My experiences with children with special needs during my practical work

I made a lot of experiences with children with special needs. The main part of
my work was about integration. One example will always stay in my mind and
that is good as it is. I want to share it with you:

In the second semester of my faculty in Vienna I worked in a special school.

The difference between this school and others was that that they had more
foreign children than austrian children. I taught a class with a foreign
percentage of 100 per cent. That means that none of them was born in
Austria. They were from Turkey, Serbia, Poland, Russia, Africa, Pakistan, and
so on.

You can imagine that the situattion for a teacher who has to work there is
VERY difficult. To fullfill these request and to make a good job you have to be
an excelent teacher.

Back to my practical work in this special school. In my classroom where I was

sectionaled I've seen both sides of teacher. Excelent and even worse.

These class had the possibility, because of their situation, to have more
teacher than normal do. 2 for the class which were always with the children
in the classroom, one for pupils with special needs, one for english lessons
and one for teaching german.

We had a pupil from Turkey who didn't speak any German and who wasn't
integrated in the social system of the class. He was more than an outsider.
Nobody took care of him. During the lessons he drew in his book, went under
the table and made a lot of other things. I could understand him. He heard
and understood only "bla bla", had no chance to be an active part of the
tuition, nobody even recognized him and the most important thing what went
wrong was that he was a child with special needs and he didn't get them. The
two classteacher were the worst I have ever seen in my life. They destroyed
this child mentaly completly. They weren't sensitiv enough to understand his
situation. He fleed out of his country from one day at the other, left
everything, had to go to school (it was the first class of primary school), didn't
understand any word, had no friends AND had the worst teacher at all. These
two teacher only shouted at him, also without any reason (actually you never
have a reason to shout at somebody), they rail against him, blame him and
broke him mentally. I cried a lot because I couldn't bear that all. I've tried my
best to support him. I sat every lesson with him to explain him things (the
two teacher tried to forbit me that, but I didn't listen). He was very intelligent.
In Maths, a subject for which in fact you don't need language, he was
excellent. Also in English. In English the pupils had a brilliant teacher. She
worked and interact with every pupil and motivated them. The children loved
English, so did Arkan. And he was very good in English, better than in
German, which he heared every day and got lessons every day. I had
enough time to watch him and to follow his steps. I didn't wonder about his
developing. He got aggressive, beated other children, didn't listen and
everything got even worse. Everybody hated him at the end. In this very sad
story who is to blame for this disaster and for the distruction of a child with a
heavy past?

In my opinion these two taecher are to blame. In my eyes they are guilty.
Guilty because of their election to be a teacher without knowing what a
teacher has to be! Guilty because of verdancy! Guilty because of disdaining
responsibility! Guilty because of disrespecting human beeing no matter which
nationality, social background or other conditions he/she has! GUILTY!
Depressing is that they will never know that or they would never confess that
they did something wrong and they will go on like before.

BUT I learned a lot and it was important for me to see that, because I made
my own thoughts of beeing a good teacher and I reflected my behaviour
every day. And I swore to me to give all of me to be a good teacher!

So What makes a good teacher?

A good teacher has to have more than a lot of qualities. On the one hand
he/she has to have a lot of knowledge and on the other hand he/she has to
have a lot of social competences. To manage all things which are included in
these terms it is necessary to be a stable and authentic person who has
already developed most of his/her character features. A teacher has first of
all to respect all human beings. No matter which age, nationality or other
differences exist between himself/herself and this person. He/ she has to see
all as same and equal. A good teacher has to be a trustworthy person. This is
a condition for good learning children because that makes them openminded.

A good teacher should be able to motivate and fascinate the children in

his/her lessons and to offer them good materials which they can use and
while they are learning they have still fun with it.

A good teacher knows that he/she has always the function of a rolemodel and
he/she acts like that. He/she always tries her/his best to be a patient,
balanced, respectful and disciplines mentor.

A good teacher reflects after every working day his behaviour compared to
the children. He/She will always think critically and reflective about
himself/herself, because he/she knows that he/she will never be perfect but
he/she tries his/her best to get better and better.
A good teacher individualizes, because he/she knows that every pupil has
his/her own special needs. The teacher tries to fulfill them and act fair and
lawful.

A good teacher sets stable boundaries so that the pupils have something to
comply with and get in the same breath security, because they get the
chance to be a part of the community.

A good teacher will never stop to educate and advance himself/herself.

A good teacher tries always to refers to real life with his learning matter.

Also a good teacher inspires pupils and makes them thinking on their own.
He/She wants them to think critically and reflective.

A good teacher gives his/her best to make a social community out of the
class and that nobody will be excluded.

A good teacher has, as you can see, really a LOT OF WORK, maybe
sometimes more than Superman would have. ;)

Her/His final aim is, make well educated, reflective and public spirited
personalities out of them which are inspired and motivated to live their life in
the best way they know.

What a good teacher also keeps in mind is that he/she always tries his/her
best but just as well he/she knows that he/she is like everybody else only
human nature which has to accept that nobody is perfect and he/she also
fails sometimes. Important is to see it and to work on that and to never forget
to keep love to his/her avocation.

Susanna Kundics