NEF Blog

By Tara Malphrus, Master’s in Special Education

Do you think students with disabilities and special needs can be educated in ‘regular’ classrooms in Jamaica?  Do you feel that including students with disabilities would take away from other students in the classroom?

Ten years ago, when I first asked these questions in Montego Bay at a summer training put on by Teach Jamaica, the resounding response was that it is “impossible to mix children with and without disabilities and teach them in the same classroom”.

Following up from last month’s issue, connectedness is the first step in Dr. Edward Hallowell’s five-step plan for promoting successful learning for children.

Dr. Hallowell posits that happiness is something that most parents want for their child, but how many parents have a plan to get there? We are living in the greatest age of connectedness (digitally), but it is also the greatest period of human disconnection in history!

The process is designed to examine and analyze learning in the moment as it happens with students.  As a professional development strategy, Collegial Learning Walks are designed for teachers in all disciplines and grade levels who teach students from all socio-economic and ability groups.  By looking at learning first, we can begin to see together, as we mediate each other’s thinking, which strategies are truly engaging students in their work, what makes the work we design engaging to students, and how the work is making it possible for students to transfer what they learn to a new and different context.