Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress
International
Special Education Conference
Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity?
1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland
about the conference
programme
registration
accommodation
contact
|
Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland |
home about the conference programme registration accommodation contact |
Brief Encounters – Kohtaamisia
Animation Project at Meri-Rastila Primary School
Terhi Asikainen and Glen Coutts
Department of Sport, Culture and Arts, University of Strathclyde
terhiasikainen@yahoo.com
How can animation and art promote integration and inclusion within a primary school setting? How mainstream pupils respond to working with pupils with multiple disabilities? How could children with disabilities work along with mainstream children as equal members in the classroom? These questions were the basis for this project and I am sure that these are questions that many people working within the field of education are interested in finding answers to. This paper reports on how children with multiple disabilities in a School in Helsinki were integrated into a mainstream classroom through an animation project.
This project took place in Helsinki in Meri-Rastila Primary School between October 2004 and February 2005. Eighteen children from Grade five (aged 11-12) and two children (aged 9 and 10) from Aarresaari (Treasure Island), which is a class for children with multiple disabilities, took part in the project. In this paper I will firstly outline some of the ideas of inclusion and integration in Meri-Rastila School. Secondly this paper will discuss the aims and objectives and the process of the project and provides thoughts on the outcome. This paper will also present some comments and opinions from the children who took part in the project. I shall conclude with some reflections and thoughts on integration and inclusion. The first author is currently a postgraduate research student in the department of Sport, Culture and the Arts, at the University of Strathclyde. The author is also working full-time at Meri-Rastila Primary School as an assisting special needs teacher.
Integration at Meri-Rastila Primary School
Inclusion is concerned with the right of everyone to take part in the community as an equal member. From an inclusive viewpoint no-one should be left outside of the community. In a wider sense it means an open society for all. In our view true ‘inclusion’ requires changing values and political views that may cause exclusion. Inclusion is a question of moral and human rights, attitudes and choice. Morally, everyone should have equal opportunities and full citizenship belonging to the community is a basic human right for everyone. For inclusion to work, people need to approve changes and be open-minded. If a society chooses inclusion, it will find the means to make it possible. (Yhdessä Kasvamaan, Kehitysvammaliitto 2004)
In Finland the achievement of an inclusive society means developing the education system on a local and national level. Also, a child that requires additional support in learning has the right to education in a local school in a class of children of the same age. Inclusion in school does not mean the end of teaching in small groups. Instead, teaching arrangements are made in a flexible manner which considers the needs of all individuals in all teaching situations. Inclusive education requires that all the adults work as a team. It is the aim of inclusive education to support all children in learning. (Yhdessä Kasvamaan, Kehitysvammaliitto 2004)
According to Naukkarinen (2001) inclusion begins with each pupil’s individual learning plan (HOJKS). The teachers, school, the community and society are committed to inclusive education. Integration could be considered as the first step towards inclusive teaching. Inclusive teaching does not separate different kinds of learners from each other. Rather, the fact that everyone is different is regarded as a source of inspiration for learning and teaching. Teaching responds to individuals needs and supports the strengths and abilities of the individuals.
Meri-Rastila Primary School forms part of a Merirasti building which extends over a whole block. The building also houses a day-care centre, a youth centre and a congregation hall is located nearby. One of the main characteristics of the school is multiculturalism. There are approximately 300 children in the school and there are children from approximately 15 different countries. The pupils of Finnish origin are in the small majority. (www.merir.edu.hel.fi)
Pupils with additional support needs (ASN) are usually taught in small separate groups within special educational schools or, alternatively, are integrated into mainstream groups. In Meri-Rastila Primary School the class for children with ASN is located within the school building, however its physical location is closer to the day-care centre than the School itself. The ASN pupils use the whole building as their learning environment. Daily trips to other parts of the school makes natural ‘encounters’ with other pupils of the school a real possibility. The corridors have turned into one of the most important meeting places and meaningful moments of integration.
It is an open-minded School setting. However, the mainstream pupils are still not familiar with seeing children with disabilities and despite the daily encounters the importance of the ASN class within the School can be too easily forgotten, not only because of its physical location. These ‘encounters’ gave me an idea for starting a project between a mainstream class and the class of children with multiple disabilities. The class, Aarresaari, where the first author works caters for children with multiple disabilities who are sensory impaired with physical learning or communication difficulties. At the moment there are four pupils in the class. I talked to one of the teachers who was immediately interested in being involved in the project. The idea was to make animations as it was something they had never tried before. Film or animation is a teaching material with huge potential which is, as yet, not fully exploited in most educational settings. It can be used as a base for conversations, writing, art, play and so why not for creating social encounters with other children?
Aims and Objectives
The aim of this project was to create short animations in small groups of three to five pupils. The artwork was created using plasticine to make the characters for the stories and the backgrounds or scenery for the story was created using colourful paper cut outs and paints. The groups wrote the stories themselves and designed the artwork. They also created the soundtracks with help from Aarresaari pupils. A central aim was to find something for everyone to do in the project according to their abilities.
Even though all the children in this project were aiming towards a same goal, it did not mean that their aims and objectives were the same. The aims and objectives for the pupils with ASN were designed to be suitable for their abilities. The aims and objectives of the pupils from Aarresaari in this project were:
Two children from Aarresaari had a classroom assistant with them at all times. This allowed the assistant to work like an interpreter if needed. Developing communication skills and hand-eye coordination are part of children’s individual learning plans. This project brought new experiences for these children as they do not have many opportunities to work with children outside Aarresaari.
The aims and objectives for pupils from 5B-class were planned to be suitable for the pupils abilities and learning plans. The aims and objectives of the pupils from 5B-class were:
In our view, the most important aspect of these aims was broadening an understanding of differences in people. Children aged 11 to 12 may have not been in any contact with children with additional support needs before. It is important therefore, that they learn to accept and understand differences without prejudice.
One of the aims for this project for everyone was to have fun and engage purposefully and enjoy the process of learning to work with a new medium. We used fairly basic equipment of the type readily available in most Schools to make animations, it was certainly not what might be called ‘professional quality’.
The main point for this project was to be together, work together and respect each other. It was not necessarily create the best quality animations, but we did create some very good animations through this process. In a sense we created animations that reflected the character of the group.
The project started in the middle of October 2004 when 5B class visited the Aarresaari classroom. The children came to see Aarresaari in small groups and got to know the children there. They got a chance to try out the equipment the children use in Aarresaari (such as hoist and wheelchairs). They also learned about different ways of communication, such as non-verbal communication through games. Each group was asked to take an idea with them from Aarresaari that they could develop when constructing their stories for the animations.
The project took place once a week for one and half hours in 5B class room in a normal classroom environment. The class was divided into 5 groups. Two pupils from Aarresaari took part in making the artwork in each group. The aim for each group was to construct a storyline and make the characters out of plasticine and make a background for the story from coloured card. The topics for the stories included some aspects of friendship, differences in people, helping and disability.
It was important that each participant would understand how animations are created frame by frame. Therefore we decided to make short practice animations. Each group made their own painted animation which I filmed. The exercise took place in an empty class room beside their class. I filmed one small painted line at the time and eventually the lines turned into a picture that told some kind of a story. Children from Aarresaari took part in painting the lines for some of the practice animations. I feel that through this practice, the groups gained understanding of how animations are created.
When the stories were ready and the artwork was finished we started the process of filming the animations. Each group directed their own animation. This part of the project took quite a long time. The animations were filmed frame by frame on a digital video camera.
When all the animations were finished we could concentrate on creating the soundtracks. I gave a task for each group to write their lines and think about how children from Aarresaari could participate in the making of their soundtracks. Most of the groups had ideas on what they could do. The soundtracks were recorded on a digital video camera. We used instruments such as drums and bells for creating suitable sounds as well as a keyboard for example to make a sound of an ambulance. We even used one of the pupils tricycle from Aarresaari to create the sound of a helicopter; everyone contributed according to their abilities. The final step in the process was editing. We decided with the teacher of 5B-class that I should do the editing because it is quite time consuming work. It would have been beneficial for the children to see how editing is done in practice and in future projects we hope to be able to involve the young people in this part of the process.
The big day of the first showing of our animation arrived at the end of February 2005. The class of 5B and Aarresaari gathered in the school library, chatting and laughing, not able to hide their excitement…
I feel that the outcome of this project was very rewarding. All of the children from class 5B obviously had a good time and learned how to make animations. Perhaps more importantly they got to work with children with additional support needs which most of them had not done before. This collaboration between the two classes has left its mark, even if it was a small one, with each participant. Their views were explored as part of our evaluation of the project.
Projects like this that last for a longer period offer a child with ASN a chance to get to know the people he or she is working with. I feel that for Aarresaari pupils it took a while to get used to the idea of working in another classroom in a different environment and with other young people. However, once they got used to it you could see that they enjoyed the change of scenery.
Participants Comments
After the animation was completed the Pupils from class 5B answered a small questionnaire I had prepared in order to investigate their thoughts about the project. The questionnaires contained tick box statements and some verbal questions. The first part of the questionnaire contained statements about the process of making the animation. In the second part there were statements about the collaboration and working with children with additional support needs. All of the statements had three options: agree, don’t agree and I don’t know. The final section contained open questions about the participants views on, for example what was best part in the project and what was the most difficult task in the project. There were also questions on what they think the pupils from Aarresaari could do in the future with their class and also what types of classes could they take part in.
In the first section all of the respondents agreed that making animations had been fun. The majority of the participants agreed with the statement, I learned during the project how to make animations. Also, statements such as: Making animations is very interesting, I would like to be involved in a similar project again, and Making of the soundtrack was fun, were agreed by the majority of the participants. However, there were a couple of statements which produced quite diverse responses. One of the statements: The end product did not meet my expectations, and another: I would have liked more information in making animations, returned an even distribution of agree, disagree and I don’t Know replies.
In the second part the statements; In my opinion it was nice to work with pupils from Aarresaari and Aarresaari is an interesting class as well as In my opinion it was good that pupils from Aarresaari were making the animations with us, were equally accepted by the majority of the participants. The respondents were divided into two groups of those who had been working and those who had never worked with children with ASN before. The majority of the respondents replied I don’t know to the statements: If I will meet pupils from Aarresaari somewhere again I will definitely go and talk to them and Communication with pupils from Aarresaari is hard.
The most interesting part of the questionnaire was the final part which comprised more open questions. The first question was: What could pupils from Aarresaari do with your class in the future?
Some of the answers included:
The second question was: What kind of classes could Pupils from Aarresaari take part in?
What was the best thing in this collaboration?
The final question was: What was the most difficult thing in this collaboration?
These answers reinforced my view of the fact that the project was successful at least for 5B class. It is of course hard to say what the two pupils from Aarresaari were thinking during the project. I hope that they could sense that they were important members in this project and the experience of working with mainstream class was meaningful for them. One of the most gratifying moments of the project was when one boy noticed that a pupil from Aaresaari had dropped his glasses. The boy went and picked the glasses up and put them back on for him. Which was exactly what any assistant or a friend would have done for the boy.
In creating the animations the pupils were given freedom to make the stories to be anything they liked as long as there was one idea they had taken with them from Aarresaari. Few of the groups had thought about a story where would be a wheelchair. Interestingly a couple of the stories involved an ambulance. This could reflect to the fact that a lot of the Pupils from 5B class seemed to think that Children with disabilities have been in an accident. Often they ask questions such as; When will they get better? or When will He or She learn to walk or talk?
Hautamäki (2001) states that inclusion is justified through social justice, which is based on participatory democracy. According to this author everyone is equal and uniqueness is regarded as a richness of culture (Hautamäki 2001 p.188). In addition, it is claimed that inclusion brings out the best in children and that it is financially more economical than segregated special education teaching. Hautamäki (2001) argues that Finnish teachers do not believe that with the resources schools currently provide, they are able to take all the pupils’ needs into account. There is presently no existing law that would oblige schools physically to provide integrated or inclusive education. (Hautamäki 2001 p.192) The policies support the idea of inclusion and clearly the basic elements of inclusive education can be found in the education law. (Perusopetuslaki,1998)
“In art and design education for disabled pupils and those with special educational needs, it is essential to focus on context which challenge conformity and promote identity to address issues which encourage more positive interaction between art and society for social reconstruction, as a process of addressing through the curriculum, the inclusion of teachers, students, staff and community. ” (Hermon p.277)
In our view too often people with ASN do not receive the full benefits from art education in their curriculum. Creativity in ASN education begins with realising each individual’s potential and focussing on each person’s abilities rather than on a disability. An appropriate learning environment can promote creativity in many areas in many children and young people.
“The need to foster creativity is then seen as deriving from the responsibility of schools to foster the fullest development of all positive aspects of the personality of all children, even where this means acknowledging and accepting a diversity of abilities and talents.” (Cropley 2001p.135)
There are many aspects that would need to be taken into consideration in order to gain the full benefits of inclusion or simply of integration. However, at the moment the mainstream schooling system is not able to accommodate for children with multiple disabilities. In a School like Meri-Rastila it would be possible to integrate a pupil with multiple disabilities permanently into a mainstream classroom because of one to one teaching for children with multiple disabilities. Practically this means that there would be resources for integration. However, if a pupil with multiple disabilities was integrated permanently into a mainstream classroom it might not always be of the child’s best interests. It is more beneficial to offer the pupil with multiple disabilities a chance to be part of the School environment through meaningful experiences and projects.
Pupils with multiple disabilities benefit from learning in small groups in a familiar environment. It is also beneficial for them to be located within a mainstream School. It enriches the School environment and diversifies chances for social learning. (Murto 1999) However, location of this classroom is not unfortunately the best as it is too easily left out from the rest of the School. Through this project I wanted to bring Aarresaari closer to other classes in the school. The project brought Aarresaari and 5B-class closer together. The pupils got new friends and on our daily trips within the School building there are more friendly faces to greet us.
In the future there is a need to develop further integration and inclusion projects at Schools. This project was a good example of how mainstream pupils work side by side with pupils with multiple disabilities. The integration projects don’t always have to be big and last for a long time. Good integration and inclusion can start even from the ‘encounters’ at the school corridors.
Bibliography
Cropley, A, J. (2001) Creativity in Education and Learning, a Guide for Teachers and Educators. London: Kogan Page Limited
Hermon, A. Prentice, R. (2003) Positively Different: Art and Design in Special education. International Journal of Art and Design education, Vol. 22.3
Murto, P. (1999) Yhteinen Koulu Kaikille – Onko Inkluusio tarua vai Totta? Jyväskylän Yliopisto. Jyväskylä.
Murto, P. Naukkarinen, A. Saloviita, T. (2001) Inkluusion Haaste Koululle: Oikeus Yhdessä Oppimiseen. Jyväskylä. Gummerrus Kirjapaino Oy.
Opetushallitus, (1998) (National Board of Education) Perusopetuslaki (‘Basic Education Law’)
Opetushallitus (National Board of Education) (2002) Taiteen Perusopetuksen Visuaalisten Taiteiden Laajan Oppimäärän Opetussuunnitelman Perusteet. (‘The Visual Art Education Plan in the Education System’) No: 39/011/2002
Opetushallitus (2004) (National board of Education) Perusopetuksen Opetussuunnitelaman Perusteet (‘basic education teaching plan’)
Riccio, Lawrence. (2001) SAIL: A School Where the Arts Connect with Real Learning. International Journal of Art and Design Education, Vol, 20. 2, pp205-213.
Rodbroe, Inger. Heyes, Tony. (1997) Communication Through Active Music. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People, Resusrscenter Mo Gard AB.
Robinson, Ken. (2001) Out of Our Minds, Learning to be Creative. Capstone Publishing Limited, Oxford.
Saloviita, T. (1999) Kaikille Avoimeen Kouluun: erilaiset oppilaat tavallisella luokalla. Gummerrus Kirjapaino Oy. Jyväskylä.
Sava, I. Vesanen-Laukkanen, V. (2004) Taiteeksi Tarinoitu oma Elämä. WS Bookwell Oy. Juva.
home . about the conference . programme . registration . accommodation . contact
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |