An amazing amount of PWDs in Nigeria are learners and graduates of special education. A majority of special needs persons typically enroll in special schools rather than regular schools.
Educators in special schools not only understand the unique academic needs of these individuals but importantly, educators in special schools provide enablement and empowerments that allow them to realize their full potentials.
We define Special Education as the provision of education to students with special needs. It is unique educational learning provided by uniquely-trained teachers in a uniquely-structured academic environment with unique tools and techniques that uniquely accommodate the unique needs of learners with special needs so that they may get the same level of care that they need.
We are excited to talk about the principles of Special Education, including the joys it brings to both its students and its practitioners.
It is a well-known maxim that children have different abilities levels in different areas”. And for President John F. Kennedy, he said: “Not every child has an equal talent or equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation.” Fantastic!
JFK was right. But how did the President know and understand variations in the abilities, talents and learning pace in children? He had lived it. Being a brother to a mentally-retarded sister, President John F. Kennedy appointed Samuel Kirk, the pioneer of the field of Special Education to a post in his administration.
With that, imagine that you walk into a classroom full of schoolchildren. You haven’t begun to talk yet on why you think the Earth is round.
Common observation shows you that some of these kids are tall and skinny; some are short and stocky, while you observe that a lot of them fall somewhere in-between. That’s just physical variation or differences.
Further along, as you bring forth out words of your mouth, word after word about the planet and all its glory, while also concurrently getting feedbacks from the children, another subtle observation hits you- you see a revelation that there are substantial differences in these learners, in the areas of intelligence, emotional maturity, and social development. As a great teacher, you want to make sure that everyone is carried along which is a good thing.
But further down, you develop a more obvious sense that these schoolchildren are different than one another in a lot of respects including learning characteristics and pace, physical makeup, and sensory perception and achievement levels. T
hese kids differ from average/normal children either because they possess some pretty special abilities or they, unfortunately, manifest unusual limitations hence they require special attention from that very school that you are in. These are the children and youths for which special education considers and caters for.
That’s pretty much Special Education- looking at and instructing schoolchildren and learners from a uniquely academic perspective that accommodates the special needs of these persons- individuals who, for “some reasons”, don’t just “turn out” like the normal, regular ones, and understanding their personal uniqueness, including developing “exceptional” pathway or methodology to deliver to them education and learning that is just right for them. That is the stuff of special education.
By for “some reasons”, the real reasons for why some children and adolescents “turn out” can be technically attributable to congenialities and anomalies stemming from visual impairment, hearing impairment, mental retardation (euphemistically intellectual disability), communication impairment, physical and health impairment and of course an impairment in in the ability to read, to to write and do computations- at normal pace.
Needless to say that in special education, there is no question of “Why?”. Rather, it asks, “Why not?”. The discipline doesn’t say, “life’s messy, love it.” Special education is more of “life’s messy, clean it up, organize it and put it into a bento box”.
Special education manages and deals with realities that confront learners and individuals- in the context of an education that is uniquely tailored to meet the academic and emotional needs of special needs individual whose disabilities themselves are distinct and unique.
Special education understands there is a tremendous ability in a disability. And it provides these special instructions to special persons, in a special setting, with special tools and methodologies by specially-trained teachers in order that these less than perfect children and persons, like every other regular one, may realize their full potential, via education that’s just “right” for them.
For that, the idea of Special Education endures.
We encourage people with special needs to consider reading it. But we also urge individuals to pursue this interesting course of study.