Special Education Referral Process at my school

  I'd like to start of by saying that this project was very challenging for me because not only did I have to overcome the language barrier that exists here in Korea but the fact that the special educators at my school had very little to spare to sit down and answer my questions this week( I got only 30 minutes or their time). I'm sure things would have gone much more smoothly if this was done back home in Canada! With the help of my co-teacher I was able to get at least some questions answered with regards to how they handle special needs students at our school.


  First a little background information about the special needs students at my school.
There are presently seven students that receive special services. Three students have various degrees of mental retardation, one is bound to a wheelchair due to a form of cerebral palsy, two have a mild form of autism, and the last one has some emotional/behavioral issues. There are several others who the special needs teachers said have ADHD but they don't really deal with them. There was this one really sad case in my school where this one student was given medication for some issue he was having, I don't recall exactly the problem but I assume ADHD, but he went from being a very active student to one who just slept the whole day in class, everyday. It was the saddest thing to see. As a foreign teacher, I don't have much of a say at how things are run. But that issue should have been addressed by someone!!

 There are presently 2 special educators at my school. Their duties are to help those individuals with their classwork and to make sure they are paying attention and not creating a disturbance in class. The only problem with this is that there are not enough special educators for the number of special needs students we have. Since our school believes in inclusion, the students are spread throughout all classes and not just placed all in one. This leads to some special needs not having a special educator with them during the class which leads to many issues. Most teachers at my school have very little training when it comes to dealing with students with special needs. From my experience at this school, and others, the teachers will just leave the student do what they want to do.Those students will not actually be following the lesson the other students are studying. As for me, I have seen some special needs students running around the class, screaming, hitting others when there is no special-ed teacher around. When I teach my class, my English co-teacher (not the homeroom teacher) is always present. She too has little experience dealing with these students. I too have little experience so I really don't think I'm doing a great job dealing with them. I usually ask the special needs teacher what are the students' interests and then I try to provide something for the students to do during the class. For example, one likes to draw so I prepare coloring worksheets. Another likes to do "word searches" so I give him some to do. I know this isn't the best way, but it does keep the individual occupied and I can focus on teaching the remainder of the class. I know my focus should be on trying to get them involved during the English class but its hard enough trying to keep the other 29 students in line. We have tried to ask the special educator to attend the English classes as well but sometimes they are not available.

  Although our school believes in inclusion, I don't believe it is full inclusion because the special needs students also spend a part of their day in the special needs classroom where they get extra help. There, the students are taught one on one or in very small groups. They also have different activities that they do that involve moving their bodies.

  So now to discuss my very brief interview with one of the special-ed teachers at my school. I first asked about how the special-ed system is here in Korea. She said that the program is still fairly new and that the government is working hard to make sure that the special-ed teachers are well trained and that there are enough of them to meet the needs of all special-ed students. She acknowledged that our school was lacking in the number of special-ed teachers and that they were slightly overwhelmed with work. She said that they don't have very strict guidelines with regards to how they teach but they can do what they feel is proper when it comes to the special needs students education. I asked whether they have IEP's or RTI's for each of the students but she said no. To be honest, I'm sure they have something established like that but maybe that was lost in translation (not very easy doing an interview  through a translator who doesn't have the best English skills)

 My second question was about how they identify students who may need special help. She said that that is the responsibility of the homeroom teacher. Once she is told, then she will approach the student and conduct an interview to see whether or not there is a true problem. If there is something of concern, she will then contact the parents and they will discuss the issue along with the homeroom teacher. She told me though that some parents really don't like to admit that there is a problem with their child and just want their kids to continue the same kind of education hoping the problem will go away. Ignorance is bliss?

 Seeing that the responsibility lies on the homeroom teacher to identify a special need student  I asked one of them about that. I asked her what are some of the signs that would lead to her thinking that a student may need special help. Unfortunately, there are no screening tests here at my school to identify possible candidates so the onus is on the teacher. She said one obvious thing is behavior, although not all kids with behavior problems need special help, this could be an indicator that the student may need some extra support. The other things is to observe whether a kid has problems with regards to speech,cognitive or motor skills. The other thing is looking for emotional problems in a student. If they are overly shy, withdrawn from the class or cry very easily. There is one student in my 4th grade who clearly has emotional problems. Anytime she makes a mistake, loses a game, or doesn't get her way she will explode in a torrent of tears. I personally think that this is something that should be addressed but my co-teachers do not think so. They think she will grow out of it. I asked whether homeroom teachers have differentiated lesson plans and she said no. They teach the same thing to everyone, the same handouts, the same tests etc. As you can see, this is not the best way to go about teaching students of various levels. I guess in that respect, Korea is a little behind the times.


 Overall, I think that the needs of special-ed students here in Korea are slowing improving. It is not great but it has come a long way since I first got here. When I first started here 10 years ago, there were no special-ed teachers in any of my schools. There were also no students with special needs in any of my classes. Inclusion is a great concept and one that can be beneficial for both parties (although in some cases inclusion may not be appropriate). The special needs students can benefit from this because they can be integrated socially with their peers.They can create friendships that would not have been possible otherwise, and their peers can act as role models through their social interactions. As for the non-disabled student, they can grow an appreciation and acceptance for those who are different then them. They can also learn how to work with people with varying degrees of abilities. Patience is learnt because you have to go at their speed. I believe the future of special education is on the right track here. As with everything, time will tell. Good luck KOREA!! 화이팅!