & ); (2) colonization AT policy in ensuring inclusive education in Indonesia. This topic should linked local belief on disability and special educational needs with the future of inclusion in international level (Symphonies & Patina, 2009); (3) the role of teachers in implementing inclusive education.

According to Patina (2002, cited in Symphonies & Patina, 2009), training course of inclusion for teachers should promotes the history ND development of teachers’ personal trait in promoting social Justice; (4) practical skills in implementing IEEE ranging from preparation of lesson plan for inclusive classroom, creating instructional design that accommodate all learners, giving evaluation in learning process and creating physical classroom that is inclusive. The training is delivered for a whole week.

In the process of the training design, Mr.

. Pared tries to involve special schools teachers and also teachers from general school that already had implemented inclusive education. After receiving training, teachers n Tommy’s school are ready to start implementing inclusive education. They discuss lesson plan for the whole month in a monthly meeting with other colleagues. Collegial support..

.? To improve their skills in creating inclusive classroom, on-the-Job training for teachers is conducted during the learning and teaching process.

Teachers in training are being observed with the trainers and areas need to be improved are discussed afterwards. This training is conducted with the assistance of experienced inclusive classroom teachers and special education teachers for dealing with children with special needs psychological problems. All of the cooperation mentioned above resembles a social learning theory called ‘community of practices’ by Tontine Winger (1998).

Become agent of change for other school to implement inclusive education in their school Teacher: Be sensitive to what happens in the classroom, be creative to modify lesson plan if it’s not working On the Job training for improving the implementation of inclusive classroom Seek help from professionals such as psychologist (if they are available) or from nearest special school to evaluate the implementation of inclusive classroom in their school. Week 7 Parents Letter from Tommy Support from the teacher, especially Mrs..

Way has helped me to. Mrs..

Way Students from disadvantaged homes tend to report less successful relationships with their teachers, meanwhile these students are in particular in need of teacher support. (Bland et al. , 2009) Mrs.. Way realize The school context may be an especially critical Doctor Tort teen psychoanalysis development AT CNN learn won are vulnerable, because of their experience of additional risk factors (Bland et al.

, 2009). Creating supporting environment for those children will increase their potential to learn at school.