Session Information
11 SES 14 A, Quality Assurance in Adult Education in Latvia
Panel Session - 2 Book Chapters
Contribution
Since the begging of the 20st century, theoreticians, pedagogies, and educational leaders around the world claimed that education should be available for all and present a sample of the society. Therefore, they have developed variety of theories and approaches in regard to the ways inclusion can be practice. At the beginning of the 20th century, Dewey, an American theorists, claimed that schools should present society and prepare all students to be part of the society around them. On the same time, Vygotsky, a psychologist from the Soviet Union, published his theory that child development is upon the social interactions or lack of interactions with his society members. Years later, during the 1970th, Feuerstein, a psychologist that studies in Europe and continued his work in Israel, developed the Mediated Learning Experience theory. According to that theory, every child can cognitively change and develop if proper human mediation will be conducted. He also claimed that in order to allow proper mediation and efficient cognitive development, all children should learn together and no exclusion should be allowed within the educational field.
The main link of these approaches and others (Ainscow et.al., 2008) to the inclusion process in schools is the understanding that the first step all education processes should make is to create an environment that will welcome all learners and only then to assess and define the special needs of each, if needed to develop adapted curricula. Nevertheless, understanding the important role and the need for assessments of academic achievements of all learners, lead to the development of differential assessments that allows better inclusion.
In Israel, the first inclusion law and its extension (1988; 2002) determined the establishment of integration and placement committees and their way of action. These committees were active inside regular schools and among the local authorities. Their role was to decide whether children with special needs are entitled to special education and their placement in special educational institutions (Avisar, 2010). After 30 years (February 2018) an amendment to the original law was conducted. The main decisions regarding the setting of the child's educational institution will be decided by his parents. This was decided after many years of studying the importance of including the families through the whole process (Test, Mason, Hughes, Konrad, Neale, & Wood, 2004 ; Timor & Burton, 2007). As a result, the arrangement of the integration and placement committees has to change. This change is not only a technical change but rather an essential one. Beyond the fact that this is a radical change, it contains a numerous of implications: Semantical, organizational, economical and pedagogical. Whereas there is no doubt about the importance of the changes, educators must pay careful attention throughout the process (Armenta & Beckers, 2006).
The current manuscript is designed to promote the understanding of the direct implications that the new inclusion policy in elementary Israeli schools contains and on the ways and goals of assessment that must be adapted. While training teachers, variety of pedagogy approaches are taught along with practicing variety of assessments that can be proceed in schools by all teachers. Therefore, we will pay attention on the teachers training programs that must change respectively to the changes of the inclusion laws.
References
Ainscow, M. & Miles, S. (2008). Making education for all inclusive: Where next? Prospects, 38, 15-34. Armenta, T. & Beckers, G. (2006). The IEP: How to meet its demands and avoid its pitfalls. Principal Leadership, 6(9), 22-27. Avishar, G. (2010). Inclusion and accessibility: Curriculum planning for students with disabilities. Tel-Aviv: Mofet Institute (Hebrew). Test, D.W., Mason, C., Hughes, C., Konrad, M., Neale, M. & Wood, W. M. (2004). Student involvement in individualized education program meeting. Exceptional Children, 70(4),391-412s The Israeli special education law (1988): (Hebrew) The Israeli inclusion law (2002): https://www.nevo.co.il/Law_word/law14/LAW-1876.pdf (Hebrew) Timor, T. & Burton, N. (2007). Physical inclusion yet curriculum exclusion? School staff perceptions of the curriculum for students with learning disabilities in mainstream secondary schools in Tel Aviv, Israel. Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education: Wright State University, 2, Edition 1.
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