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englishlanguagecenterkualal-blog · 7 years ago

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Whither Education - An Apathy

Even after half-a-century of Indian Independence, the fate of schooling, educators and students has barely improved. The apathy of the energy that be, for example a large section of society, hasn't changed when it comes to human resource development and schooling. Even now there are more than four crore educated jobless youths in India.

India boasts of becoming world's third awareness power but efficiently this is the lowest when judged against per thousand-population base. Societal degradation, inflicted by political might, is represented in educational institutions across India. Aberrations have become the rule on campuses that are infested with self-seekers and politicians.

Democratization of higher educational institutions, even though a noble idea, has in the past twenty years switched campuses into a cauldron of stinking filth. These are managed by affiliations billed with little respect for excellence, honesty and intellectual probity. Unethical and politically-motivated choices function a couple of and are reflections of social catharsis.

Geographic India consolidated to a polity by the British has burst into conglomerations of politically charged, disjointed entities and facsimiles of democratic degradation. The classic conservative longing to get an ordered polity and commensurate pursuit of understanding on the campuses are all missing. Whichever brand rules the country, this section of society orders no respect now. May it be students or teachers that they don't have a voice, they do not constitute an essential service and education isn't a national necessity. Being a nation subject, instructional policies suffer from innumerable deformities.

Even though it's a constitutional responsibility, the non-availability of funds and vested administrative set up have contributed to the mushrooming of universities, fraudulent campuses, private partnerships and many makeshift centers of schooling as also fly-by-air foreign campuses. It has been shown to be a fantastic financial endeavor with hardly any danger involved since it does not come under VAT or any other monetary limitations. India has by now more institutions of such kind than colleges, an excellent opportunity to rope in understanding seeking youth and people who want to fly off to greener pastures.

When it comes to the formulation of policies about higher education, simplifying the machine, financial support, grants and salary, the statutory body-University Grants Commission-is mentioned like a sacred cow worshipped as well as butchered in the streets. How far the UGC is sovereign is a frequent knowledge. It has changed into a post office, a government organization, disbursing petty grants, sanctioned by the Central Government, among universities or institutions with numerous tags attached to them based upon the status of the recipient institutions, state, Central, autonomous or deemed schools. There is a endless criticism concerning the non-availability of capital. The administration should appreciate that the jumbo cabinet and expenditure on legislatures may be cut down to feed and educate several villages. The teacher wishes to be a ladder on which students could scale and climb new heights.

The Central and state authorities invoke ESMA to curb the voice of agitating people, but it takes no time to give benefits to politicians and bureaucrats. It is essential to please them that a symbiotic balance is maintained and to oblige some of them. The government has failed to take effective actions to suppress industrialization of education. Within hours the doles given in Parliament and honorarium were doubled but the 6 per cent expenditure of their GDP on education has proved to be more dogma persisting right from the Kothari Commission recommendations for over four years now.

Students of various educational institutes move on strike, almost yearly, demanding withdrawal of excessive fee hike. The tuition fees make up only about 13 percent of annual expenditure in the current university education. It's now a formidable industry and the purpose is to make money. Poor students, nevertheless, intelligent they may be, cannot manage to join colleges, professional associations or courses. They could join such courses by placing their households under heavy debt of banks or financial institutions. Even in the USA, tuition fees contribute to about 15 percent of the total annual expenditure on higher education. Nehru said:"If all is well with universities, it will be well with the nation." Whereas Rabindranath Tagore when compared educated courses in India to"A second storey in an old building that was added in, but unfortunately the architect forgot to build a staircase between them."

Educating profession is devalued in the nation because the teachers can not compete in our society, don't have any muscle power, are educated and therefore act differently. Neither do they have courage of creamy bureaucrats nor institutional support of any sort. A teacher can amuse you with a pale smile on hearing that this is the profession of state builders, the cream of society and a noble profession. The following moment teacher will be branded as cancers in societal marrow, getting salary for no work, craving for power, equality in wages and status with the Class A government servants. The instructor was the consultant and conscience keeper of society till mid-century. One could spot him with his tattered clothing, emaciated light face, tender voice and also meek behaviour. He was the guru. That guru, relatively having a much better outfit now, has metamorphosed to a current teacher.

Newspaper reports are replete with his shortcomings; his misconduct in preaching indiscipline, sufficient is paid to him for no work, as he has to educate only for 181 times annually. How can he dream of this parity with his bosses in the secretariat, his course dropouts in Parliament and the government. In order to save our hard-earned"democracy" which has been bolstered by some hooligans, administrators and politicians, the government has to suppress the genuine demands so that education doesn't progress to the detriment of"illiterate democrats". A small number of educators adopts unethical means to become wealthy like any other segments that are designated scamsters today. Exceptions, however, don't make the principle.

The majority of our Presidents, many of our bureaucrats, including ministers, parliamentarians and many others, were in this profession. Can they not do some fantastic job for the improvement of society before their elevation to such posts of government and reverence? Can't the government assess the strength of the requirement vis-à-vis the qualification, age at the time of being recruited as a teacher, lack of promotional paths, stagnation and proficiency concerning hiatus from the inflated social values, advocate and necessity to improve qualification and experience to stay in the fray. Instruction for teachers is an ongoing procedure unlike"one-time-degree-obtaining-education" for others. Evaluation is overriding in this profession for every promotion. Classroom schooling has become drudgery afflicted by societal unrest, absolute absence of infrastructure, anxiety psychosis grasping the powerless parents and absences of government.

My understanding is that politicians take less interest in enhancing the standard of education and living because they understand that once the bad comes to know about their corrupt practice they would neither listen nor pick them. Political parties make promises in their election manifestos to reduce employment, poverty and corruption. But this can not be attained without schooling. To me, education comes as a subject, which can be all-pervasive. Enshrined within our directive principles and making sure our countrymen,"right-to-education" makes me feel that we possess the best to educate".

Even when we have ushered in the new millennium, education remains a password to of those who make an arrogant assertion that they know best and are serving the public interest-an interest, which of course, is determined by them. By the perception entrenched with the British subjugation of our people elitist education occupied the center stage to produce Macaulay's clones who were Indians muted to be "English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect". "Educated slaves became powerful props to maintain the British rule." Lord Curzon favored bureaucratization of education since he opined that educational institutions have become factors for the production of political revolutionaries. By the Act of 1919 education was transferred to the province.

When we educate we are involved in politics. Educators often think of education being disjointed from politics. In fact, education is perhaps the most political activity in the community. The state has always influenced what is taught in educational institutions. The socio-political (and in some cases religious) ideology colors the content of learning and the emphasis on various aspects. In fact, based on where the child was educated within India-whether it was a large city or a village, whether the school used English or a regional language as a medium of education, among other factors- the child will have a different world view. However, education, based on the syllabus, in India has largely strived towards imparting a temperament of religious, political and social tolerance. The social mores and hierarchies often seep into the arena of learning and color education.

Given the political potential of education, there have been numerous attempts to use education as a way of indoctrination. Sometimes it is covert, at other times it is overt. Sometimes it is subliminal, other times it is deliberate. However, political forces have always used education to further certain world views. Today, numerous educationists and political thinkers in India are afraid that a deliberate attempt to use education as a way of social-religious indoctrination might be the agenda of the new education policy.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said:"Not gold, but merely teachers may make people great and strong-the individuals who for honor and truth; sake stand fast and suffers long. It is they that build a country's column deep and lift them to the sky". Teaching profession is a bed of roses. A good teacher is always his/her student's guide, friend and philosopher. A boy looked at the sticker on a car, which said,"Trees are friends". He challenged this statement, started cutting trees, saying that,"Trees aren't our friends, but our enemies". When asked why he thought so. He said in his science textbooks it was stated"trees bring rain". Since his village gets flooded in every rainy season, so he thought that"all trees have to be cut down". Confucius wrote,"If you intend for a year, plant a seed. If for 10 years, plant a shrub. If 100 years, teach others." Literacy is not enough. It's very good to have a population, which is able to read, but infinitely better to have people able to distinguish what is worth studying. With overcrowded classrooms and ill-paid educators,coaching classes would be the commercial fallout of a system bursting from the pits. How can idealism be expected from somebody as worried about the standard of life as me and you?

We've grown up with cherished memories of particular teachers who left us love a subject we might actually have been fearful of and who we respected unconditionally. I've come across many men whose mediocrity is represented when they project themselves as the finest whereas the fact speaks differently and people who criticize their alma mater denying that they handed out from exactly the same where they graduated. Education can have a great role to play in decreasing societal disparities between classes and in promoting social freedom. For instance, the tremendous expansion of the middle class in India can be attributed to the investment in education, particularly in higher education.

Universities are struggling to survive on shrinking governmental grants. In the aftermath of this it takes shortsighted decisions to cut expenses and increase revenue by boosting fees, which might not be in the long term interest of these universities. Thus universities wind up being run as business enterprises. Education cess is currently on thought to partly meet funds for primary education and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. Open our universities to overseas students. Australian campuses might turn out to be of hardly any use in generating funds for Indian education. Trading in education may be an additional jeopardy. Find out more info click English Language in Malaysia

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englishlanguagecenterkualal-blog · 7 years ago

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A Brief History of Special Education

Possibly the biggest and most pervasive issue in special education, as well as my journey in education, is particular education's connection to overall education. History has demonstrated that this has never been a simple clear cut relationship between both. There's been a good deal of giving and accepting or perhaps I need to say pulling and compelling when it comes to educational policy, and the educational clinics and services of education and special education by the individual educators who provide those services on both sides of the isle, such as me.

Over the previous 20+ years I have been on either side of education. I have felt and seen what it was like to be a regular main stream educator dealing with special education policy, special education pupils and their specialized teachers. I also have been on the particular education side trying to get regular education teachers to work effectively together with my special education students through modifying their instruction and substances and having a little more patience and empathy.

Furthermore, I have been a regular education teacher who taught regular education addition classes trying to determine how to work with a few new special education teacher in my course and their special education students too. And, in contrast, I have been a special education inclusion teacher intruding on the land of several regular education teachers together with my special education students and the modifications I thought these teachers must implement. I can tell you first-hand that none of this offer and take between special education and regular education was easy. Nor can I see this pushing and pulling becoming easy anytime soon.

So, what is special education? And what makes it special and so complex and controversial sometimes? Well, special schooling, as its name suggests, is a technical branch of schooling. It claims its lineage to these people as Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), the doctor who"tamed" the"wild boy of Aveyron," and Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936), the instructor that"worked miracles" with Helen Keller.

Special educators teach students who have cognitive, physical, language, learning, sensory, or emotional abilities that deviate from those of the general population. Special educators provide instruction specifically tailored to meet individualized needs. These teachers basically make education more available and accessible to pupils who otherwise would have limited access to education due to whatever disability they are struggling with.

It is not just the teachers however who play a part in the history of special education in this country. Physicians and clergy, including Itard- mentioned previously, Edouard O. Seguin (1812-1880), Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851), wanted to ameliorate the neglectful, often abusive treatment of individuals with disabilities. Sadly, schooling in this country was, more often than not, really neglectful and abusive when dealing with pupils who are different somehow.

There's a rich literature within our nation that clarifies the treatment provided to people with disabilities in the 1800s and early 1900s. Regrettably, in these tales, as well as in the real world, the section of our population with disabilities were often restricted in jails and almshouses without adequate food, clothing, personal hygiene, and exercise.

For an illustration of this different treatment in our literature one ought to look no further than Tiny Tim at Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843). In addition, many times people with disabilities were often portrayed as villains, such as in the book Captain Hook in J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" in 1911.

The prevailing view of the authors of this time period was that one should submit to misfortunes, both as a form of obedience to God's will, and because these seeming misfortunes are ultimately intended for one's own good. Progress for our people with disabilities was hard to come by at this time with this way of thinking permeating our society, literature and thinking.

So, what was society to do about these people of misfortune? Well, during much of the nineteenth century, and early in the twentieth, professionals believed individuals with disabilities were best treated in residential facilities in rural environments. An out of sight out of mind kind of thing, if you will...

However, by the end of the nineteenth century the size of these institutions had increased so dramatically that the goal of rehabilitation for people with disabilities just wasn't working. Institutions became instruments for permanent segregation.

I have some experience with these segregation policies of education. Some of it is good and some of it is not so good. You see, I have been a self-contained teacher on and off throughout the years in multiple environments in self-contained classrooms in public high schools, middle schools and elementary schools. I have also taught in multiple special education behavioral self-contained schools that totally separated these troubled students with disabilities in managing their behavior from their mainstream peers by putting them in completely different buildings that were sometimes even in different towns from their homes, friends and peers.

Over the years many special education professionals became critics of these institutions mentioned above that separated and segregated our children with disabilities from their peers. Irvine Howe was one of the first to advocate taking our youth out of these huge institutions and to place out residents into families. Unfortunately this practice became a logistical and pragmatic problem and it took a long time before it could become a viable alternative to institutionalization for our students with disabilities.

Now on the positive side, you might be interested in knowing however that in 1817 the first special education school in the United States, the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb (now called the American School for the Deaf), was established in Hartford, Connecticut, by Gallaudet. That school is still there today and is one of the top schools in the country for students with auditory disabilities. A true success story!

However, as you can already imagine, the lasting success of the American School for the Deaf was the exception and not the rule during this time period. And to add to this, in the late nineteenth century, social Darwinism replaced environmentalism as the primary causal explanation for those individuals with disabilities who deviated from those of the general population.

Sadly, Darwinism opened the door to the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century. This then led to even further segregation and even sterilization of individuals with disabilities such as mental retardation. Sounds like something Hitler was doing in Germany also being done right here in our own country, to our own people, by our own people. Kind of scary and inhumane, wouldn't you agree?

Today, this kind of treatment is obviously unacceptable. And in the early part of the 20th Century it was also unacceptable to some of the adults, especially the parents of these disabled children. Thus, concerned and angry parents formed advocacy groups to help bring the educational needs of children with disabilities into the public eye. The public had to see firsthand how wrong this this eugenics and sterilization movement was for our students that were different if it was ever going to be stopped.

Slowly, grassroots organizations made progress that even led to some states creating laws to protect their citizens with disabilities. For example, in 1930, in Peoria, Illinois, the first white cane ordinance gave individuals with blindness the right-of-way when crossing the street. This was a start, and other states did eventually follow suit. In time, this local grassroots' movement and states' movement led to enough pressure on our elected officials for something to be done on the national level for our people with disabilities.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy created the President's Panel on Mental Retardation. And in 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provided funding for primary education, and is seen by advocacy groups as expanding access to public education for children with disabilities.

When one thinks about Kennedy's and Johnson's record on civil rights, then it probably isn't such a surprise finding out that these two presidents also spearheaded this national movement for our people with disabilities.

This federal movement led to section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act. This guarantees civil rights for the disabled in the context of federally funded institutions or any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. All these years later as an educator, I personally deal with 504 cases every single day.

In 1975 Congress enacted Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA), which establishes a right to public education for all children regardless of disability. This was another good thing because prior to federal legislation, parents had to mostly educate their children at home or pay for expensive private education.

The movement kept growing. In the 1982 the case of the Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the level of services to be afforded students with special needs. The Court ruled that special education services need only provide some "educational benefit" to students. Public schools were not required to maximize the educational progress of students with disabilities.

Today, this ruling may not seem like a victory, and as a matter of fact, this same question is once again circulating through our courts today in 2017. However, given the time period it was made in, it was a victory because it said special education students could not pass through our school system without learning anything. They had to learn something. If one knows and understands how the laws work in this country, then one knows the laws always progress through tiny little increments that add up to progress over time. This ruling was a victory for special education students because it added one more rung onto the crusade.

In the 1980s the Regular Education Initiative (REI) came into being. This was an attempt to return responsibility for the education of students with disabilities to neighborhood schools and regular classroom teachers. I am very familiar with Regular Education Initiative because I spent four years as an REI teacher in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At this time I was certified as both a special education teacher and a regular education teacher and was working in both capacities in a duel role as an REI teacher; because that's what was required of the position.

The 1990s saw a big boost for our special education students. 1990 birthed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This was, and is, the cornerstone of the concept of a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) for all of our students. To ensure FAPE, the law mandated that each student receiving special education services must also receive an Individualized Education Program (IEP).

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 reached beyond just the public schools. And Title 3 of IDEA prohibited disability-based discrimination in any place of public accommodation. Full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, or accommodations in public places were expected. And of course public accommodations also included most places of education.

Also, in the 1990s the full inclusion movement gained a lot of momentum. This called for educating all students with disabilities in the regular classroom. I am also very familiar with this aspect of education as well, as I have also been an inclusion teacher from time to time over my career as an educator on both sides of the isle as a regular education teacher and a special education teacher.

Now on to President Bush and his educational reform with his No Child Left Behind law that replaced President Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The NCLB Act of 2001 stated that special education should continue to focus on producing results and along with this came a sharp increase in accountability for educators.

Now, this NCLB Act was good and bad. Of course we all want to see results for all of our students, and it's just common sense that accountability helps this sort of thing happen. Where this kind of went crazy was that the NCLB demanded a host of new things, but did not provide the funds or support to achieve these new objectives.

Furthermore, teachers began feeling squeezed and threatened more and more by the new movement of big business and corporate education moving in and taking over education. People with no educational background now found themselves influencing education policy and gaining access to a lot of the educational funds.

This accountability craze stemmed by excessive standardized testing ran rapid and of course ran downstream from a host of well-connected elite Trump-like figures saying to their lower echelon educational counterparts, "You're fired!" This environment of attempting to stay off of the radar to be able to keep one's job, and hammering our kids over the head with analyzing strategies, was not great for our educators. It was not great for our students. And it certainly wasn't good for our more vulnerable special education students.

Some good did come out of this age though. By way of instance, the upgraded Individuals with Disabilities with Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) happened. This further required schools to provide individualized or special education for children with disabilities. Under the IDEA, states who accept public funds for education must provide special education to qualifying children with disabilities. Like I said earlier, the legislation is a long slow process of tiny little steps adding up to progress made over time.

Ultimately, in 2015 President Obama's Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) replaced President Bush's NCLB, that had substituted President Johnson's ESEA. Under Obama's brand new ESSA colleges were allowed to back off on some of those testing. Hopefully, the standardized testing craze was placed in check. But only time will tell. ESSA also returned to more control. You know, the type of control our forefathers intended.

You see the U.S. Constitution grants no authority over education to the national government. Education Isn't mentioned in the Constitution of the United States, and for good reason. The Founders desired most facets of life handled by individuals who were nearest to themby state or local authorities or by households, companies, and other elements of civil society. Basically, they found no role for the federal government in education.

You see, the Founders feared the concentration of power. They considered that the best way to safeguard individual liberty and civil society was to restrict and split power. However, this works both ways, because the countries often find themselves asking the feds for more educational cash. And the feds will only give the countries additional money if the states do exactly what the feds need... Hmm... Checks and balances, as well as compromise can be a really tricky matter, huh?

So on goes the struggle in schooling and all of the back and forth pushing and pulling between the national government and the local and state authorities, as well as specific education and regular education. And to add to this struggle, lately Judge Moukawsher, a state judge from Connecticut, in a lawsuit filed against the state by the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, rocked the educational ship some more when in his ruling he comprised a message to lawmakers to reassess what degree of services students with significant disabilities are eligible to.

His judgment and statements seem to state that he thinks we are spending too much money on our special education pupils. And that for a number of them, it simply isn't worthwhile because their disabilities are too severe. It is possible to imagine how controversial this was and how much it angered a few people.

The 2016 United States Presidential election led to something that few people saw coming. Real Estate mogul and reality star Donald Trump won the presidency and then appointed anti-public teacher Betsy Devos to venture up this nation's Department of Education. Her charge, awarded to her by Trump, would be to drastically slash the Department of Education, also to push forward private charter colleges on what they call a failing public educational program.

How this will influence our pupils, and our vulnerable special education pupils, nobody knows for sure at this moment. However, I will even tell you that there aren't lots of people out there that feel comfortable with it at the moment. Only time will tell where it's going to go and how it will affect our special education students...

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