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“The thing that hurt me most was that other parents asked the headmaster to kick my son out of school just because he would sometimes mutter under his breath in class,” says the mother of ten-year-old Adam with autism.
– If a disabled child appears in a mainstream school, very often the management and teachers do their best to get rid of it. Worse still, parents do not want their children to learn with the disabled either. As a consequence, such a student is condemned to exclusion, and his peers do not learn to accept the difference – parents of the disabled complain. – Today only the best get to a good junior high school, so my child who is able should learn with the best. Meanwhile, a disabled child in the class disorganizes lessons and delays the introduction of new material – explains Kasia’s mother, who signed the petition to the headmaster of the school where Adam is studying.
Integrative teaching
Several decades ago, disabled children were excluded from the general education system. The so-called special education separating the mentally handicapped, deaf, blind, socially maladjusted from their peers. As a consequence, the disabled people educated in this way turned out to be completely unfit to function in society, and their healthy peers grew up not being aware of the existence of disabled people. Scientific research has confirmed that the education of disabled children in normal schools brings better results. It gives them the possibility of a more complete intellectual, personal and especially social development. Common learning also serves all children by accustoming them to otherness, teaching them acceptance, tolerance and solidarity. Such education also forces the school to improve and make teaching programs and methods more flexible.
Childhood autism
The mother of Krzysiek, suffering from autism, had to go to great lengths to get her son to go to school. Autistic children quite often do not make contact with other people, although they are mentally efficient. However, they have difficulty submitting to social rules. Many of them do not follow commands. If a child finds himself in a new situation, he or she may run away, get a tantrum, and repeat certain phrases. Sometimes he protests by e.g. lying down or some other form of resistance, including hitting the other person. Thanks to various forms of therapy, these patients can be adapted to life. Krzyś went to kindergarten and learned everything that a first-year toddler should be able to do. – I tried to enroll him in an integrated school, adapted to educating children with various problems. Unfortunately, there were no seats. When I told the school principal in a normal primary school that my son had autism, I immediately heard that Krzyś did not qualify for this school and should go to the integration school. Despite the lack of places, the director arranged for Krzys to be admitted to such a facility – says Krzys’ mother.
Education of the disabled in Poland
– Unfortunately, this is the case most often – says Paweł Kubicki from the association “Na-polite children”, coordinator of the project “Everything is clear – accessibility and quality of education for disabled students”. – The headmaster of a typical elementary school starts trying to “push” the child to an integrated, special or individual school – he explains. He adds that it should be completely different. When a parent informs the school head that his child has a disability, it would be good if the institution tried to prepare for it, e.g. by sending the tutor to the course, organizing a short meeting for teachers, or group workshops for students of such a class and for parents. Meanwhile, the baby is sent back. – What is worse, the directors of integration institutions often conduct special “castings”, during which they select children potentially least “problematic” – he adds. According to him, the justification for such an attitude is that the school bears full responsibility for the education of a disabled student, and does not receive adequate support for this purpose.
Individual tuition
Adam is 10 years old and also has autism. However, he attends normal school. Sometimes his behavior differs from that of the rest of the children. The parents of his friends and classmates petitioned the headmaster of the school that Adam would be transferred to another facility because he was preventing their children from educating. The boy had already changed schools three times and the management of the latter offered individual tuition. The problem is that he is entitled to 6 hours a week for such education. In addition, specialists say that it is intended for children so sick that the disease prevents them from learning in a group, and leaving the house could endanger their life and health. – The educational and psychosocial effects of individual learning are generally meager, especially when they last for many years. It is caused by too few hours, especially since a disabled child usually needs more hours than a healthy child. Such a student is doomed to loneliness, to a life without a peer group, without rivalry, without cooperation, without friendship, without enemies – so he becomes a social disabled person – says Paweł Kubicki.
The adulthood of people with disabilities
When Krzyś was about to start his first grade, his mother applied to the school for the so-called support teacher. – The commune receives a subsidy of PLN 600 for a healthy pupil, up to PLN 4 for a disabled child. zloty. monthly. This money should be given to the school, which could provide Krzys with a supporting teacher – explains Krzys’ mother. However, the school informed her that she had not received the extra money. Meanwhile, the support of such a teacher at least in the first semester of study is extremely important. He is with the child all the time and controls the process of teaching and adaptation. However, due to the budget deficit, the municipalities do not want to finance their work. Krzys’ mother pays for such a teacher herself. It costs her PLN 3500 per month. – But many parents cannot afford it. This is when problems and conflicts arise in the classroom due to the lack of adequate support from the child. Parents find out that the student is not coping and the facility is not able to provide adequate help and it is better to transfer him to another integrated or special school. The parent is no longer able to defend himself and prescribes the pupil or agrees to individual teaching. As a result of short-term savings in the education of students with disabilities, we produce massively socially excluded, burned out and frustrated mothers who often had to quit their jobs to look after their babies. We manufacture dependent and inactive disabled people in bulk. Then we spend a fortune to activate them socially and professionally, most often with mediocre results. We pay extra for their vegetation in nursing homes when their carers die. We spend billions without achieving the set goals, which is as dignified and independent life as possible for people with disabilities – sums up Kubicki.
Text: Halina Pilonis