Dr. philos Dóra S. BjarnasonIceland University of EducationV/ Stakkahlíð105 ReykjavíkIcelande-mail dora@khi.is

ECER 2003. Session 7 B, Network 4

Teachers’ voices: How does education in Iceland prepare young people with significant impairments for social inclusion?

AbstractThe paper is based on one part of an extensive research conducted 1998-2002 into the world of young disabled adults in Iceland who have grown up with the ideology of integration and inclusion as the law of the land. This is a qualitative study of the experience of being a young disabled adult (16–24 years old) in Icelandic upper-secondary schools, university or equivalent educational settings, in the job market and in society. The focus here is on the teachers’ experiences of working with disabled children and youths in compulsory- and upper-secondary schools, and in general education schools and classes, special schools, and special classes. Findings imply that teachers, even teachers perceived to be good teachers by their disabled students, act as gatekeepers but also as important allies to young disabled peoples’ approaching interdependent adulthood within mainstream school and society.

IntroductionThis paper discusses the teachers’ perspectives of the structure and practice of their professional work, and how they belief they promote their students to active participation in their schools and society. The data comes from a much wider qualitative study of the perspectives of 36 young disabled people aged 16-24, of their experiences as they emerge adulthood.

The main study found that choices made early on in the disabled person’s life between generic and special services are of importance for launching the disabled child on to what I call the highway (group A), a road often leading to fragile “adulthood with a difference” in mainstream society, or on to the narrower and often paternalistic path (group C) to a “special world of disabled people”. In between these I found a small group of young disabled people who belonged to neither road and I compared to “nomads walking about in the wilderness (group B). The former road holds the promise of greater personal freedom and quality of life for disabled adults, despite significant risks of loneliness and isolation. The latter promises protection and safety at the risk of remaining in the limbo of “eternal youth” within segregated settings, subjected to a degree of paternalism and diminished personal freedom. The “nomads” seemed either to have lost hope of

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belonging to either mainstream society or the special world of disabled people, or had dropped out from these paths for the time being. (Bjarnason, D.S. 2002a), (Bjarnason, 2002b) (Bjarnason, 2003a) (Bjarnason, 2003b) Students schooling and teachers perceptions and practices were found to be important for either maintaining the disabled students on one or the other of these roads or for moving them between the roads leading to fragile but inclusive adulthood or to the paternalistic world of “eternal childhood”

First the paper briefly describes the theoretical perspective, the background of Icelandic culture and education system, and the methods used in the bigger study. Second it will sketch an idea of what the term “a good teacher in inclusive settings” might involve. Third, it presents the teachers’ perspectives and voices; describes their work, their cooperation with colleagues and parents, and their perspectives on their school environments. It will also explore the teachers’ views of their students and their perceptions of their students' future prospects. Then the paper looks at the teachers’ own professional satisfaction and dissatisfaction in working with disabled students, with general and special educators and with other colleagues. Finally the paper discusses how teachers can be better prepared to teach disabled students and balance their attempts between paternalism and indifference (Kirkebæk, B. 2002), so as to reduce exclusionary processes of disabled students and increase the impact of inclusive processes leading to interdependent adulthood within the mainstream of society.

Perspective and ConceptsThis study is placed within the interpretivist paradigm. The theoretical framework rests on research and theory which considers disability as a social construction ( (Ferguson, P.M. 1987), (Bogdan, R. and Taylor, S.J. 1989),(Ferguson, D.L. and Ferguson, P.M. 1995). Nordic research into disability, youth and the welfare state has also inspired and informed the work, as the cultures, schools and legal systems are similar. (Gustavsson, A. 1999), (Högsbro, K., Kirkebæk, B., Blom, S.V. and Danö, E. 1999) Finally, the British school concerned with the social model of disability has also been an inspiration to me. It has politicized the concept of disability even further, focused and radicalized advocacy and self-advocacy of “the disabled people”. (Oliver, M. 1990), (Shakespeare, T. 1993) , (Barton, L. 1999)

Disability is a term that, to most people means a medical condition or a learning deficit to be prevented or cured or at least diminished (the medical/individual model of disability). This author adheres to the school of thought (Oliver, M. 1990), (Williams 2001) that defines disability as a phenomenon emerging and resulting from the values and practices embedded within culture (Gabel, S. 2001), (Devlieger, P. 1999). This approach can be linked back to the tradition of symbolic interactionist. (See for example (Goffman, E. 1963), (Becker, H.S. 1963), but also to the more recent strands of the social model of disability and developments within the disability studies field. (See for example Gabel 2001, Oliver 1990). Thus the concept ‘disability’ is political, used to enforce and sometimes even legitimate exclusion, or social marginalisation, exploitation and poverty. From this point of view, the construction of disability is both a complex social construction and a personal identity, but neither a medical condition nor a learning problem.

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School inclusion refers to a process, which implies not only that all students are welcomed to generic schools, but that teaching and learning is organized so as to meet a diversity of talents and learning needs. This author is partial to inclusive schooling. Not because of a naive belief that bringing disabled children to typical schools will automatically solve students’ problems; however, a school striving for inclusion can provide disabled students with an opportunity for participation and appropriate education. (Ferguson, D.L. and Ferguson, P.M. 1995).

Barton (citing: (Booth, T. 1996)) points out “that it is useful to think of inclusion involving two processes”:

the process of increasing the participation of pupils within the cultures and curricular of mainstream schools and the process of decreasing exclusionary pressures. To attempt the first without the second is self-defeating (Booth 1996: 34, cited by: (Barton 1997, p. 232)).

Dyson suggests that Booth’s perspective:

… enables us to view inclusion as one educational aim amongst many, providing a means of understandings the complexities and compromises that its pursuit entails. It thus makes it possible for us to understand forms of provisions not as ‘inclusive’ or ‘not inclusive’, but rather as more or less inclusive in one or other respect. (Dyson, A. 1997, p. 17)

That lens focuses the research on the complexities of inclusive and exclusive practices in general schools. Dyson, from his pragmatic strand, applying Booth’s position, opens up the possibility to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the implications of particular forms of educational provision, avoiding the more black and white debate on inclusion or exclusion as states of educational practice. (Dyson, A. 1997)

Background: Iceland – Education and Culture The Icelandic value base is ruggedly individualistic and egalitarian, and there is a tradition of self help, hard work, and of mutual help in hardship situations. In modern Iceland, as in every other country, some are more equal than others. Differences in wealth and status are growing; marginalization of minority groups is a known phenomenon and disabled people tend to be less equal than most according to any measurement one might select. (Bjarnason, 1996a; Bjarnason, 1996b), (Bjarnason, 2002b), (Bjarnason, 2003a), Bjarnason, 2003b), (Margeirsdóttir, M. 2001)

The educational system is traditionally organized within the public sector. The few private schools in the country are largely financed by the tax money. The Althing is responsible for the educational system both legally and politically, and determines its basic objectives and administrative structure. The Ministry of Education has jurisdiction over the system. Since the mid 1990´s the educational system has been somewhat decentralized. Responsibilities and decision making about the running of individual schools, that before belonged solely to the Ministry of Education, have been turned over to the local authorities. Local municipal authorities are thus responsible for the operation of preschools and compulsory education schools including special education schools, units and special classes. The state runs the upper secondary schools, and most schools at

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the higher educational level. The educational system is divided into four levels; preschool up to 6 years of age is not compulsory but recognized as the first stage in public education, compulsory school 6-16 years, upper secondary school 16-20 years, and higher education level from 20 years of age onwards. The diagram below, table 1, shows the structure of the system.

Table 1. The Icelandic Education System 2002

Source. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. 2002

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The Ministry of Education issues National Curriculum Guides for preschool, compulsory- and upper secondary school levels. These curriculum guides have the legal status of statutory regulations. The National Center for Educational Materials, under the Ministry of Education, develops and publishes educational materials for compulsory education schools, and distributes them to the schools free of charge. The Educational Testing Institute, funded by the state, is responsible for organizing, setting and grading nationally coordinated examinations, for students at compulsory schools.

The state and local communities provide free education from the age of 6 to 16, and a largely free education at upper-secondary and university levels. The Education Laws of 1974 made, - for the first time in Icelandic education history -, provision for all students, including students with impairments, to be educated within the compulsory public school system. (Lög um grunnskóla. 1974) Lög um grunnskóla no. 63/1974)

Special schools for students with cognitive impairments and special classes for students with a variety of labels such as autism, mental illness, ADL and others were gradually opened. (Students who were deaf or labeled blind, however, had had access to special education since the late 19th century). Students with a variety of disability labels were not generally invited into upper secondary schools until some years after the Education Act of 1994, amended 1996 and 1998. (Lög um framhaldsskóla. 1988; Lög um framhaldsskóla. (Breyting á lögum nr. 57/1988). 1996) Lög um framhaldsskóla no. 81/1994 and Statutory Regulation on Upper Secondary Education from 1996 and 1998) (Reglugerð um sérkennslu fatlaðra. 1998) Adult education courses are available for a limited number of people with cognitive and multiple impairments.

The 1974 law on compulsory education opened up the school system for disabled students. With the 1979 law on Support for the Mentally Retarded (Lög um adstod við throskahefta. 1974), and subsequent legislation regarding disabled people, normalization and integration became the law of the land. (Bjarnason, 1996a) These two milestones opened up possibilities for disabled persons to become fully included active members of society and to obtain services adapted to their needs in general schools and other institutions in the community. However the spirit of a law is one thing, and its implementation quite another. Sub-clauses in the laws and statutory regulations defined an array of specialized services, from special classes to segregated group homes and sheltered workshops. Consequently, a battery of segregated services has been developed in the past two decades, as never before in Iceland. (Bjarnason 1996, (Bjarnason, 2003d) Mostly these services have opened up in urban areas. At the same time, and in particular after the mid 1980s, the ideology of inclusive schooling and society has been gaining momentum. In the 1980s and 1990s parents, parent associations and some associations of disabled people pushed for inclusive services both in the urban and rural sectors. Two schools of thought have marked the lifetime of the young disabled adults of this study; on the one hand the development of a variety of special services and inclusive services on the other. (Bjarnason 2003d)

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Modes of Inquiry and data sourcesQualitative research methods are based on the view that reality is a product of society (Berger, P.L. and Luckman, T. 1967). Little research has so far been done on disability issues in Iceland. The main source of data are interviews and their analysis. 36 young adults with a variety of severe impairments1 were interviewed, one or both parents of 30 young adults (44 people in all), 12 teachers , and 12 friends. The interviews were in depth, semi-structured and lasted from 45 minutes to over 2 hours. They are typed, and coded and analyzed. (See(Bogdan and Biklen, 1982; Bogdan, and Biklen, 1992) Bogdan and Bicklen (1982), (Taylor and Bogdan, 1984) and others). Documents and interviews with key bureaucratic workers also form part of the data.As the interviews developed, I looked for young adults with a wide range of backgrounds; from urban and rural settings around Iceland, from different social classes and family structures, and people with a wide range of abilities, interests and impairments.2

1 Table 2. Key young adults primary disability-labels

DISABILITY LABELS NUMBERCognitive

Multiple

Physical

Sensory (3 deaf/hard of hearing, 1 visual impairment)

Emotional (autism)

Physical illness/accident

TOTAL18

2

7

4

2

3

36Almost all the young adults were identified as significantly disabled according to the Icelandic Disability Pension regulations and all were entitled to disability pension paid by the National Social Security Bureau. Many had been given additional disability labels. In most instances the primary label was "mental retardation" or "physical disability", sometimes with an additional condition

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? Table 3. The young disabled adults’ home, school and work place in 1998

SCHOOL TYPEHOMEWORK PLACEREGIONSpecial school0Parental home22Regular work4Reykavik and greater Rvik area16Special class in high school12Own flat/living alone/living with partner8Sheltered workshop7Towns and villages16Regular high school/Tertiery ed/ University11Group home5Unemployed but available to work1Farms4Adult education for disabled learner4Other1Farms1 TOTAL27TOTAL36TOTAL13TOTAL36

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This authors’ professional and personal experience over the past 20 years as a university teacher and a researcher of sociology and disability studies, and as a single mother of a son with severe disability, inform and focus the research. (Bjarnason 1996b, 2003c)

The young people were asked to name one of their teachers, whom they felt knew them and whom they liked and trusted for me to interview for the study. In many cases more than one student mentioned the same names, particularly names of teachers who worked in special classes and a teacher in a special school. They named eighteen teachers, but only twelve were interviewed. Three teachers had moved out of teaching, one could not be located, and two "teachers" whose job descriptions were those of paraprofessionals refused to be interviewed.

Two favorite teachers from the compulsory special schools were named and interviewed, as well as three favorite general education teachers from compulsory schools. The teacher with the shortest work experience in schools had worked as a teacher for eleven years, and the two persons who had worked longest had taught for thirty-six years. Table 4 below shows the teachers’ years at work, their qualifications, broad work experience, and their work responsibilities at the time they were interviewed.

One person was not certified as a teacher, but had served as a teacher for over a decade and identified herself as a teacher. Eight teachers had degrees or diplomas in special education from universities or teacher training colleges in Iceland and abroad. One had a diploma in rehabilitation, one had in addition to the teachers’ certificate, a diploma in education from a university, one was both a qualified teacher and a pre-school teacher, two were trained as vocational teachers, and one had a degree in Geography as well as a

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Table 4. Teachers, qualifications, work experience and present job

No. of years teaching Qualification Work experience Present jobRagnheiður - 11 years

upper-sec. school graduate class” teacher" in compulsory school, and a support person in a compulsory school and in an upper-sec. school

Upper –sec. school support personfor integrated disabled students

Sigrún - 25 years compulsory school teacher/ spec. ed. degree

head of special education/ inclusion expert

Compulsory school teacher, inclusion supervisor

Þorsteinn - 25 years compulsory school teacher/vocational line, spec. ed., diploma in education

teacher in compulsory and spec. ed. teacher in upper secondary schools, teaching in vocational ed. at upper-sec. school and adult ed. level

spec. ed. teacher and departmental head in the special education department of a upper-sec.

Kristín - 30 years preschool teacher/ compulsory school teacher

spec. ed. teacher in general classes at compulsory and upper-sec. school levels

spec. ed. teacher supporting disabled learners in general upper-sec. School

Tómas - 36 years compulsory school teacher compulsory school teacher and deputy principal

deputy principal/ teaches individual students with disability

Sævar - 26 years diploma in rehabilitation/special ed.

work with disabled children, youth and adults in most settings, including educational settings from preschool to adulthood

departmental3 head in a special education department of an upper-sec. School

Dagný - 36 years compulsory school teacher compulsory school teacher , spec ed. teacher and vocational training

teacher in a special school

Eva -26 years compulsory school teacher/spec. ed. degree

compulsory school teacher, headmaster, district director for spec. education, special teacher in an upper-sec. school/ special teacher for institutionalized "delinquent" youth and young adults

special teacher and head of a special education department at an upper-sec. School

Sólveig- 12 years compulsory school teacher compulsory school teacher teaching children and adolescents/ support teacher for blind students, support teacher for integrating disabled students, support teacher for disabled upper-sec. school students

special teacher in a special education department in an upper-sec. School

Gísli - 15 years degree in geography, spec. ed. degree

spec. ed. teacher/ has taught at all school levels from compulsory schools to university

special and general upper-sec. school teacher, and head of a special education department in an upper-sec.school

Erla - 23 years compulsory school teacher,special educator

general and special education teacher at compulsory and at upper-sec. school levels

general teacher part time in a compulsory school, spec. ed teacher in a special department in an upper-sec. School

Helgi – 30 compulsory school teacher/ vocational teacher

compulsory school teacher, headmaster, assistant head master, sports teacher, special teacher for disabled compulsory school students,

Special teacher and head of an upper-sec. school special department for disabled youth and adults

3 A special department or special unit, refers to more than one special class for students with disabilities in a school.

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department head for a special unit for disabled upper-sec. school students

degree in education. Of all the trained teachers, only two were specially trained as upper secondary school teachers, all the others were trained as compulsory school teaches. This had implications for the pay and status of teachers working within upper secondary schools. All the special teachers were certified as general teachers first and thus on an equal footing with other compulsory school teachers. The teachers had responsibility for the education of from one to ten disabled students who had a broad range of disability labels.4

TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS

The good teacher Dr. John Krejsler found; “that there is no one way to be a good teacher within our schools”. (Krejsler, J. 2001). From the data it emerged that students in special classes valued highly, the understanding, personal attention and kindness of teachers, but the disabled students in general settings liked teachers who were prepared to adapt the curriculum to their special needs, but without treating them any differently to typical students. It is argued in another paper (see Bjarnason ECER paper session 3 a) that the students from special settings learnt to trade some of their independence for safety, accepting a certain paternalism, but that disabled students in general settings, who all expressed abhorrence at paternalistic attitudes, hang on to their independence, and had been forced to learn to live with a certain amount of teachers’ indifference to their special needs. Both groups agreed that a good teacher cares about his students and wants them to learn.

There are numerous definitions of what “teaching” can imply. According to the Oxford American Dictionary to teach is 1. to impart information or skill to (a person) or about (a subject, etc.). 2. to do this for a living. 3. to put forward as a fact or principle, Christ taught forgiveness. 4. to cause to adopt (a practice, etc) by example or experience, (informal) to deter by punishment, etc. that will teach you not to meddle. (Oxford American dictionary. 1980).

Good teaching implies doing all these things as well and as appropriately as possible, given a defined person, setting and curriculum or other goals. Apple and Beane, writing towards the end of the 20th century on Democratic Schools believe that; “the schools should offer students the very qualities that John Dewey said should characterize education in a democratic society: shared interests, freedom in interaction, participation, and social relationships” (Patterson, C. 1995). Sarason, who has studied and written about schools and human learning for the best part of the 20th century, analyses teaching in 4 Some of the special educators were also in charge of all special education in their schools, supervising special education of both so called gifted students and students with specific learning problems. In one of the schools the number of such students was up to 64.

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terms of the performing arts, in a highly critical book about schooling and the educational system (Sarason, S.B. 1999). He compares teaching to the art of the master performer who is set on capturing his audience in the most profound sense. He describes what he sees as the overarching goal of teaching:

I want the student to be motivated to learn more, develop more, to experience personal and cognitive growth…They [the students] should possess the awe, wander and curiosity about themselves, others, and the world they had when they started school, characteristics they possessed but which went underground (or were extinguished) as they went from elementary to middle to upper secondary school. (Sarason, S.B. 1999, p. 142)

He proceeds to define three features of a context for productive learning, features he suggest are underguird these overarching goals:

[The first, is] recognizing and respecting the individuality of the learner, i.e. where the learner is psychologically coming from and the attitudes, interests, and curiosities that implies. [The second is] that the teacher knows the subject matter well enough to know when or where the learner may have difficulty; the teacher is a preventer of problems, not a repairer. [The third is]…and that is where the performing artistry of the teacher is so crucial…the teacher is always seeking ways to stimulate and reinforce the learner’s wanting to learn and do more…(Sarason, S.B. 1999, p. 143)

These goals are of immense importance to all teachers and all learners from preschool through universities. They serve as a lighthouse in dark and difficult times to remind us what we should be striving for, and they apply equally to general and special educators and to all learners. They help us to make more of our days at work good and effective. Even the most eloquent performance artists have bad days and so do all teachers. Both professions must learn to live with those, reflect upon and learn from the mistakes, and struggle on remindful of the ultimate goals of their performance. The good performance artist has (hopefully) many moving performances, and even mediocre teachers can have a stroke of brilliant teaching, but unlike the performance artist, the teacher is not always as able to define how it happened or why, or to repeat the brilliant performance next time. It is hardly feasible, even for a great teacher, to achieve these ideal goals on a regular basis in the messy environment of schools. Still it important to define where we want to go, and ponder over how we might get closer to our goal.

Teaching takes place in the perpetually shifting landscape of practice. Demands for usable knowledge change, and so do the patterns of tasks and the knowledge base that underpins the profession. Schön (1983 and 1987) frames this as; “the situations of practice are not problems to be solved but problematic situations characterized by uncertainty, disorder and indeterminacy” (Schön, D.A. 1987, p. 16). He writes: “It is through naming and framing that technical problem solving becomes possible” (Schön, D.A. 1987, p. 5). From this he spins his portrayals of “the reflective practitioner”, the practitioner who problem-solves in his action, without always being able to put words to how or why he did or did not apply his knowledge the way he did. He refers to this as “knowing in action”, which is revealed by spontaneous, skillful execution of a performance, that the professional may not always be able to explain in words. “The reflective practitioner”, in Schön’s (1987) terms, tries to figure out what why and how

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something happened or did not happen. The good teacher fosters reflectivity in this sense. Such a teacher does not know it all, but is prepared, with his colleagues to problem solve in a creative way, while all the time keeping his eye on the goals of his students learning, the students learning styles, and perhaps most importantly when, where and why students do not seem to be learning. The reflective teacher pays attention, and attempts to alter his teaching method, tasks, surroundings and evaluation to match each and every student’s strengths, interests, and needs. The purpose of schooling, as Ferguson, Willis and Mayer suggest, “ought to be … to enable all students to actively participate in their communities so that others care enough about what happens to them to look for ways to incorporate them as members of that community” (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G., Meyer, G. et al., 2001, p. 123-124).

Students with significant impairment pose a special challenge to any teacher who strives to make such students’ ‘active learning members’ of their class and school community. There is no one-way of approaching this. Scholars who have studied inclusive practices in order to help teachers have suggested that flexibility in school organization including in the organization of teaching and learning, a collaborating community of teachers who are set on reinventing their schools, in order to make them better and more efficient places for teachers and learners, could be a way to start. ((Ferguson, D.L. 1996), (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G., Meyer, G. and al., et 2001), (Ainscow, M. 1991), (Ainscow, M. 1995), (Giangreco, M.F. 1997), (Giangreco, M.F., Cloninger, C.J. and Iverson, V.S. 1993), (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G., Meyer, G. and al., et 2001), (Wearmouth, J. 2001), (Tetler, S. 2000)) But as most students of inclusive practices agree, starting with the will to address the challenge to include all learners, is necessary but not sufficient to ensure the desired outcomes of equity and quality education for all. (See for example (Clark, C., Dyson, A., Millward, A.J. and Skidmore, D. 2001)).

Teachers do not create the school, they are placed within a pre-existing organization, framed by laws, traditions and other persons’ practices. Schools are very resistant to change due to both their organizational complexity, teachers professional practices, and because schools are embedded in a wider complex local and national education systems. This is clearly shown in many studies of schools trying to become more inclusive. (See for example (Clark, C., Dyson, A., Millward, A.J. and Skidmore, D. 2001), (Marinósson, G.L. 2002)). Tetler’s study of four Danish schools, suggests that if teachers can be helped to tackle some of the dilemmas arising from their practice and counter act exclusionary hindrances resulting from them, schools or programs within schools can be supported on their way to include individuals or groups of disabled students into general education curriculum and school community. (Tetler, S. 2000)

All the teachers who’s perspectives are presented below, were friendly and dedicated to their students, most were also skilled, and ambitious to help them along into a quality adult life. They can all be portrayed as good teachers, at least some of the time, and that why the students suggested that they should be interviewed.

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Teachers voices - The art and craft of teachingThe teachers’ voices are organized roughly according to how they perceive of their approaches to their disabled students’ education and their participation in general or special settings.

The Inclusion ExpertSigrún was named as a favorite teacher from compulsory school. She is one of three general compulsory school teachers mentioned. She has worked in compulsory schools for 25 years, teaching general compulsory school students and learners with special needs for twelve years. She has recently finished her degree in special education while continuing to work full time. She works in a medium sized compulsory school in a rural town and has been one of the pioneers of inclusive education in her district. Currently, she is the head of special education at her school. In this role, she helps teachers and paraprofessionals who work with three students labeled with significant disabilities. She "provides information about disabilities to general teachers and non disabled students". She helps those general education teachers who request help to plan and expand the curriculum in order to include disabled students' educational needs, and to teach in a cooperative manner in typical mixed-ability classes. Further more, she works closely with a team of experts from the local education office, and brings them to the school, to problem solve when she and the general teachers find that necessary. She also teaches in a class of 10th grade students, where three students have been labeled as having mild cognitive disabilities. Finally she instructs a small group of students, on a regular basis, who have problems with reading. This school does not have special classes, but students labeled with cognitive disabilities are sometimes pulled out of their class for individual tuition in the resource room. She was asked about the admission of a new disabled student.

Sigrún: It is important to have enough information about the student, preferably information from a variety of sources...

Q5: Who informs you?

Sigrún: The preschool informs us as a rule that the student is coming. Once admission has been requested formally, we talk to the parents, both to get an idea of the child and to obtain the parents permission to visit the preschool. Then we visit the preschool,- preferably the [ child's future ]class teacher and if we have found a support person come too...

Q: And??

Sigrún: The class teacher and I met the child in his preschool, and his support person there. We stay there for a morning. That way we get an idea what questions we need to ask. Then we have a number of meetings. We … have tried to meet with as many people together as possible to get a kind of a broad picture …

Following such a meeting the preparations start. Sigrún and her colleague decide together what special aids, if any, need to be bought, what alterations have to be made to enable the student access, and they try to do this within a stringent budget of the school. Smaller meetings with the parents or individual professionals follow suit.

5 Q is one of my assistants who carried out some of the interviews with teachers.

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Once the student begins at compulsory school, the teachers have already made a rough plan for his schooling, but there are problems in getting all the general teachers at the school to buy into the inclusion plan. The general teachers in the inclusion program have to agree to the process of focusing systematically on both individual student's and the group's strengths and weaknesses. They must develop written goals in cooperation with parents and experts, hold regular meetings through out the school year, involve colleagues, parents and support persons, and adjust the class curriculum at regular intervals.

Teachers in compulsory education are expected to write IEP´s for labeled students and hand them in to their local Educational Authorities, for the estimation of costs due to special support, and some Educational authorities may use the IEP´s to boost the salaries of their special education teachers. A team of the students’ parents, teachers and experts is expected to meet at least once a year to write or review the individual’s IEP. This procedure, stemming from USA, became accepted practice in special educations in many countries and schools around the world in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Recent textbooks on inclusive education express concerns about the IEP writing process and its use. (Giangreco, M.F. 1997), (Sand, D.J., Kozleski, E.B. and French, N.K. 2000), (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G., Meyer, G. and al., et 2001)). These authors advice that an IEP should first and foremost be a useful and practical tool for guiding teachers in their planning, teaching and evaluating disabled students’ progress, but not a complex long document written for the bureaucrats and the desk drawer. Sigrún agrees with that and is concerned to write IEP´s as tools for teachers in their every day work of planning, teaching, evaluating and adjusting teachers work to the needs of disabled students and the class.

Sigrún explained how they used IEP´s in their planning:

Sigrún: We do not write his IEP before the child has started in school. We try to plan the first few weeks rather tightly...this is a kind of adaptation time for him or her, then we start on the IEP work. ..

Q: And?

Sigrún: We begin to collect information for the IEP as soon as we have met with the parents, but we start writing it when the student has been with us for one or two weeks. We are constantly changing things at first...We try to have the parents as much as possible involved in this work.

Q: How?

Sigrún: We use the plan from Inclusive Curriculum (hens forth IC program designed by an American professor, who worked with some Icelandic teachers a few years ago) It provides a clear process to defined outcomes. Then we refer this to the external advisor, he helps us with the bigger picture. Some of our students follow the IC program, others do not.

Q: ??

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Sigrún: We try to get the [general] teachers to apply it at least to some extent. I doubt that we can get [all] professional teachers to use this new method, thus we have to rely on the external advisors for guidance.

It is hard to involve general educators in using the IC program consistently, but she and two other special educators at the school have weekly meetings with general teachers who are not part of the IC program to try and support them in their work. Here the IEP documents are short and easy to use. She explained:

[Then] we have the students IEP´s as a basis [for the meetings]. We are not always looking at the IEP´s, we know exactly what the student is striving for, so you start by taking the IEP along, but it is always the same things we tend to ask about. We ask how things are going, how the student's behavior is developing, how the student is getting on with the other kids, it is a kind of set questions...

Here broad goals or individual learning outcomes are defined (in a document of 2-3 pages) from the beginning, and they include academic, behavioral, social and physical outcomes. The outcomes are defined in such a way that teachers can easily collect data on each, which they use for evaluating the results of each student's learning. There is a continuous focus on finding better ways to reach the broad goals by focusing through out the year on teaching objectives and how they can be changed so as to better reflect the class curriculum. Cooperation with parents and experts is built in to this program, and general teachers are enlisted to participate in the inclusion process.

The work methods in this particular compulsory school have gained support from parents. Sigrún said that the biggest problem with the IC approach is how time consuming the preparation and meetings are, and how some of the general teachers at the school have problems with that. From the point of view of the disabled students, Sigrún is positive about the results, even though she said that the process could be made to work better. She gave an example:

Sigrún: This [disabled] student has many good friends in his class. His personality is such that it is easy to love him, and his classmates rely do love him. They make sure that he takes part in everything that is going on, and show interest in what he is doing. He is the kind of student who really belongs in an inclusive class, even though he is a really difficult student.

Q: ??

Sigrún: He is really difficult because of how slow he is [at learning things]. He benefits a lot from the company. It is unbelievable. He has moved far, by being with all these other [ordinary] guys. He is for example always with them on the breaks. He benefits unbelievably from that.

Q: But?

Sigrún: But we also have [disabled] students who pinch and even bite. ...A student who does not know how to behave, he will always be difficult. Luckily, we manage to tone such behavior down... We put a lot of emphasis on helping them to shape their behavior.

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Sigrún is the only teacher mentioned by the young disabled people in my sample who works systematically at inclusion (with part of her colleagues). Because this school accepts that teachers have different ideologies and different approaches to teaching and learning, its’ organizational structure is flexible, and school administrators encourage cooperation between likeminded teachers and teacher initiative. The organization of this school can be fitted under what Tetler calls “Den Rummelige Skole” (Tetler, S. 2000). Much less flexibility of this kind appears to be available in upper secondary schools.

Creating an Oasis in the Midst of the SchoolÞorsteinn also works in a small country town, but at the upper secondary school level. He has worked as a teacher for 25 years and added to his skills by obtaining a diploma in special education. He has been the department head for a special education department in a medium sized upper secondary school for some years. He has built the department up from scratch and is very proud of his work. Upper secondary schools can refuse to admit students who cannot cope with the academic work, but this upper secondary school is one of the first such schools in Iceland to admit cognitively impaired students. He even managed to get the school to provide his students with a three year special class offer, at a time when the Ministry of Education paid only for two years of upper secondary education for disabled students who were not able to pass ordinary competitive examinations. His approach to special education is almost directly opposite from that of Sigrún’s. The school is allowed to reject applicants. Students who cannot help themselves using the bathroom, eating and with other such basic activities of every day life, have been rejected because:

Þorsteinn: We do not have technical aids and such things, and no specialized classrooms. Our students use the same or similar classrooms as do general students.... In reality we can only take strong disabled students...We have rejected probably three students this year who are very much handicapped...

His dream is to be able to create a more technically equipped special department.

Þorsteinn: We think it is good to build up the possibility of admitting all disabled upper secondary school students from the area [in our school]. Therefore I think it is a good idea to make such a department here with the staff and facilities that are necessary...

Q: ??

Þorsteinn: That is what I want to happen. While that has not been done, I am not sure I want typical students come in here much, into the facilities we have now. ...We need of course better classrooms, a training room and mattresses, and everything that is necessary to provide these kids with the services they need. Further, this should be ... separate, so that the kids are not wronged. They need to be in private… They should be able to come to the generic part of the school and do their work there when it suits them...

The admission process follows a certain defined procedure.

Þorsteinn: Applications must arrive no later than in December the year before [we are to admit the student]. No later and if the student is very different, then we want to know even earlier. We have written to all the compulsory schools in our area and asked them to contact us as early as possible.

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Q: And??

Þorsteinn: Some phone us two years in advance and ask for information. Lets say that a [compulsory] school contacts us by December 1st, then we always begin by inviting the prospective student and his teacher to come and visit us and see what we do. His teacher must accompany the student, at least on his first visit. Sometimes we invite former students to show them around.

Q: Well?

Þorsteinn: Then we get the prospective student to come again, even accompanied by his parents if they want to. By springtime the student has at least visited us twice. We [the special teacher, helpers and the disabled students] go out for coffee or on a trip the last day of school. We invite prospective students to join us for that.

Þorsteinn has circumscribed student admission by a set of bureaucratic rules, but he is less keen on paperwork when it comes to planning teaching and learning within the special class. He said that he tries to keep the paperwork and meetings down to a minimum. He asks the previous schools for a profile of each new student's work in advance. He also requests information about the books the student worked with in 10th

grade, "that is if the student is able to work with books at all ".

Þorsteinn: It is our rule that the students have to attend at least 16 hours a week, if they are to be admitted to the department.... Then the timetables are processed in the same way as other timetables at the school.

Q: Well?

Þorsteinn: Then I go to - I think there are about ten general teachers who teach them [in the special department]. I have put a lot of emphasis on getting teachers from the general school to teach them some courses. I do this so that my students get to know more teachers and so that more teachers get to know our work here. I of course supervise each teaching unit, each subject.

He expressed a certain distrust of professional expertise. He said:

I am the only special educator here and we have asked certain general teachers...teachers who are interested. We do not have a physiotherapist or an ergo-therapist, nobody with such knowledge. I am a little concerned, even though it may sound a little cold to say it so bluntly, of the [belief in?] professional expertise here.

He does not believe in doing IEP´s for his students and is not compelled to do so at upper secondary school level, but teaches as much as possible individually according to what he believes to be each student’s needs. He admitted that he did not know how to write an IEP.

Þorsteinn: We do not use IEP´s. I will say it here very clearly. My main goal, and that is what I tell the teachers who come in here to work,...my main goal is that the students feel good with us...I don't want to push the students into doing what they do not want to do...

Parents are invited to a meeting as a part of the admission process just before school starts. He explained:

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I talk to parents about what they want, but not many parents have come and said "I want this, not that". The students themselves have not much [ability?] to chose something not listed on offer. There is space on the selection paper for subjects not listed. Hardly anyone uses that...

In general, parents are not encouraged to participate much in the day-to-day schoolwork.

Þorsteinn: Once a term ... the students bring their parents or guardian, we discuss what the student selects [of available subjects] for the next term, or anything else about the school. I meet the parents with their kids, at least once a term, and then we may talk on the phone...

Individual students are given different tasks to do in class, different course material, aimed at their abilities, they may all sit together and study the same subjects, or they may work in a couple of groups. Sometimes a few typical students are invited to come into the department as helpers. They are paid for this by getting one or two extra credits, depending upon how many hours a week they give to such supports. The teachers evaluate the student's performance while teaching, and give them their results in the form of numbers on a scale from 0 to 10, as the Upper secondary school law (Lög um framhaldsskóla. (Breyting á lögum nr. 57/1988). 1996) prescribes, accompanied by written notices. He explained:

They [the students] get grades at the end of each term, they are graded with numbers like other students at the school, because they only understand numbers [in grades]. We have an agreement that, that is open and over board. [It is that]... it is forbidden to grade anyone below 5 [on a 0-10 scale a grade below 5 means that the student has failed a test]. People are not allowed to fail here.

This teacher likes to have control over his department. He has worked hard to gain admission and acceptance for himself and “his students” in the school, where book learning and academic abilities are highly rated. Once a disabled student has been admitted, Þorsteinn, focusing on “making the students feeling good”, protects individual students in a paternalistic way. The somewhat astonishing window dressing of giving students grade marks, that every one knows are not based on formal exams and competition like those of non-disabled students at the school, is an indication of such paternalism. It seems that the teacher’s idea is to make the students feel good, but in effect these grades stigmatize a disabled student even further, because every one, including the student, knows that these marks are “not for real”. By keeping his students in the oasis in the school, their access to the school community, friends and former classmates was restricted, as was their opportunities to form broad relationships with typical peers.

Starting from Scratch - Steps towards Group InclusionMany special educators in upper secondary schools are carving out a space within the school communities, for the newly admitted disabled students. Gísli and his two subordinate teachers, Sólveig and Erla, work in a large urban upper secondary school in the north of Iceland. Gísli is the head of special education for non-disabled students, and the department head of the new special education department for students labeled cognitively disabled. He and his two colleagues, have been working together for a year. Before his two colleagues joined the upper secondary school, there were many difficulties. Resources, skill, and experience were lacking in the special education

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department. That year, Gísli had refused some students admission on the basis of their "lack of abilities" to benefit from the program. He explained that so:

I felt that these students [that were rejected] needed a different program. I felt this simply by looking at them and observed... They were on a different plain all-together compared to the other kids, they needed a different...

The parents of these particular students reacted sharply to the rejection, and the matter was brought to the attention of the Minister of Education. This and the fact that cooperation with the staff at the Ministry of Education was at the time difficult and time consuming created further problems.

Gísli, (whose work has become more administrative), hired Erla when the problems due to the parents' protests died down. Erla had worked for over twenty years at compulsory schools. She studied special education, and has worked both as a general teacher and as a special teacher for so called "slow learners", and taught disabled adolescents, before she was offered her upper secondary school job.

Despite her degrees as a certified compulsory school general educator and a special education teacher, she was first hired as a paraprofessional. That was changed later.

Erla said that she applied for the job because she hoped it would be a challenge and a chance to learn new things. Her knowledge and experience helped her to take charge of the special class that was entrusted to her.

I discovered when I changed school [level], how much experience I have gained. It is healthy to realize that I have not stagnated. I know a great deal...[a little later] the students are in school, ...they have not turned up to draw and color pictures… to pass the time. When I go in to the class I am working, they are there to learn...

Erla's special class was assigned three teachers. Erla started by picking Sólveig, a certified compulsory school teacher, because of her experience in working with both disabled and typical students. Sólveig was also employed as a support person, a status that could not be changed. Erla described her so:

She is not my assistant, she is my equal. She does wonderful work.

The third person on the team was the elderly teacher with her credentials in order, but no experience in working with cognitively disabled youths. Other general teachers cooperated with them from time to time, and a developmental therapist was later added on for support. Next came the task to admit students, develop age appropriate teaching material and create the structure of teaching and learning for a group of graduates from a special school. Erla explained:

I did this as I would have done in my old [compulsory] school. I observed how each student was in ability. I looked at their reading and math and writing ability, and how they could express themselves. This was necessary to figure out what I could demand from them. Then I started to work, and to find projects that I thought they could cope with. I started with the easy activities, discovered what they could do, when you have taught for a long time you are quick to discover

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students ability. Then I made sure that they stayed on task, that they keep working, that they have projects they can cope with...

Ad hoc meetings with students' parents were on the agenda throughout this process. The cooperation with the other teachers on the team were not without problems at first, the older upper secondary school teacher felt uneasy working with compulsory school teachers and disabled students, but Erla was supported by her superiors. Erla's goal was to teach her students both academic subjects, in order to improve their basic reading, writing and mathematics, teach them to make use of community resources, and to integrate them into school life and eventually into their communities. The process of including the disabled students ( graduates from the special compulsory school) into the mainstream at the school community started with supporting them in using generic facilities of the school like the communal dining room and the school shop. Erla explained it so:

They tend to behave in a childish manner, run around the generic area and such like. We help them correct that...They began to use the little sweet shop up stairs. . ...They needed to learn to behave and to use communal facilities.

The disabled students are taught academic and other subjects such as home economics, art and craft, drama and sports in the special class. General teachers from the school provide some of the courses. One of Erla's students studies two foreign languages in general class. Erla described that so:

She is not good at reading and writing but she has the "ear" for languages... My student is in seventh heaven when she comes out of these classes.

Sólveig, the second teacher on the teem, said:

Sólveig: I find a great change in my students from when I started working with them.

Dóra: In what way?

Sólveig: They are much more socially able now. They have opened up. At first, they stayed in the special classroom or immediately around it, but then this one girl, Perla, did not want that. She started to go up stairs. She found the grill that the students use …, so of course she began to use it. She had her lunch there and started talking to the other students … Gradually the other [disabled] kids came with her...I encouraged this and soon most of our class sat at the tables in the dining area, had their lunch and talked to other students....Now most [of the students in the special classes] walk around the school like the other kids and talk with them.

Sólveig hoped that her students would become included in the future. She said:

Sólveig: Well this is an upper secondary school. The teachers don't know how to handle these [disabled] kids. That is that, and the upper secondary school teachers say that they would not feel able to teach these kids. Many say that. Others might dare to do it, but then the question arises, how are they to do it?

These teachers worked very hard at building a special class in order to educate their students separately and to include them in the school community. The teachers defined their task as that of supporting the disabled students both as a group and as individuals,

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and teaching them to participate in school life. This is the only example in this study of teem teaching and systematic attempts at “group inclusion” into the community of the school.

The Clinical ExpertSævar, a developmental therapist with a wide experience in working with disabled children, youth and adults was pulled in to plan and carry out special education in a compulsory school in a mixed urban and rural area.6 Part of his task soon became to create a special department for disabled students.

Students were accepted into the special department when parents applied for a placement. Then followed a series of meetings with parents, the principal and assistant principal, former teachers or preschool teachers, and experts. Paperwork, including assessment and test results from the National Assessment Center, was used for planning. The school psychologist was always involved in admittance. Parents plaid a major role both in the admittance process and in planning. Sævar said:

Parents must chose to place their child with us. That is a must. The parents have a choice. I noticed ... that it was the strongest parents who demanded most from us on their children's behalf. May be those parents had the prerequisites to say; "I want my child to have some other option than the special class. Parents who were not so strong socially did not have this...the [guts?] to fight for their child. Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that the special class is a bad option, but frequently a better solution could have been found if the parents had been stronger.

It is interesting that this teacher who worked most consistently within the individual (medical) model of disability, also expressed a clear ambivalence in favor of inclusion. He described the special education placements.

Sævar: When I started we had very limited space [for the special classes] and the large number of [non-disabled students with special learning needs] students [of all ages from preschool to upper secondary school ages]. Some went to many general classes, others had their [general] home class but came to the special class for additional support. Sometimes we added the support on in the typical classes, but at times the circumstances were not ...[favorable]..

Q: But??

Sævar: The special department was well equipped compared to what I have seen in other such departments. There were times when we could have used a more private room for students with behavior problems who were very trying for the other students...but kids are unbelievably quick to adapt. Somehow these kids mostly stopped disturbing the others...

Each disabled student had an IEP. After the initial meetings with parents, experts and relevant teachers an IEP was written, where objectives and goals were carefully described. Sævar planed inclusion of disabled students in typical classes and used art and craft classes and sports. He also planed the disabled students' participation in the school's extra curricular social life. Disabled students who spent some or most of their time in general classes were equipped with work projects from the special department.

6 This teacher was also responsible for the special education of 64 students who were in general education.

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Sævar: We had many severely handicapped learners. They got appropriate study materials to suit their ability, as did others in the [general] classes...They had Icelandic when the others had Icelandic, and maths when the others had mats, just suitable tasks for them..

Q: Yes?

Sævar: Some did well in the school social life. It just depended on them, their personalities just like it is with typical kids. Some coped very badly, they were so very different and demanding, and sometimes the [typical] kids had had enough. Others, like Paul, he is everywhere at home… They are in this just like the healthy kids, if I can use that word...

Q??

Sævar: Sometimes people say that [the disabled students] they should not be all together -but they are friends...I don't think it bad that they are not struggling with interactions with some other folks.

Sævar described how he equipped the disabled students who were partly or largely in typical classes, and how he found it a problem not to be able to send support persons in with them to all lessons. He found that some of the disabled students who had formally been in general education settings had problems adjusting to a special class and being accepted there. It was difficult to find general teachers willing to include the students from the special department. Sævar explained:

[A few years ago] the problem was that [general] teachers were afraid to take our kids. I felt that many teachers were really terrified. They found it difficult to have the paraprofessional persons in their classes, they wanted just to be left alone with their class. .. We did not want to have to go down on our knees in front of teacher after teacher, in order to beg them to accept our students...

Sometimes when a general teacher accepted disabled students into the class, he saw it as the special teacher's responsibility to deal with their education. Sævar said that things were improving and the younger teachers were better skilled and more able to teach in mixed ability groups than the older teachers.

Sævar experienced a positive political will from his superiors to support disabled students in school, but this was not backed up by informed ideology.

Sævar: No body asked if this [admitting all the disabled students who were suddenly able to apply] should be done. We just did it. It has always been a very positive attitude…As long as we did not knock on their doors, and as long as nobody complained about us, they simply let us get on with it..

In this school, the special teacher, supported by experts, used his own judgment as to who should be included in typical classes, where, when and how often, and who should be placed solely in special classes. Strong parents could influence such decisions. However, disabled students, who had less involved parents, and who made extensive use of the local special social service system, worried Sævar . A few of the most significantly impaired students were moved from one type of services to the next on a daily or weekly basis. One of his students had according to him, more or less "lived in a suitcase for the past three years".

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Sævar : Imagine, when we send them off ... some get on the bus to spend the week end at the respite home, or unfamiliar women come to pick them up [for the support families], or a support person comes to bring them to a different place in town to wait for their parents to pick them up ... in the evenings... Things change constantly for some of them...these kids are unbelievably adaptable. But of cause, I don't always know how they are feeling. It is not always easy to read how disabled kids are feeling...

Sævar was deeply committed to his students’ well being. What was unique in his department was that there, no one was turned away from the school, no matter how significant his or her impairment. One of his biggest concerns was how to get more general teachers to cooperate in including labeled students into general education classes.

I Do My Best to Keep Him Occupied Jónas, is an assistant principal in a small compulsory school in the countryside. He and the principal have worked closely together for many years, and they know personally all the students and their parents, and more likely than not, they taught most of the parents too, when they were at school. This is a common situation in many rural and village schools. He said:

We of course know everyone very well personally. We share classes allot, the individuals are together so each and every one of us knows exactly how every one else is doing. We keep track. It is easy to co-teach when there are so few students. Those who are at the same level in for example Icelandic, can be taught together..

The school approaches the learning and behavior problems of some non disabled students in two ways, by providing extra teaching in subjects where particular students are seen as slow, and by sending “slow learners” out to work part-time, a method that was not uncommon a few decades ago. Disabled students are recent addition to this school community.

Jónas: We have had surprisingly few disabled students. It is only now, these last few years that such students have come to school. May be the reason is that they were not dealt with here before... I think they stayed at home and then I know that some of them were sent to the institution. We had nothing to do with them here.

He described the education of the disabled student, who recommended that this teacher should be interviewed.

Jónas: I cannot remember how many hours a week he was here [in school], but he turned up at certain set times. Perhaps he was a bit in ordinary class, I cannot remember, but he had individual tuition. I think he was in typical class in art and craft lessons.

Q: Why was that?

Jónas: I don't know, may be this was considered the best way of doing this… It went well, he was very positive. We had heard negative things about him. He was at school in another town for a while, and we heard that he could be a little difficult, but we never saw that here. I had him in maths [in individual tuition]...four hours a week.

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He gave a few examples about how he planed and taught this young man during the individual lessons at the teacher's office.

Jónas: Well of cause it was more than maths. It was also Icelandic language, reading. I planed it like this; I had stuff in the computer, but we also used a special textbook in maths for these students who have special problems. [showed the books] ...I did other things too, talked to him.

Q: Well

Jónas: He put in [to the computer] his income, taxes, rent, cost of buying clothes and presents, and his savings too. [This was done with imaginary income]....Then as a long term project [almost all the spring term from January to May] we designed a house. He got a little bored with the house towards the end, but was incredibly glad when he did finally finish it...It was a big task and he had become so bored . ..

These tasks certainly appear to have kept the young man, who was aged eighteen at the time, busy, but it’s practical purpose is unclear. The student's work was evaluated on the basis of his performance. Jónas explained that so:

Jónas: I used of course the social factor as a basis, whether or not he was positive, how he managed to learn new things, whether or not he was cooperative, my interactions with him and his interactions with others, both what I saw and heard and experienced myself. In that way I tried to evaluate him from a professional and social perspective. I think he was really happy here at the school. I felt him to be very positive in all the lessons, no confrontations…The kids were good to him. Nobody picked on him here.

This last comment was surprising, because this student had been transferred for two years to another school in a different town, due to bullying, according to both himself and his parent.

This example gives a picture of a general teacher, who uses traditional education methods and few resources, but gives the disabled student time, conversation and interest. The will to help the student is there, but little attention is paid to the student's special needs, particularly his needs to prepare for adult life and be with peers. He is still in compulsory school despite the fact that he is older than his schoolmates, in a special upper secondary school program on his own. He spends little, if any time in typical classes, and a companionship in a special class is not available either. Jónas felt competent in teaching this student, saw results, and delighted at times in his company, but did not think much about what the students´ education could be for.

They left me to figure it out Not all the teachers interviewed felt that they were able to do their jobs properly or felt empowered to enact changes within special education practices in their schools. Ragnheiður is an example of a teacher who works with disabled students in typical class rooms in a compulsory school, but within a structure that she feels locked into.

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Ragnheiður has worked as an uncertified teacher in a medium sized compulsory schools in a rural town for eleven years. She has had disabled students in her class on a regular basis for the last few years. She explained:

Ragnheiður: People [teachers] seem to reject having such [disabled] students. I think that these are the students who should by right have the best educated teachers. These are often kids with problem behaviors.

Q: And?

Ragnheiður: We have had the whole range of students, from kids with behaviors to “the severely handicapped”. They have sometimes been allowed to tag along with the rest. Now we have at long last hired a special teacher... I do not have very difficult kids any more. There is a special class in school now…

Q: ??

Ragnheiður: The special class is near to my classroom...I let all my students in the 6th form visit them, three and three in a group, to get acquainted with the special class, to know who is there and to prevent conflicts. All my normal kids find this a natural thing to do

She has at the time of the interview, one student with cognitive impairment in her class. She described how she worked with him.

Ragnheiður: First, I want to talk to the people who have been in contact with him. Paperwork tells me very little, even though I can refer to the papers...I talk to parents, former teachers, preschool teachers and developmental therapists or somebody else who has spent time with the child. I think face-to-face communication is very important.

Q: how do you plan your work?

Ragnheiður: I have had three really special students, and now I have two difficult ones. They [not clear who] put down an IEP, we try to adapt it to what the others in class are doing. Of cause it never fits, they cannot participate in everything the others are doing...

She felt that her cooperation with parents of her disabled students had varied and complained that some parents showed no interest.

Ragnheiður: If the parents do not take care of their kid properly it becomes our job. That is the same with all the students. I only want to teach the child, I do not want to bring him up. These "mentally handicapped" kids are of course, if people do not take care of them at home, then we have to clean them up daily, I have had to do that. This is like it is with all kids, parents have to take care of this...

Preparation for teaching is a cooperative effort at this school. The teachers who teach the same year plan the class curriculum together at regular weekly meetings, then each teacher teaches in his or her own way.

Ragnheiður: I think we work well together. But I was alone with my disabled students. At first I tried to keep them in the class, but my superior did not give me support, and no one of the other teachers helped me. People were simply very happy to get rid of these students. I would never accept this treatment today.

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This teacher has no formal training, but many of the qualified teachers, including trained special education teachers, shared her complaints about getting little or no support from colleagues, and being left largely to their own devices to figure our how to include disabled learners.

A voice from the special schoolDagný has worked at a special school in an urban area for fourteen years. Before that she taught many years in general education. She got to know a special school abroad some years earlier, and became interested in having an impact in the education of disabled students. She said that she was drawn to this work because:

Dagný:... there the teachers worked together in close cooperation and felt empathy for each other and the disabled students. This was very different from my former experience. We work together, something I did not know from my general teaching. Here I talk to people about the job, and come into closer social contact with colleagues. The first impact of this cohesion was tremendous

Dagný expressed empathy for her students and their parents. She has worked with the parent association of the school.

Dagný: There I had to take of my teacher’s hat and move into the other [parent] role. There I got to know the pressure that many of the parents of these children have to endure. In a sense I have been able to look at this job from a wider angle.

Q: How?

Dagný: The teachers eyes see the student and the teacher, when I also get the parents perspective I get a wider vision… I would not be there if they [the disabled students] were not there. I can contribute to a certain extent. I think that I am of use to them. I prefer that to trying to experimenting in general schools.

She explained her work.

Dagný: I have to be able to get down to their level. It is a different level, but not any worse than ours. I have to teach them from the perspective of equality. From their level, not from top [status of superiority] down. That way I manage better to get through to them. But at the same time I have to lead them on.

Q: Some students and parents belief that too few demands are put on them. Do you agree with that?

Dagný: This reflects wishful thinking, a desire to be able to do more, know more. This is a normal impression for them, because we are always repeating things. I understand this experience. May be they are right.

Further.

Dagný: I liked to work with the [disabled] adolescents... because; Most of my students had the ability for learning. They had a variety of abilities and my former experiences as a general teacher were put to use. I was good at reaching them, and these students are sincere and receptive. Of cause it is important to work with them… I am a teacher who keeps a certain distance. I would

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never deliberately open up parents [emotions] by asking them about...[their wounds?]. We go through a certain curriculum plan. The parents are much too passive…. All they say is "yes, thank you very much". May be we do not follow this [curriculum plan] through well enough.

Q: But?

Dagný: Many parents are pleased that their child gets to school at eight in the morning and returns at six. What happens in between is not important. Many of these children are very difficult, and the school relieves their parents from the pressure during school time...

Dagný, has devoted a lot of her time in cooperation with colleagues, to work out a way of enriching her students experiences and broadening their horizons. The young disabled adults, who pointed Dagný out to me, said that she is much loved by her students. Two of her former students described her as "a very special human being", and as "someone who cared about me and all of us". This teacher devoted a lot of her time, paid and unpaid, to try and include her students in the community.

DiscussionIt is clear from the teachers’ voices that their work methods vary enormously. Some carry out their work according to a careful pre-planed system whether they work in inclusive or segregated environment. Many work almost alone or with unqualified support persons. Still others have been able to pick a few coworkers, including general education class teachers. Most have access to the services of experts from the guidance counselor offices. Most of the teachers, felt supported by their superiors, and most had also access to a few members of staff in other departments. Whether or not the teachers focused on including their students in the mainstream, depended largely upon the their decisions. The teachers' personal values, what they had learnt at university, students or parents wishes, the cooperation and the nature of support from school- or district education specialists, support from superiors and colleagues, all plaid a part in such decisions. Funding was also an issue, but where superiors supported the education of disabled students, there is evidence of creative use of funding.

Most of the special teachers used methods of assessment, planning, teaching and evaluation of individual student's that can be placed under the techniques of the “individual/medical model” of disability. Much effort was placed on teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, ADL skills, behavior management and speech. Some teachers spent a great deal of time on preparing individually tailored teaching material and most spent much time trying to enhance their students range of skills, in the hope of making them overcome as much as possible the attributes of their impairment. Many of the special teachers had as their overall goal to make their students "feel good" in special classes. Still, all the teachers were hopeful, that their disabled students could use their learning in general settings, now or in the future. Most of the teachers in special classes put much effort into preparing their students for school and community inclusion, while teaching them most or all the subjects within segregated settings. Only Sigrún worked systematically at the inclusion of all students in the school and community environment.

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Many of the teachers suggested that general teachers may serve as a barrier to disabled students’ full participation in the school curriculum and school community. Why should this be so? In Iceland, like in many other countries the special classes have been grafted on to general education schools, without making an effort to change the school organizations. Hauge points at this in his discussion of Norwegian special education, and suggests that this form of joining special and ordinary education practices pushes the special classes to become more like the general school, but not the other way around. ((Haug, P. and Tössebro, J. 1998, p. 34-35). General teachers, used to working with a class of students within the general system, are not used to focus on an individual student and his or her special needs in the way a special educator is trained to do. Lack of professional knowledge and understanding of how to work with a very heterogeneous group of students, may partly explain why general teachers tend to be seen as a barrier to inclusion by special teachers.

Tetler, addresses this problem in her analysis of the dilemmas she found in teachers work organization in schools and the hindrances they are likely to cause if left un solved. (Tetler, S. 2000). Another part of such an explanation could be found in the increasing pressures on general teachers to deal with more and more complex education and upbringing of the broad diversity of students who are all ready in general education programs. Further, fear of the unfamiliar and prejudice may also play a part in this, for example believes such as; “that students with disabilities do not belong in schools with regular students” because they disrupt professional class work, or because their needs are seen to be so very taxing and specific that only specialists can deal with them. (Tomlinson, S. 1985)

Education for what?Eight teachers expressed thoughts or concern about what might happen to their disabled students after they left school. The remaining four may very well have done so even though they focused on the school and their own teaching jobs in the interview. Ragnheiður worked in a compulsory school. She said:

This is the first time that I see a class accept it as “normal”, that these students are at the school. They tell me; "This guy cannot read. Why on earth are you asking him?" For them this is simply OK, he cannot read and that is OK …. But I rely worry about them when they enter upper secondary school. There they are not likely to have this support from a class teacher...

Sólveig and Erla spent a lot of their free time planning and lobbying for their students for additional schooling. Erla’s dream was to teach her students more; to use computers, more ADL and to help them explore the world further. She said that she had not thought things through, and that she lacked knowledge of the service system to be able to do so. Sólveig, who knew disability from her own personal life, had thought further ahead: She said:

I want them to become independent and more able to live in society. This is what I think is everyone's goal....I want to see how we can make them more able in society, more self reliant, and even if we can help them find things to do in their spare time and some work. That is the goal of their stay here to get them into work, but they also need to be able to do things outside work…

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Sólveig's greatest worry was that she could not meet their needs in the way she felt was vital for her disabled students. Sævar expressed similar concerns in some detail.

Sævar: [Transition]… is where we manage worst of all. It is a question what happens to these kids when this [final] class is over. We have put a lot of work into moving them on [teaching them], then when they at long last have the opportunity to start working, there are so few opportunities on offer…For example my student Jón. All he gets is a job three hours a week, working for the town. He is really capable of having a regular job with some support, but nothing has come his way as yet, unfortunately. And sometimes, the place called sheltered workshop ... it is not certain that the mentally retarded kids get any work there, because they [the workshop] have to balance the need for profit making and the function of a sanctuary.

Dóra: ??

Sævar: What I find most regrettable of all, something so difficult to have to swallow, is that when they [the disabled people] do not have normal activities to deal with, or too few such activities, they regress very quickly... The parents still have their 24-25 years old children living at home. That is one of the problems. They are still at home when they have reached adulthood. I think, that if they had a place where they could live with a support person, where they could test themselves a bit, then...I think it terribly sad, how bleak their future is...

Eva kept track of what happened to all her students after graduation and many came to see her regularly for years. She said:

Some graduate into nothing at all.

She puts a lot of emphasis upon job training of the students in the special class and supports them as much as she can to seek and keep a regular job. She was proud that some of her students had found jobs, others had been able to move away from home into supported flats, and one of her students was about to graduate from the regular academic department, despite severe sensory disabilities. These successes kept Eva satisfied in her work.

Eva: I celebrate their achievements, but at the same time I ask myself; "Should I have...?" I have made mistakes. Student’s leave, and when that happens I am in doubt. May be I am overprotective. May be I keep them simply in cotton wool, where they feel good...?

Jónas was the only one who said he believed that some disabled people belonged together both at school and after graduation.

Jónas: These students are social and should manage well together in sheltered homes... It is a question, when they are very handicapped, if they do not feel best with others like themselves at school...

Q: ??

Jónas: The inclusive idea is good for those who can manage by themselves, even though people who are more handicapped need different solutions, such as the home at Sólheimar...[the Sólheimar home, is one of the big institutions in Iceland, isolated in the countryside, with proxy. 40 inmates.]

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The teachers are in marked disagreement on whether or not their disabled students belonged as adults in society, outside society in their own world, or somewhere in between. Why this is so ties in with their perspective on disabled people through the lens of “the individual/medical model”, as primarily in need of safety and protection due to their vulnerability as if they were children, or the lens of “the social models”, as future adults in need of support to enable them to embrace their adulthood with a difference and contribute their talent to society. The paradigm they adhered to provided them with both the view of their work and their view on their students’ future. In too many cases, the education provided for disabled students is likely to graduate them on to the waiting lists of daycare institutions or sheltered workshops or continuous programs of the adult special education service. Some join the services on offer for disabled people and are provided with work, or work-like activities and company. But there are also stories of students with severe impairment, who have graduated from a upper secondary school (or university), and stories of a group of students in a special class most of whom will have found work upon their graduation, due to a successful transition program initiated and supported by parents and teachers. These stories are fewer, but provide teachers with inspiration.

Teaching draws meAlmost all the teachers in the research expressed their pleasure at working with their labeled students, even though Sævar who was at a crossroad in his personal life and thus looking back elaborated his gratitude to his students and their parents, most eloquently.

Sævar: I would not have missed this for the world, because this has been unforgettable, and enjoyable, simply a wonderful time. From my point of view this time in the special department has been the best time of my working life. The people [disabled students] who were there, all demanding, all different...the time with them, this odd bunch, has been great. It has also been an experience to get to know the parents experiences, what it means to have a disabled child, and see all these walls [the parents] they have to run up against, walls that do not exist for us who are healthy. I think that this experience will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Most of the teachers embraced the challenges of their profession, despite feeling at times of being somewhat outside in general schools . Many loved their jobs, like Erla who said:

Teaching draws me. When you have worked as a teacher the job pulls at you. This takes up my mind, my thought...I think I will rather be a broke teacher, rather than sit at a computer all day ...

Most were interested in including their students within the world of general work and within society at least after their graduation, and felt concerned about their future prospects. Still, it seems that the teachers who stayed within “the individual/medical model” were firm believers in segregating their students at school in order to include them later.

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ConclusionThe data suggests that the teachers are amongst the most important gatekeepers for disabled youth in their approaching adulthood, but also amongst their most important allies. Teachers, who focused on enabling their disabled students to become included in general education curriculum and school community settings, supported them on their journey on the rouged highway of society (group A). Teachers, who segregated their disabled students in order to make them fit the school's, or special department's bureaucratic structure, or because they believed that disabled students belonged together, or to prepare them for future societal inclusion, encouraged the disabled students to proceed along the special lane (group C) leading to the segregated world of disability. The teachers working for group inclusion can be said, at best, to be trying to gain their students a foot hold on both roads. The students heading for nomading in the wilderness (group B) had a variety of teachers, some of whom included them in general education classes, others who were less amenable to such inclusion.

The data derived from the interviews with the chosen teachers can be organized on a sliding scale slanting from paternalism towards, but not all the way to indifference. (Kirkebæk, B. 2002), and from inclusion towards exclusion.

The chosen teachers shared concern for their students; breaking their isolation, helping them maintain their current social networks, and making them “feel good”. For most, it was of secondly concern to provide each and every student with active membership in society and to provide them with excellent and marketable education. This must be understood in the light of the severely limited job opportunities for persons labeled with disabilities on the Icelandic job market and the existing exclusive service system.

General Educators as a hindrance?The special teachers reported problems in involving general teachers in their efforts to include disabled students in the school curriculum. This is widely reported in the literature. (See for example: (Biklen, D. and Bogdan, R. 1985), (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G. and Sampson, N.K. 2002). It is important to ask: How far this can be explained in terms of general teachers’ work methods and the school organization, and how far is it a matter of attitude?

The evidence from the data and from the current literature suggests, that exclusive processes (Booth, T. 1995) that affect both special educators and their students are a part and parcel of the general school and class organization, reinforced by the structure of the wider general education system. (see for example (Ainscow, M. 1991), (Haug, P. and Tössebro, J. 1998), (Dyson, A. 1997), (Tetler, S. 2000). This relates back to the dual system of the organization of special and general education, funding, external demands of competitive examinations, and traditional manner of organizing general education. The hindrances are built into the general education curriculum We have learnt that effective and appropriate education for all should be approached from the general education system. It is ineffective to graft individual disabled students or groups of such students on to a general education system that remains unchanged. (Haug, P. and Tössebro, J. 1998). It is the general education system, its schools and teachers that must adapt procedures to

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meet diversity of students and teachers. If general education schools are to be expected to meet the broad diversity of students, the organizational structure of general education must be adapted to that goal both from the bottom up and from the top down.

At the level of schools the reflective teachers’ attempts at addressing the dilemmas and hindrances that occur in the flexible schools are one way of proceeding. (Tetler, S. 2000) In this context the nurturing of “team teaching” and the cooperation of “a mixed ability group” of teachers working together, as Ferguson, Ralph and Sampson (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G. and Sampson, N.K. 2002) put it, in “a single multi talented teaching corps” could be a way forward to merge the special and the general teachers methods and professional perspectives at the level of schools and school programs.

The general teachers attitudes have do with the fear of the unknown. Since students with labeled with significant disabilities are for the most part outside general schools, a fear that is based on a stereotypical perception of disabled students’ needs and behaviors. Second, the growing pressures on general teachers in our schools makes most teachers unwilling and unable to add more pressures to their current work load. The promise of sharing the burden in a school where people pool their strengths to reinvent their school aiming for excellence in education for all, and a supportive staff climate, goes a long way to alleviate those fears. (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G. and Sampson, N.K. 2002), (Tetler, S. 2000). This sends the problem of hindrances due to general educators’ attitudes back to the discussion on the organizational structures of schools and the general education system. (see for example Ainscow 1995)

Flexibility within the organization of some Icelandic schools, merging the general and the special education practices is in progress. This, and the fact that disabled students are gradually becoming more visible in general education schools, is likely to dent general educators concerns and fears of students with a difference coming to their classes.

Special educators as gate-keepersThe voices also raise questions about the special educators as gatekeepers. The gate-keeping role of the teachers in the study, is reflected in their somewhat perverted attempts at “doing-god for their students”, without asking their students opinion or due consideration of what such “god-doing” may involve for the student’s learning or his or her social networking. The hindrances that are erected or refurbished by those teachers desire to protect their students, secure their friendships with each other, and provide them with organized communal activities and education, are unintentional consequences of their professional conduct grounded in the “individual model of disability” (Barnes, C., Mercer, G. and Shakespeare, T. 1999), and framed by the organization of the dual systems of general and special education.

Special educators erring towards paternalism, is not a problem that I think they can be expected to deal with alone. The special teachers’ attempts to secure disabled students’ membership and acceptance within the subculture of “the special lane” (Gustavsson, A. 1999), is both understandable and even inevitable in the face of the exclusionary processes of general education (Booth, T. 1995) and a the wider community (Oliver, M.

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1990). Voicing the problem of how to search for a balance between paternalism and indifference is a courageous start (Kirkebæk, B. 2002), but general educators should be invited to part take in that conversation.

There is no one answer to the question, how special teachers can be better supported in their work, nor to the question of how they can be helped to figure out a reasonable balance between paternalism and indifference in their methods, or desires to support vulnerable students on their road to adulthood. Disabled students’ needs for supports wary a great deal, and what one such student may experience as paternalism, disempowerment and disrespect, may be seen as essential form of support to a different student with different needs. Finding such balance is contexted and must be entrusted to professional (general and special) teachers cooperating in educating and supporting each individual student. Of two evils, paternalism is probably better than indifference, because indifference results in neglect and can, if the family- and service support systems fail, lead to life threatening situations for vulnerable people.

Pragmatic changes in school organization (Dyson, A. 1997), (Tetler, S. 2000), (Ainscow, M. 1991), (Ainscow, M. 1995), owned by reflective and cooperative team of special and general educators (Ferguson, D.L., Ralph, G. and Sampson, N.K. 2002), (Tetler, S. 2000) supported by systemic change in administrative structure will fuel inclusive processes and reduce the impact of exclusionary ones. (Booth, T. 1995), (Booth, T. 1996). Such changes are likely to lead many more disabled students to supportive relationships and active participation on the highway of school and society”. Alternatively, segregated special educators and their disabled students, grafted on to unchanged general education schools are likely to fuel further the error of paternalism, which is likely to have the opposite results?

Inclusion is not a goal. I am highly cognizant of Dysons point that school-inclusion is a process, one amongst many, involving different students in more or less involvement in school and community, and with quality of life as its goal. I will, in my concluding chapter discuss what kind of adulthood may await disabled students as they graduate from general or special settings in Icelandic schools. (Dyson, A. 1997)

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