Special education is a topic that is of significance today as the number of children enrolled in special education continues to increase annually and as the law passes rigorous legislation governing services for the learners who have special needs. Despite this, people still do not understand that primary goal of special education as it currently exists within the curriculum. It is essential to acknowledge that the main purpose of special education today is not to commence the special education in the system but instead it is to expand and enhance what was already stated to meet the changing demands of both the students and the society. One of the signs that it is high time to assess the existing curriculum of special education is the idea that there is an increased prominence on the restructuring of priorities and self-examination in the last decade. Special educators no longer focus on improving the quantity of the services offered; instead, they are paying much attention to the type and quality of services that they are offering the students. The main concern with this, however, rises when trying to design programs that will cater for the mildly handicapped learners who have been enrolled in regular classes.
Researchers in the past have encountered two critical issues when assessing programs developed for the mildly handicapped students: the first aspect relates to the labeling of these students which is faced constant criticism. The second problem is the tendency to separate the students from other students in class as means to offering them special services and this has led to the problem known as mainstreaming of the students. Labeling of these students results to overgeneralization of the learners leading to the thought that all these students are the same and should hence have a similar curriculum. The other issues with labeling are that it overlooks the interactive nature of the instructions, it eliminates the burden of proof from the teachers, and it offers irrelevant information, labels may lack accuracy. Mainstreaming, on the other hand, causes an increase in the number of students referred to as special in classrooms without necessarily looking for a solution to their problems. The idea of mainstreaming is not helpful when it comes to schools that do not have a systematic planning and preparations beneficial to the students because it will generalize the concept of education which may not be helpful to these students.
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In conclusion, the paper has aimed to convince the reader to drop the need to use categorized labels on the students and to recognize the concept of implementing education as a mainstream service in the school. The expressed thoughts in the paper represent the growing concern raised by educators who have the best interest of the students at heart. Mainstreaming, however, is a possible solution but can only work through active collaboration between the classroom teachers and the educators. When these parties work together, then it will be easy to establish common goals that will enhance the quality of education for specialized students.
Opinion of the Article
Education is a critical process in an individual’s development, and it is crucial that the educators establish a curriculum that helps the students get the best out of their time in school. The selected article tackles some of the current issues affecting the efficiency of special education and offers solutions to how these problems can be addressed. According to the report, the problem today is not the extent of the existing system, but instead, the issue lies on how to expand and enhance the current curriculum. There already are well-established curriculums of teaching the ‘learning disables,’ but the educators may be lacking the adequate knowledge on how to implement the system (Ferreira, 2017). It is because of this that labeling remains one of the standard issues affecting special education. This problem can be described as the deficit perspective whereby a human behavior and qualities are shared by individuals and is distributed through a continuum (Petersen, 2015). It is a common practice that many education professionals and psychologists to describe children and youths based on their generalized characteristics or behavior, and this indeed creates a gap on defining a person by his abilities or incapability. Labeling or categorization of special students is a common problem that hinders the effectiveness of their education because it makes it difficult for the teachers to understand the origin of the problem in the first place. Therefore, it is essential to describe evident behaviors of the students when describing their problems like this the complexity that the teachers often face in classrooms. Additionally, the teaching professionals should learn how to set specific issues aimed at special students and teach these objectives as a way of helping the special student fit into the designed system. There is a high need to pay close attention to special education because though there are available services that can enhance the opportunities of the students, the teachers still lack the necessary techniques that can help the students get the best out of their education. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by setting specific and personalized objectives to the students. Generalizing the process limits the competitiveness of learning as the special needs learners will feel less favored by the existing system. Lastly, it is also essential to understand how to give directions for the assigned tasks; the teacher should observe the outcome as a guide in establishing future guidelines for these students, and this is known as mainstream learning or teaching. Mainstream learning or teaching is the process whereby the teachers and students collaborate in meeting the necessary targets that help the class get the best out teaching and such include having interactive learning whereby the teachers collaborate with the students to design their system that fit within the needs of the student. This is better than having a system that overlooks the special needs of the students.
References
Ferreira, J. (2017). What is Special in Special Education from the Inclusive Perspective?. International Journal Of Early Childhood Special Education , 63-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.20489/intjecse.330091
Petersen, A. (2015). Perspectives of Special Education Teachers on General Education Curriculum Access. Research And Practice For Persons With Severe Disabilities , 41 (1), 19-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1540796915604835
