|
|
|
|
Here are some class activities which have been developed by an 'ordinary' primary school teacher. He explored ways of incorporating information about inclusion into the curriculum to ensure that time is not taken away from the teaching of subjects such as maths and English. Many teachers say that it would be too time consuming to include children with impairments in their classes and that the curriculum is too full already to do awareness-raising sessions. This material goes some way to counter these arguments.
The following materials were developed in order to support the inclusion of Bwalya in Grade 6G, Azania High School. Bwalya is a real child who has learning difficulties, but whose identity has been disguised. The activities are: English language and comprehension, and mathematics.
Read the following story, then answer the questions in Sections A, B and C:
On Thursday morning Grade 6G received a new pupil in class. His name was Bwalya. A week later it was discovered by other pupils that Bwalya appeared very slow to learn things and found it difficult to do daily tasks in the school. Most pupils confirmed, and others concluded, that he had learning difficulties and so they ignored him, and excluded him from most class activities.
Bwalya became isolated and therefore appeared sad. It was evident that he did not enjoy the lessons as before. The teacher also paid little attention to him. He was busy meeting the demands of the curriculum, as the class was sitting for an examination at the end of the year. However the class monitor, Jane, requested for a class meeting to discuss how best Bwalya could be helped to like school. The discussions were fruitful and the class came up with ideas such as playing with him, visiting him at home, being friendly and making him busy in class.
Find five difficult words from the passage.
Find words from the passage which mean the same, or almost the same, as:
This section requires the pupils to develop their own solutions to the challenge of ensuring Bwalya's inclusion in class activities.
1. Play
How do we play with him so that all of us can benefit
from the play?
2. Visits
Who should visit him at home?
When should he be
visited?
What should you be doing with him?
How long should the visit
be?
3. Making him busy
Why do you want him to be busy?
How can
you make him busy?
4. Being friendly
What things can show that you are friendly
to someone?
Here are some of the responses written by a group of children in Zambia.
1. Play
Football, running, drawing, singing songs, playing
chess, reading, riding a bicycle, handwriting, counting numbers, covering the
books, showing him how to make toys from soil.
2. Visits
Length of visit from 15 minutes to one hour, on
Saturdays;
3. Making him busy
Why: so that he likes school; we want him
to be happy; we want him to know more things.
4. Being friendly
By showing him good behaviour; by giving him
gifts; by showing him happiness; by coming closer to him; by helping him with
things he doesn't know; by reading him some stories.
The information below shows the names of group leaders in Grade 6G. The group leaders are: Leah, Tabita, Kanjela, Regina, Daniel, Gift, Jeremiah, Manson and Chiti.
Draw a pie chart to illustrate the amount of time that Bwalya spent in each group using the following information:
 |
 |
 |
29/11/2001