Opportunities and Choices for Special Needs Students
For better or worse, people feel the need to name things. It's how we find our place in the welter of people and objects that surround us. It's how we designate others' place in the world, too.
We find and label our similarities and differences according to race, religion, sex and a host of other characteristics. In the past, these labels were used to separate and discriminate. Today, faced with a multicultural mix of backgrounds, beliefs and abilities in our workplaces and classrooms, we use the same labels to help identify, understand and celebrate differences. "There's no point trying to be invisible," remarks Clarence Button of O'Donel High School in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador. "We'll label each other regardless."
But it's hardly surprising that people still feel ambivalent about dividing and designating students according to their age and ability. Surely labels do more harm than good, some teachers argue, by focussing on what separates students rather than on the thirst for learning that unites them.
Others, such as Kathy Forsythe-Lantz, teacher of special needs students in the Life Skills and School to Work programs at Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School in Baden, Ontario, see it differently. It's unrealistic to think that we can dispose of labels, she comments. Without labels there would be no funding. While using a label does categorize a student's ability, it also communicates to the community and educational system that a special program needs to be in place. The reality is that not all students can be taught the same way, in the same program. Using labels classifies students according to the resources they need. Without labels, the provincial government would be unable and unwilling to provide the student with the necessary funding to be in a specialized program. Labels in the educational system look at a student's individual needs, and help teachers set reasonable expectations and design a suitable program. And "special needs is the gentlest and broadest of all the labels I've seen in my teaching career," she says. Labels say that the student needs something different from the regular curriculum. This ultimately provides, rather than limits, opportunities.
Giving her students' opportunities and choices — despite the fact that labels are a means of achieving this — is what motivates Forsythe-Lantz. She's seen the need for choices for a long time.
"When I was 16 years old, I visited a friend whose father worked at a home for the retarded, as people with mental disabilities were then labelled. I was shocked by what I saw." Forsythe-Lantz has been "doing something about it" ever since. She first took a part-time job at that home. "The children weren't mistreated," she explains. "I just felt they were capable of and needed so much more than they were allowed." Fresh from teacher's college in 1967, she began teaching at one of the first schools for the handicapped in Ontario (the McQuarrie Memorial School for the Trainable Retarded), and she has been working with special needs students ever since.
Compassionate, passionate and determined to advocate for her students ("my guys," as she calls them), Forsythe-Lantz has seen many changes in special needs education in the past 35 years. To begin with, the labels have changed. Her students aren't called trainable retarded or developmentally delayed any more. (Though these labels enabled the educational system to recognize the needs of these students, she points out. They began the process of recognizing capabilities and offering opportunities.)
On the other hand, Forsythe-Lantz says that her high-functioning (another label) students are quite sensitive to labels and insist that their program is called the School to Work program. They don't want to be known as "special" or "different," words that have only limited their options and choices by keeping them separate and frustrated for their entire school career, even though without labels there would be no funding for their program.
School to Work and Beyond
The day begins early for Forsythe-Lantz's School to Work students. After checking in at school at 8 a.m., students get a ride from an educational assistant to their work placement for a morning or full day of on-the-job training. (Waterloo-Oxford is a rural school and there is no public transportation for the students, Forsythe Lantz explains. If they were close to public transportation, they would be taught how to use it.) Other days, they gather with fellow Life Skills students to learn functional language and literacy skills, math or career skills with the help of an educational assistant. No matter what the schedule holds, every day is carefully planned to teach and develop academic, social, personal and career skills.
"The program's goal is to develop productive, contributing individuals who are integrated into the community and society as much as possible," says Forsythe-Lantz. "They have visions and dreams for their lives, just like the rest of us. We help them achieve those dreams."
Since each student has different exceptionalities and abilities, every educational plan, work placement and eventual outcome is different, she explains. Some students, those with minor to moderate disabilities, are included in regular classes in addition to the School to Work program and, upon leaving school, achieve full-time employment and live independently with minimal support. Others, with more severe disabilities, may hold volunteer positions in the community and live independently with more support from a community agency. Regardless of the students' abilities, Forsythe-Lantz strives to ensure that their time with her prepares them for their future.
Job training is an essential part of the program. Over the years, Forsythe-Lantz has developed an extensive network of businesses that employ her students. This network includes senior citizens' homes, pre-school daycare centres, auto body shops, factories, landscaping firms, shoe stores and doughnut shops. The wide variety of potential jobs that these businesses offer allows her to match each student to the best job placement for his or her interests and abilities. She has also established financial support for the employers and students by researching and applying for a variety of grants and youth employment programs.
Developing relationships, leisure and recreation activities is just as important as a job for achieving a happy and successful life, Forsythe-Lantz points out. For all students, emotional growth should be as important as academic growth.
So in addition to developing job skills, School to Work and Life Skills students learn the personal and social skills they need to be "good people," to build and maintain relationships and keep fit and active in the community. Physical activity is especially important, Forsythe-Lantz comments, as recent studies have shown that special needs adults who maintain regular participation in some form of sports stay healthier and independent longer than those who do not. This aspect of the program includes a wide range of activities from learning to wash their hair, to planting and caring for the Eco-Garden at the school, to learning tolerance and acceptance of others.
Resources
Creating and maintaining an atmosphere of possibilities and choices for special needs students often requires more resources than would doing something similar for students in regular academic programs. But, "you spend it now or you spend it later on social services," says Forsythe-Lantz. "I have no problem being that direct about it." It's an investment in everyone's future, she argues.
Special needs programs require more in the way of resources than just money and technology, too. They need time and extra personnel. Since each of the students in Forsythe-Lantz's classes has a different set of challenges and a unique personality, each needs a personalized education plan, something that takes time to develop and monitor (see "A Path to Success"). In addition, educational assistants are essential to implement these plans, to escort students to work placements or give them individual tutoring.
While Forsythe-Lantz admits the need for labels, she believes that in all the ways that really matter we're all the same. Everyone, regardless of academic ability or label, has the same needs and desires. We all want to be accepted, to be helpful and productive, to have friends and family around us. And while we can't all master advanced calculus, she says, we can all learn to wear one label: friend.