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Editor's Note |
| What's Special about Special Education ? |
| As a journal with a declared mission of promoting the quality of special education we are often confronted with questions such as : How 'special' is special education? Is not special education an integral part of education? Are we promoting segregation by focusing on the 'specialness' of special education? Would we consider removing the label 'special' from our title? |
| These questions become more pertinent at a time when 'inclusive education' continues to be the hotly discussed issue within and without the field of special education. When the government is rumored to be moving towards disintegrating its special education administration unit into the mainstream system, and when our teacher education institute is contemplating similar moves towards integrating special education courses with the mainstream courses. |
| The Hong Kong Special Education Forum pledges reserved support for equal opportunity in education for all children and fully recognizes the importance of special education being an integral part of the education system. Special education, or special needs education, should not and must not, be excluded or marginalized from our education system. But, children with special needs do require some special programmes and approaches; programmes and approaches which are based on their individual weaknesses and strengths and their pace of learning. |
| Our answer to the challenging questions is the publication of several papers all addressing the 'specialness' of special education. We begin by re-printing and sharing with readers a paper entitled, "What's 'special' about special education?" by Fuchs and Fuchs in 1995 and re-printed here with kind permission from Phi Delta Kappan Inc. The paper was a reaction to the outcry in the United States of the 'full inclusionists' against the continued existence of special education as a violation of human rights, a direct cause of unfair and disproportional distribution of resources in education, a gross excuse for unbridled expansion of service provision. Special education was alleged to be 'more harmful than helpful'. In their response to such accusations, Fuchs and Fuchs defended the importance of special education. They questioned the efficacy of the mainstream classroom setting in addressing the individual needs of disabled students. They demonstrated that an appropriste education to these children should stress 'the use of empirically validated procedures and intensive, data-based focus on individual needs'. These, among other things, are the special features or the 'specialness' of special education. Special education should be 'special'. Anyone who harbours the respectable ideal that all special needs should best be addressed in the mainstream setting should read the paper in its full version. The readers are also recommended to read the Editorial Board's response to this paper. We feel obliged to remind our policy makers not to jump onto the bandwagon of 'inclusive education' and deny our children the right to an 'appropriate education'. |
| The value of special progammes for special needs children is also highlighted in Philip McBrayer's autobiographic account of his years of struggle as a dyslexic child in 'Living with learning difficulties -- Sometimes I wish I were stupid'. We thank Phil for sharing with us his fight against a system that ignores the fundamental difficulties a dyslexic student faces and his nightmares when being forced back to an inclusive setting. |
| Looking at the need for 'specialness' in our education in the perspective of a different kind of special need, that of newly arrived immigrants, is Kenneth's paper, 'Meeting the challenges of new arrival children from the mainland -- Teachers' perception and preliminary intervention in Hong Kong primary schools'. The finding of Kenneth's study of teachers' perception underlines the importance of teachers to grasp the full spectrum of the problems faced by each individual child (not just culture shock and low English standard) and adapt the core curriculum to tailor for his needs. This is again exactly the 'special' feature referred to in the Fuchs and Fuchs' paper: Special needs such as those of new immigrants and dyslexic children and of the those with disabilities of diverse origins cannot be effectively deal with by mainstream teachers with its traditional focus on class-wide orientation. Special needs have to be deal with by special instructional approach and procedure. However, this does not mean that special education must be practised in special classes and special schools. With smaller class size, with greater emphasis in 'teaching to diversity' in our teacher education, with lighter teacher workload, with adequate and appropriate resources, many of the children with special needs could, and should be, included in regular schools. That is, when all these pre-requisites for 'inclusive education' or 'integration' are ready. As for now, Hong Kong is NOT ready. |
| Hong Kong is not yet ready for inclusion. This is the message of Peter Westwood's paper, 'Moving towards inclusion in Hong Kong? Proceed with caution -- A personal viewpoint'. A scholar and an experienced teacher in special education, Westwood warns us of the danger of moving too fast on inclusion and lists out a series of recommendations for us to consider if we are sincerely moving toward inclusion. Two other papers in this Issue echo Westwood's concern. Both Kim McBrayer's 'Practitioners' views on integrating students with disabilities' and Hung-piu Kwong 's paper 'The need of integration / inclusive education in the Hong Kong context' take issue with the Government's Pilot Scheme on Integration and while they address the issue in different perspectives, they emphatically remind us once again that Hong Kong is not yet ready for it. |
| When is Hong Kong ready? In our previous issues we have published several articles with ideas on how Hong Kong should prepare itself for inclusion. Some fundamental changes and reforms must take place in our approach to education. Chung (鍾國棟 1998), for example, sees reforms in ordinary schools as a major step forward. Special needs should be the 'shared responsibility' of all schools and teachers. To promote the concept of 'shared responsibility' and to disseminate the concerns of special needs to teachers in mainstream schools, the Hong Kong Special Education Forum plans to reach out to all teachers and all schools in Hong Kong. We have an ambitious plan to expand our free journal distribution from all special schools to all schools with special classes and eventually to all primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. However, our ambition is restricted by our scare resources. We have therefore submitted a project application to the Quality Education Fund to seek funding to publish and distribute FREE to all schools in Hong Kong ensuing issues of this journal for a few years. The title of the project, incidentally, reads, "Sharing the responsibilities of Special Needs". |
| While the subject of "inclusion" continues to be the focus of our concern, we have not overlooked other major educational issues. In 1998, three special schools was "baptized" by the newly-formed and awe-inspiring Quality Assurance Inspection Team. To tap the response of the school, 鍾思龍(See-lung Chung) and 廖雪珍 (Janny Liu) interviewed the principal and a teacher of one of the three schools and reported their experiences and perception in their paper "質素保証視學: 一間特殊學校的經驗". ('Quality Assurance Inspection: Experience of a Special School'.)We treasure this valuable sharing opportunity and would appeal to other schools to come up with their own experience-sharing initiative. |
| The format of this issue is again being enriched by the addition of several new columns. This is the direct result of the initiatives from our readers to share with us their feelings and thoughts on the current education scene in Hong Kong. We are starting a new column on 'Voices from Teachers' 『教師心聲』. The deep cry of a teacher草蘭, a serving special school teacher in "提升教育質素?"(Enhancing the Quality of Education?) reflects the disturbed inner soul of a teacher suffocated by the endless education reform gadgets. Voices such as this should be heard more and we invite more teachers to speak up in our new column. They could also voice their questions to us about our journal and on issues of education and we will attempt to answer them in our other new column "Questions and Answers" 『讀者來函』. |
| In addition, we have added two other new column. Each of a different nature. We owe our appreciation to the initiative of Peter Westwood, who volunteers to supply us with course information in the Hong Kong University on special education and his own observation and personal reaction during his 'surfing trips' on journal on special education. The two new columns are called 'Course Information'『課程快訊』and 'Surfing the Journals'『期刊縱橫』We thank Peter for his offer and would appeal to other readers to use this journal as the venue for disseminating course information and papers on special education. We will however limit the length to 200 words per entry. |
| Finally, you may recall in the last Issue, we expressed our deep concern in the 'Stop Press' remark on the government's proposal to re-appraise the role of the Board of Education Subcommittee on Special Education as an advisory body. It turned out that the original proposal was to scratch the Subcommittee. Voices of objection were raised and among them the representation of the Hong Kong Special Education Society. We are relieved to learn afterwards that the Subcommittee was subsequently retained to continue its function as an advisory body to the Government on special education. Hopefully, they could maintain their forward-looking and developmental perspectives. Our representation is reprinted in the Policy Commentary Column 『政策回應』. |
| One year after the release of our Inaugural Issue, the Forum has grown in stature. We continue to receive requests for regular supply. Our papers are widely read and cited in assignments and course papers. We cherish this role and will work our way towards preserving it. However we can only play our role with your support and contributions. Your contributions can come in many forms, joining our Society, renewing your membership, sending in donations, recommending the journal to your colleagues and above all, sending in your papers. Our future is in YOUR HANDS ! |
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A.Tse |