Korean Job Discussion Forums

[AsiaESLbound]

Many of my classes have 1 or 2 special needs students that have no attention span and just have senseless behavior like standing up on their chair, aimlessly walking around, and getting into things like a 2 year old. We do have a special needs student classroom and teacher, but those kids are still in mainstream homeroom classes anyhow. I guess the special needs teacher only works with them a few hours a day instead of being their homeroom teacher.

As you can imagine, it's very disruptive having students who can't even understand Korean punching my screen, grabbing my blinds, and getting into our supplies in back as well as making wierd sounds. When I was in school, we had special ed departments in each school to teach special needs in a safe and fun environment for them while not diminishing the competitive environment of the normal and above average students. I'm uncomfortable about special needs as that's not my specialty and it embarasses me when they behave in a way that destroys my class. Thankfully, it's only 1 or 2 in many classes with other classes having none so it's not constantly frequent.

I have asked several times why they are in mainstream when they get nothing out it whatsoever and it diminishes classes for the students who can and will learn. No answer is given other than telling me they are our special needs students. Sure, it's sad and I would like to include them, but it destroys an evironment for the majority to learn rather than helping the special needs individual. They are ostracized anyhow which further destroys those individuals and so they act up more in many more strange ways.

[ThingsComeAround]

[loyfriend]

Why move them? I have some at my high school, 1-2 and they stay in the class. The parents pay for the education and thier is not enough disabled students to make a special class.

I don't think Korea even has a program to really train the teachers that handle them. At my school I know one of the teachers who deals with the disabled students, and he says he basicly changes the clothes.

The students at my school seem to look after these students pretty well. Sometimes I will bring in a coloring book or picture book for these students. I know some of them can copy basic writing. Other times I have let them listen to a audio lesson/book wth headphones.

You have many ways to deal with them, but I would ask your teacher what is ok for the disability the student has.

[Welsh Canadian]

[schlotzy]

To the OP...

It does kind of sound like you are the one who is uncomfortable with this. Like Welsh Canadian I am also a certified teacher from Ontario. I have Spec Ed part 1 and enjoy working with special needs students. "Mainstreamining" the students into the regular classroom is generally the standard practice these days unless the students are SEVERELY disabled. There are those who would argue against this practice, but I think the majority of research supports it.

That being said, I find that different problems arise here than at home. For example, as Welsh Canadian pointed out, at home I would create a differentiated lesson plan for the spec ed students and they would probably be following an IP program. Here though, I find it's way more challenging. There is no support for me in programming (I've asked) and I have some kids in my classes who are pretty high needs. I only see the students once a week for 45 minutes and I am not their homeroom teacher. Here's an example:

One of my classes has a student with Down Syndrome, for example. His level of English is fairly low. He doesn't know anything more than maybe hello and goodbye as far as I can tell. And this is where the problem lies. Back in Canada, even in French class, at least if the teacher needs to discuss something with the student they can communicate in English during the French class and figure out what's happening. Here though it's so frustrating because my Korean isn't very good and neither is his English. I've seen other teachers who give the students a simple word search or make them copy out words like banana ten times. However, I just really don't feel like this is effective. I kind of feel helpless in this situation.

If anyone has some suggestions for students with fairly serious exceptionalities I'd be all ears.

[air76]

I understand the logic behind mainstreaming special needs kids as a general practice, but I'm sorry, it is ridiculous to expect a native English teacher to deal with students who are absolutely incapable of learning English beyond basic vocabulary and simple pleasantries.

I don't think that raising an issue about this means that the OP is trying to completely overhaul the Korean education system. I think that it is more than a reasonable request that there not be special needs students in his/her class. Undoubtedly the school is going to do nothing to help this teacher, so yes, he/she must find an alternative solution, but I agree that having them in the classroom is counterproductive.

I think that we've become far too politically correct over this issue....yes, special needs students should have SOME classes where they sit in the same courses as the mainstream, but to think that it is beneficial to have them there for every class is asinine. I don't mean to sound mean, but seriously, how can you learn calculus with a kid banging on his desk in the back of the room.

Personally I think that we've got to the point that we worry so much about the kids getting left behind that we've forgotten about the kids that are being held back, which is just as big of an issue. In my opinion it's even a bigger issue....as Judge Smails said in Caddyshack "The world needs ditch diggers too, Danny." Before folk start jumping down my throat for being insensitive, I am not saying that there should be no programs aimed at helping weaker students...I just think that there should be an equal investment in the exceptionally intelligent kids as well, which doesn't seem to be the case. The more that we make things easier for the dumb kids, sorry, there is such a thing as a dumb kid, the more we are under educating the smart kids. I am mostly talking about the US system, but in Korea it's even worse. There is almost zero differentiation between the curriculum that kid A and kid B get at school, they take exactly the same classes regardless of their level or capability. The only real solution is to go to a better high school, which isn't always an option if you live in a smaller town.

At any rate...I've gotten off subject, but I just want to say that I agree with the OP that the school is wasting his/her time by having special needs students in the foreign language class.

[frankly speaking]

Inclusion is a common practice. Yes, it may be difficult at times, but there are rewards. I had one student a few years ago in a class and he could barely do the alphabet. He was disruptive, but for the most part students and I ignored his outburst. We also encouraged and praised him when he did well. A few times he would make the same mistake over and over, but when he did it correctly the whole class cheered for him. Everyone knew that he had challenges in his life and no one resented him in the class.

If it is difficult for you, then I would suggest talking to the Korean teacher you work with that has the most experience and learn from him/her.

One nice thing about US schools is that they often have a one on one in the classroom with the students that need it the most.

To the OP, when you have kids I hope that their teachers don't give up on them as you have on these special needs kids.

[air76]

[detourne_me]

Just this morning a special needs student came into my class bawling her eyes out.
The kids explained what happened (someone was teasing her)
Luckily my students know I don't tolerate name calling in class, so they were kinda respectful.
I always keep some comic books like Garfield in my class for special needs students that aren't able to participate.
The books are in English and quite colorful, so it's a good way to keep the students occupied. Fortunately my coteacher understands this so today she was sitting with the student and asking her questions about the book while the rest of the class was studying.

[schlotzy]

I think it's totally pointless to argue about whether or not inclusion is a good practice. It's been a continual argument in the west for decades now and still has two strong sides with support for both. We all have our own opinions on this issue as we can already see from the few replies to this point. And, as some of you have already pointed out, we're probably not going to overhaul the entire Korean education system.

In my mind anyway we should try to figure out if we can do anything about this issue. How can we support these kids without hindering the progress of others? What programs are in place? How can we provide differentiated instruction?

[AsiaESLbound]

FranklySpeaking, It's pretty tough to give one on one attention to special needs when you have 34 others to teach a curriculum lesson to. I want to do something instead of trying to ignore a problem like Koreans often do. I like the idea of giving them something to do such as coloring. If they are given something to do then they probably wouldn't be monkeying around doing nothing, but being disruptive. Becuase the Korean teachers are not doing anything with these kids other than letting them sit in and monkey around, it's them who already gave up on them so they focus on teaching curriculum to mainstream student population. I'm all for them to be included and giving them something to do is a better solution than something like excluding them to a room by themself.

Do we see a lack of support for teachers and the students alike?

I read that American schools too gave up LD special ed classes like Canada so they are mainstreamed today just the same as Korea. I'm betting American teachers are giving them individual activities instead of just letting them sit and misbehave due to boredom. This change had to do with the PC of leaving no child behind.

On the other side of the argument, it would be good for them to have a their own specialized homeroom class and teacher where their needs are better met rather than just sitting in mainstream classes to do nothing or simply do invidual activities. The other thing about letting them do easy fun things is it confuses many students why one is treated with leniency so they may not put forth as much effort seeing this. It's true, this argument has strong points on both sides. It's a complex issue, but thankfully it's only like 8 students to my knowledge out of 570. Those few 8 students have a huge impact on the other 562 so I find it worthy to address.

[NYC_Gal]

I had a student with (from what I deduced from my Uni courses and my mother [I know I am not a licensed psychologist, but I checked with my mother who specialized in special needs students in her Education MA]) Asperger's. He barked occasionally, and couldn't focus, but I made sure that the students didn't taunt him or get him riled up. I didn't like that he was expected to just sit at the front of the room for the entire class, but it wasn't up to me. I would give him something to color, or a puzzle game to play with most of the time.

In another class, I had a very slow girl and boy. They hated being paired together, because they could never play the pair games. I decided to pair them up with very bright students, and the bright students had an understanding that I'd give the slower ones hints so that they could have a few extra seconds of processing time before having to answer the questions.

We had one game where each pair would have 9 or 10 picture cards. They'd ask me "What do you want?" and I'd answer "I want a yellow bag/pink eraser/etc" and they'd have to slap their hand on the card. The first one to slap the card would take the card. At the end of the game, the one with the most cards would win. The bright 2 knew that I'd whisper the answer to the slower ones 3 or 4 seconds prior to answering loudly for the class, and they knew that they'd have to let the slower kids win. I let them win about half of the time, which really boosted their confidence. They won stickers for the first time, while all of the other students had been winning them throughout their English education. Of course, the bright students got stickers for helping, so everyone benefited.

Just try and motivate the deficient kids. I've got one student now with what I presume to be ADD or something similar. He's actually pretty bright, but has behavioral problems, and his parents don't get him treated, I guess, as it's considered a face-losing problem (I am assuming, so forgive me if you are offended. I don't intend to, if I do.)

If they won't participate, give them something to do that they're interested in. If it's a REAL problem, just ask the homeroom teacher to babysit, as it's disrupting the class.

"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members."--Aristotle

[kabrams]

[schlotzy]

LOL @ frankly speaking.
that is all.

[jvalmer]

Can't bother reading all the stuff above. I've never had a special student be disruptive in my classes. Don't try to play super-teacher. Let common sense guide you and just ignore them and let the student be.