Bildiri Konusu:Okul Öncesi Dönemde Gelişim ve Gelişimin Değerlendirilmesi
Positive Special Education in Preschool for ALL children
In this presentation focus will be on what teacher in preschool can do to meet all childrens development and learning in a positive way. Positive special education is inspired by positive psychology and positive education (Seligman et al, 2009). Positive special education shows the powerful consequences of optimistic beliefs and attitudes in education. The most common when dealing with special education is to have focus on diagnoses – dominated by a medical perspective. When using the medical perspective teacher only se what the child can t do, not what they can. Perhaps teacher explains everything with a child s diagnose instead of observing the learning environment. There are many things to do both in the physical and social environment before blaming the child. There are endless problem and very little of optimistic view.
No matter what type of learning disabilities a child might have, teachers’ responsibility to give the child the best in teaching and how to relate to the child is strong. The ethical values and curriculum must guide teacher to do the right thing no matter what the problem is. It is also important for teachers to have self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986; 2008), beliefs about their own capacity as well as childrens capacity. Antonovsky’s (1991) sense of coherence is what every teacher should use every day when planning activities and relate to very child in preschool.
When we talk about children in need of special education it is easy to think about children with some sort of learning disability. But there are many children in need of positive special education in preschool. Some children have more difficult to learn while other learn easily. Children can have learning difficulties for many years or only for a short period. Teacher’s attitude is as always important in relation to childrens different way of learning. It is very common that teacher talk about what the child can t do, instead of talking about what the child can do.
In this presentation I will give some examples of how positive special education can be implemented in preschool and why it is important to have positive relation with all children and their families.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Positive special education, self-efficacy, learning environment
Positive Special Education in Preschool for ALL children
In this presentation focus will be on what teacher in preschool can do to meet all childrens development and learning in a positive way. Positive special education is inspired by positive psychology and positive education (Seligman et al, 2009). Positive special education shows the powerful consequences of optimistic beliefs and attitudes in education. The most common when dealing with special education is to have focus on diagnoses – dominated by a medical perspective. When using the medical perspective teacher only se what the child can t do, not what they can. Perhaps teacher explains everything with a child s diagnose instead of observing the learning environment. There are many things to do both in the physical and social environment before blaming the child.
There are endless problem and very little of optimistic view when dealing with children in need of extra support. When doing research in preschool it is common that we observe different levels, organization, group and individual. To give a good and adequate teaching and support for learning and development to all children all levels must be investigated. What changes must be done at organization level? What more can we do to work on group level and what support must be given individual?
It is very common that we use medical perspective and think that everything a child can t do has to do with the diagnose. Therefore, it is important to change the mindset and start working with positive special education for ALL children. No matter what type of learning disabilities a child might have, teachers’ responsibility to give the child the best in teaching and how to relate to the child is strong. The ethical values and curriculum must guide teacher to do the right thing no matter what the problem is. It is also important for teachers to have self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986; 2008), beliefs about their own capacity as well as childrens capacity. Antonovsky’s (1991) sense of coherence is what every teacher should use every day when planning activities and relate to very child in preschool.
When we talk about children in need of special education it is easy to think about children with some sort of learning disability. But there are many children in need of positive special education in preschool. Some children have more difficult to learn while other learn easily. Children can have learning difficulties for many years or only for a short period. Teacher’s attitude is as always important in relation to childrens different way of learning. It is very common that teacher talk about what the child can t do, instead of talking about what the child can do. Many parents have experiences of teacher talking about their child in a negative way. Focus seems to be on what is “wrong” with the child instead of everything that is positive. Preschool is the first school, and it is very important what how the relations between children-children, children-teacher and teacher-parents are. Teachers’ competence and continuing education will be the most important issue when searching for preschool with high quality.
In this presentation I will give some examples of how positive special education can be implemented in preschool and why it is important to have positive relation with all children and their families.
Keywords: Positive Special Education, Self-efficacy, relations