DEVELOPING POSITIVE ATTITUDE AMONG STUDENTS, PARENTS AND COMMUNITY TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
The real challenge of Inclusive Education is to meet the special needs of all children with and without disabilities. Inclusion is not a soft process. It requires lot of struggle and commitment to overcome all types of barriers mainly attitudinal and social. Inclusive Education can only flourish in a system, which generates inclusive ideology. So people must change their negative attitudes towards inclusive education.
Indeed, practical problems could be encountered while including children with diverse educational needs. But often, the practical difficulties have more to do with attitudinal change. Develop positive attitude among students towards inclusive education
Teacher plays a significant role to bring positive attitude among students towards inclusive education. If teacher follow below approaches in teaching he definitely bring positive attitudes to students towards inclusive education.
Child to child approach : Child to child approach strategy Develops positive attitude among students towards inclusive education. In this strategy, one student who has problem in learning a concept on a one-to-one basis, a competent student is paired with one who has difficulty in a given academic area. Cooperative learning: Cooperative learning is a method to develop positive attitude towards inclusive education in students. The primary elements involved in this technique are: positive interdependence, or the feeling that individual goal attainment relies on the performance of all group members, student’s own responsibility, face-to-face interaction with peers, use of social skills and involvement of a group as a whole in the completion of a given academic task. Children supporting children: Children need to be actively involved in the transition to a caring inclusive school as they are key stakeholders. Often children do not treat their disabled peers with respect because they are uncomfortable with, or unsure about, the difficulty. To ensure that students learn to work and play together, they must be given the knowledge they need. Inclusive class rooms require structure and organization to facilitate students learning together. The way forward with students is as follows: 1] Students need to be prepared to welcome the new child, 2] Children enhance their learning by working together as the best way to learn is to teach it to someone else, 3] Students need to have understanding and knowledge to able to work together, 4] Students need social opportunities to interact with peers in addition to their academic studies, 5] It is helpful for children to recognize their own learning strengths, all children learn differently. Developing positive attitude among parents towards inclusive education
For an ideal inclusion programme there must be strong parent teacher association group insisting on the importance of parental involvement. This would enable to bring attitudinal changes on disability related issues in parents.
It is critical that parents are made aware of the goals of inclusive education. Difficulty child parents are protective, apprehensive that their child will be teased, left out, and not receive quality education in an inclusive setting . In the same way normal child parents doesn’t want to sit their child with difficulty child in inclusive class room. It is school’s responsibility to provide information and reassurance to the parents. Schools benefit from involved parents who care about their child’s education. To bring positive attitude among parents towards inclusive education schools can explain following things to parents. 1] Their child being educated in inclusive school can improve the child’s social abilities and academic achievements, 2] Research indicates that if the family participate in the education of the child, the child does better in school, 3] Parents needs to prepare the child entering an inclusive school, as the fear of unknown is powerful, 4] Challenged children need advocates, the parents are the best advocate for the child, 5] To succeed in school children need support, and families must to communicate the need for support to the school effectively, 6] Parents and teachers need to work collaboratively to develop individual education plans for their children. |
Developing positive attitude among community towards inclusive education
Inclusion is a social and educational philosophy . Those who believe in inclusion also believe that all people are valuable members of mainstream society.
Community involvement in planning activities and providing services such as education, health, and skills training is crucial for building local capacity. The attitude that ‘inclusive education’ is develop in community in following ways. 1] Educational policies must be able to meet the challenges of pluralism and enable everyone to find their place in the community to which they primarily belong and at the same time be given the means to open up other communities. 2] International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first century reminds that education policies must be so designed as not to become another cause of social exclusion and that schools should foster the desire to live together. [UNESCO, 1990] 3] To Develop positive attitude in society, a social worker who are responsible for creating the link between school and community and have been able to successfully mobilize community forces to support inclusion 4] Work with local social and health agencies to provide services and educate students and their families about pertinent issues. 5] Keep an ‘open door’ policy in the school that invites community members and policy makers to become involved in the school and its mission. ConclusionInclusive education is a worldwide movement which is transforming the educational system. Inclusive education is real need, but primarily involves changes in attitudes, if each member of a community, normal student and his parents realised in the sense that “If a challenged child in my house what can I do?”
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