Learners Who Are Exceptional

Oct 28^th, 2010

Chapter 6 in my Educational Psychology textbook is all about learners who are exceptional and inclusive education. Students with exceptionalities are both students with disabilities and students who are gifted. Why am I referring to these students as “students with disabilities” and not “disabled students” you might ask? Well, when you refer to someone as a “disabled student” the first thing you see is the disability; when you refer to someone as a “student with disabilities”, the student is first, the person is first, rather than the disability. This is a really important point that was brought up in class and I’d like to share it; I think it’s a very important transition that society is making. 

To give a general overview of what we’ve learned so far, I’ll start off by saying the entire system is in transition. This may be because the system is set up through a system of coding. Every student with disabilities has an IPP (Individualized Program Plan), which lays out the student’s strengths and weaknesses.  Even though coding is a way to receive funding, most people think of it as labelling these students. Which I actually agree with, that’s why I’m glad they’re trying to find a way to receive funding and identify students with disabilities through other means. I guess we’ll see what happens in the next few years!

 

The reason I am so passionate and excited to learn about students with disabilities is because my older sister has severe athetoid (dyskinetic) cerebral palsy. She cannot walk, she’s been in a wheelchair her entire life, and she can only say about ten or fifteen words. When she was ten years old she was diagnosed with scoliosis (curvature of the spine), and she had surgery to repair it later that year. She now has two steel rods and over thirty pins in her back to hold her spine in a straight line. A week after her fourteenth birthday, she was also diagnosed with another secondary symptom of tonic-clonic (grand mal) epilepsy. In spite of all this, she’s the most intelligent, caring, positive person I know. Initially, my parents were told that she’s be lucky to make it a few years; she’s now twenty-three and shows no signs of slowing down.

 

Amanda was in special education classes her entire life, and even though schools are striving to have inclusive education, it just doesn’t make any sense for her to be in a “normal” classroom setting. So to a certain extent I agree that there should be inclusive education, but for someone like my sister, who wouldn’t benefit at all from inclusive education, they should be in special education classrooms. So what I’m trying to say then is that it’s great that the system is trying to change and be less judgemental; however, they do need to remember that there are students that will benefit a lot more from special education classrooms.