Appropriate education puts the teacher in front of the block
Many teaching staff get stuck in appropriate education, according to 39 case studies that the AOb has collected. Education must go back to basics, say the interviewees: smaller classes and more support staff.
The increasing number of home sitters and the growth of special education show that appropriate education often fails. Nevertheless, education support officer Raymond Hof still believes in appropriate education. At the Expertise Center for Foreign Languages, a public school in Emmen, many hands make light work and appropriate education possible. Hof works with children aged 7-8, from countries such as Syria, China, Ukraine, Poland and Eritrea. Maximum of twenty in a group. The individual guidance of support staff such as Hof means that children with an autism spectrum disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder, who require a lot of extra attention, can also maintain themselves in this class. “Extra important”, says Hof, because the transition to special education is not an option for children with a significant language deficit.”
Teachers burn out
Hof is one of 39 of teachers, support staff, leaders and parents whose case studies AObpolicy officer Roos Bonnemaijers has collected. Hof's positive story is an exception, because appropriate education puts most of the respondents in a daze every day.
'As a teacher you have your back against the wall', writes a teacher in primary education who does not want to be named. 'To cry, really to cry', reports an anonymous colleague who works as a remedial teacher. "Teachers burn out." A colleague standing in front of the class signals: 'Teacher is about to die.'
Locked up
Almost nine years after the introduction of appropriate education, teaching staff and other parties involved are caught between two fires. Needy children on the one hand: they get stuck in regular education due to a shortage of resources. On the other hand, a way out that is increasingly impassable, because despite the growth of special education, referral is an energy-consuming, uncertain and complex path.
After a decade of dragging and pulling, stepped the AOb from the consultation last yearn that the trade unions have with the Ministry of Education about appropriate education. The AOb found insufficient response to his demands and ideas. Yet all is not lost. Because at the end of March, education minister Dennis Wiersma asked the representatives of teachers and parents to draw up a national standard for basic support appropriate education. This should state what kind of guidance schools should offer and what students and parents can expect from schools. The AOb pushed for such a standard for years and is now happy to take up the gauntlet.
“Discussions have stalled at the policy tables,” says Bonnemaijers. “But if you ask educators themselves, they often see solutions. We will therefore continue to make their concerns and wishes clear to politicians.”
The partnership only talks about paper children
The consensus on those solutions is even striking, given the open questions that have been asked. A majority considers smaller classes and more hands in the classroom - read education support staff - as basic conditions for making suitable education a success one day. 'So much time goes into building up files when a child doesn't come along', an anonymous respondent summarizes the current situation. “So many hours that could have just gone to kids. Preparing for lessons. To the base. The groups are too large, the workload would be lower if they were smaller with fewer children in the group who would come into their own better with specialized attention.'
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Teaching assistant Hof knows from experience that it works that way. As an example of appropriate education, he mentions the personal guidance of a ten-year-old boy with a form of autism. He cannot cope with the classical explanation alone, so Hof often sits down with him separately: “Everything has to be predictable. I tell him: this is the purpose of the lesson. Don't open your Chromebook until I'm done with the explanation, and so on. This is how we go through everything step by step. And vice versa: if I take over tasks from the teacher, there is room for him to guide children individually.” This is what 'back to basics' looks like. Not extraordinarily complicated, but exceptional. “I had to fight for my place for ten years,” says Hof. “After I sent a letter to the alderman, I finally got a permanent appointment in 2017.”
School leader Joni Heijboer believes that regular schools should recognize that they cannot handle every challenging student. “The verbal and non-verbal behavior of students sometimes poses insurmountable problems for teaching staff.” Sculpture Herman Engbers
Shy handling
Fair is fair, some respondents do not expect that it will ever be possible to get appropriate education back on track. School leader Joni Heijboer believes that regular schools should recognize that they cannot handle every challenging student. Heijboer is director of the Focus Vocational Academy and the ozhw Groen College, two public schools at the same location in Barendrecht, together with a thousand pre-vocational primary and senior secondary vocational education students. These schools stand for inclusive education, says Heijboer, but they lack the knowledge and opportunities to give all children the chance they deserve.
Some teachers simply lack the expertise
The children are the victims of this, but so are the teaching staff. Heijboer has experienced that teachers came home sick because of the insecurity in the group. “The verbal and non-verbal behavior of students sometimes poses insurmountable problems for teaching staff. Some teachers simply lack the expertise in dealing with children who actually belong in special education.”
In recent years, Groen College has set up small specialized classes of twelve to fifteen students on several occasions, in which attention is not only paid to cognitive skills, but especially to learning behaviour. Heijboer explains: “As few stimuli as possible and very clear, direct individual feedback on what we do and don't want from children. You must do this and you will do it immediately. That works, but in fact you then organize a form of special education as a regular secondary school.” And what if that doesn't work.
Referral
If appropriate education for a pupil goes wrong, the path to special education proves difficult and sometimes impassable, according to the survey of the AOb. 'Referral: much too cumbersome, takes much too long', judges a teacher in primary education. A retired colleague writes: 'Students are assessed by remedial educators, who have never seen the child, from paper.' An internal counselor from the Rotterdam region agrees: 'The partnership only talks about paper children; files prepared by schools. There is no contact with parents and student.'
School director Heijboer recognizes the problems. “The waiting time before children are placed is on average one year. That is after we as a team have made the diagnosis: this is no longer the case here. So we already know in the classroom: it doesn't work and then you still have to enforce children.”
Jan Marijnissen, internal supervisor at sbo De Vliethorst, has seen the waiting lists grow in the region of The Hague for special education clusters 3 and 4. “One of our students who has to go to ZML education is number fifty on the waiting list” , he says. “In any case, I have never experienced anything like this here.”
Marijnissen endorses the essential importance of smaller groups and more hands in the classroom. But he also predicts that shrinking special education is unfeasible even under those conditions: “The performance requirements we impose on children are too high and the variety of problems is too great. We deal with children with autism, ADHD, ZMOK, ZMLK, TOS, gifted people, physical disabilities and so on. The aim to bring all those children together in one school is wonderful. This also works in a country like Canada, where much more is invested in inclusive education than here. But it is precisely at such an inclusive school that you will need a lot of specialists to support all those children. That requires a lot more money and manpower.”
Read the letter from the AOb and CNV to the House of Representatives.
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