There are about 200 children with special needs enrolled in six learning institutions spread out across the country. And because they have special needs, those students need special teachers. Thirty of those teachers are this week participating in a 10 day workshop to improve their effectiveness in the classroom. We stopped in today.
Keith Swift Reporting,
Keisha Lord and Desiree Armstrong are both teachers at the Stella Maris School. This afternoon we met them making these patterns on a plastic canvass. They make not look like much but these simple patterns will help Lord and Armstrong in the classroom.
Keith Swift,
What is the hardest thing for you dealing with these special kids?
Keisha Lord, Stella Maris School
"Well not having the activity with the students, that is my biggest problem. If I don't have any activity, I will not be able to my students."
Desiree Armstrong, Stella Maris School
"My biggest challenge for me in the classroom is reaching out everyday to various needs. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of planning and activities and sometimes you get weary but each day you handle it one at a time."
Lord and Armstrong are two of the thirty participants in a 10 day workshop for teachers that deal with kids who have special needs. The teachers are learning efficient and effective ways to capture the attention of their special students.
Keisha Lord,
"It will help me very well. At least my students will make something and will learn a lot. I can teach my deaf students reading and also how to teach reading on a whole to students with special needs."
Desiree Armstrong,
"We have been learning a lot of information about dyslexia, about how to allow children to learn to read, and how to be more effective in the classroom and of course how to be more creative in the classroom with them."
Keith Swift,
So how will this help you in the classroom?
Desiree Armstrong,
"It will definitely help in terms of new strategies and ideas and approaches that you encounter different challenges according to each student you have and their special need. It gives you new strategies to implement in the classroom."
Dr. Bill Hopkins from New York is the facilitator.
Keith Swift,
Is there a right and a wrong way to teach a special child?
Dr. Bill Hopkins,
"Pretty much the same way you and I want to be dealt with. And that is being given lots of encouragement, go slow, make me feel that I am competent, respect me, and make me feel like I belong. We all need that so it is really not that special after all."
Dativa Martinez is the director of the education and support services in the Ministry of Education.
Dativa Martinez, Ministry of Education
"A workshop like this is necessary because with the general workshops, all teachers are called to do teacher training for their continuous professional development most of the time during the month of August. Our teachers don't necessarily get all the specific skills when they do general training as what is carried out with the different education centers."
The workshop concludes tomorrow.
