Special Educational Needs Provision in England 1870 to Present - Essay Example

?SENPRO Since the late 19th century, the outlook towards with special educational needs (SEN) has changed in Britain, with more social services and inclusion type programs becoming available throughout the 20th and 21st centuries to equalize treatment of these children and provide equalized opportunity. At the same time, history has seen a lessening of institutionalization and a greater degree of programs that have been designed to mainstream SEN students to live a productive life among their peers as contributory members of society, rather than isolating them. Today “All teachers should expect to teach children with special educational needs and all schools should play their part in educating children from their local community, whatever their background or ability. Training for teachers, appropriate funding for schools and improvements in the way their achievements are judged is vital” (SEN, 2010). Although training is not always equalized, significant progress has been made. In 1870, the Elementary Education Act was established by Liberal MP William Forster started to standardize education, and “made provision for the elementary education of all children aged 5-13 and established school boards to oversee and complete the network of schools and to bring them all under some form of supervision” (Education, 2010). However, at the time, SEN children were often seen as a blight on society, better isolated in institutions rather than mainstreamed with their peers. Theoretically, there has been a change in terms of how special needs and handicapped children are treated by educational and healthcare systems since. Unfortunately, special education programs are a recent phenomenon and parents, teachers, and other professionals therefore should know that special group programs only began to become widespread in the latter half of the twentieth century, as the public perception of institutions began to change and the government began to shift the parameters used for classifying disabilities. At the beginning of the 20th century, some accountability for SEN children had started to creep into the legislation, albeit not in a very strongly worded way. “Not surprisingly, therefore, the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act of 1899 empowered - but did not require - school boards to provide for the education of mentally and physically defective and epileptic children” (Education, 2010). As the 20th century progressed, a shift towards group programs became more popular, especially for high-functioning disabled student individuals, and special education services became more widespread as well, leading to a decrease in the number of functioning individuals with disabilities being constrained to home or institutional life. This gradually progressive process is spoken of in terms of deinstitutionalization as well as socialization and inclusion. As one thinker notes, “It is not fully clear who among the deinstitutionalized population would have been the long-stay patients in earlier areas” (Special, 2007). Often the process of institutional facility offered by long-stay programs is impaired by the perception that these programs keep socially maladjusted individuals from encountering problems in a complex outside world that is often defined by the same sense of boundary offered. During the first half of the twentieth century, before more environmentally inclusive programs were offered, many individuals were constrained in adolescence and held well into middle age. In many circles, prevailing wisdom still seems to state that psychotherapy is an appropriate treatment method. But the number of group therapy patients has combined with many private-sector programs which can differ from state to state and region to region, in terms of prevalence. After the first World War, “Lloyd George set about an ambitious programme of post-war social reform: the national insurance scheme was extended to cover almost all workers, old age pensions were doubled, local authority house building programmes were subsidised, and in 1919 the Ministry of Health was established” (Education, 2010). At the same time, SEN services were expanded. It is important to keep in mind that everyone learns in different ways. Some people are auditory learners; others are visual. The lesson that can connect with all types of learners is the one that is most respectful of diversity in the classroom environment and the openness to try new things and get along with everyone. The use of student- centered activities tends to break up the monotony of the teacher providing all the cues, and encourages active student participation as well as diversity in lessons. This may be a positive aspect of the approach which has emerged in late 20th and early 21st century England, in which SEN students are treated more equally to their peers in terms of potential and opportunity. "Both research and anecdotal data have shown that typical learners have demonstrated a greater acceptance and valuing of individual differences, enhanced self-esteem, a genuine capacity for friendship, and the acquisition of new skills," according to Long Term Effects of Inclusion, from the ERIC Clearing House on Disabilities and Gifted Education” (Special, 2007). The learning tools need to be detailed and well balanced. Students can be actively encouraged to differentiate and provide their own definitions. The relationship between perceptions of special needs and culture is reciprocal. For example, as mentioned, throughout much of the twentieth century, there was a focus in the culture and in educational delivery on isolation and institutionalization of the student as being the only effective route towards learning. In the present, as the culture in the UK as well as globally has become more progressive, people are more likely to see mainstreaming and inclusion as effective means towards positive outcomes. Also as the understanding of SEN changes over time, there is more of a tendency towards pharmacological interventions in the society, and this is reflected in delivery as well. There are also more protections in the culture for those with special needs in recent years. “Under human rights instruments one has a right to bodily integrity and to be protected from violence. All human rights are 'universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated'; these rights may not be abrogated simply because one is not cognitively able to function without help or to speak” (Jordan and Dunlap, 2001). Students’ rights was not as significant issue in the culture in the past, and this has been reflected in delivery. Today there is a growing movement for the integration of these individuals into productive roles into society through assisted living, independent living, and other alternatives stressing independence and empowerment of the disabled individual. This is sometimes known as the respective eras of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization in respect to individuals with developmental disabilities and how society views them. “The White Paper Educational Reconstruction (1943) contained a chapter devoted to children's health and welfare. Handicapped children were dealt with in two sentences: 'Provision for the blind, deaf and other handicapped children is now made under Part V of the Education Act 1921. This part of the Act will require substantial modification” (Education, 2010). Although this statement may still ring true today in some ways, in others, it is undeniable that great progress has been made. REFERENCE Jordan, B., and Dunlap, G. (2001). Construction of adulthood and disability. Mental Retardation, 39(4), 286-96. Special education—inclusion (2007). Education World. Education in England (2010). http://www.educationengland.org.uk/history/chapter03.html SEN (2010). http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/sen/ Read More