The Education Benefits of Travel Experiences a Literature Review

Abstract

This article provides historical and present-day perspectives on special education including a review of current literature as well as data collected from a face-to-face interview with a special education leader at an unproblematic school in south Louisiana. The interviewee offered rich insight and first-hand knowledge regarding placement of students with disabilities in inclusive school settings. Based on the interview responses, two themes emerged in response to the overarching question of how do SPED teachers and leaders create success for students with learning differences? These themes include: 1) the SPED surround and 2) approaches of successful SPED teachers. The data within these themes suggest that the interviewee perceives inclusion to be the greatest advancement in the field of special teaching equally his experiences describe the beneficial aspects of the inclusion classroom setting for students with disabilities. These experiences have contributed to his conventionalities that one day all classrooms in every school volition exist inclusive in nature.

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Block, E. , Breaud, M. , McNulty, C. , Papa, T. and Perry, M. (2019) Perspectives of Special Education: Literature Review and Interview. Creative Education, ten, 1973-1981. doi: 10.4236/ce.2019.109143.

1. Introduction

Special teaching is a form of education that focuses on the needs of students with disabilities and learning differences. Groundbreaking laws and policies that were implemented in the terminal fifty years have transformed special educational activity into what it is today with inclusion at the forefront. In order to provide a framework for continuous improvement in the expanse of special didactics, a review of the literature regarding its history over the last 50 years is offered. Special educator perspectives are relevant equally these individuals have kickoff-hand knowledge of what practices work all-time for students with disabilities. Through an interview with a SPED teacher and leader, the authors explore the overarching question of how SPED teachers and leaders create success for students with disabilities.

ii. A Historical Approach to Special Education

Historically, students with disabilities were isolated from the general population of students and placed in self-contained special didactics classrooms which simply housed special education students. Present-24-hour interval special educational activity practices are vastly different from the practices of the past. A serial of significant historical events profoundly transformed the exercise of special education. In 1975, the Didactics for All Handicapped Children Act (National Education Association of the Us, 1978) was signed by President Gerald Ford. It required public schools to provide free education to children with mental and physical handicaps. This law ensured that availability of special didactics services to children in need and guaranteed that decisions nigh services for students with disabilities were fair and appropriate. It as well established specific management and auditing requirements for special teaching while providing federal funds to assistance states brainwash students with disabilities (Block & Carter, 2016) .

In 1997, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Human activity (IDEA) were signed by President Neb Clinton providing positive changes to the Didactics for All Handicapped Children's Act. IDEA ensured that both regular and special needs students have access to the same loftier-quality curriculum (United states of america Section of Education, 2007) and guaranteed that students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), participation in the To the lowest degree Restrictive Environments (LREs), and requires qualified teachers for students with disabilities. Building on this legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed in 2001 by President George W. Bush-league to ensure the all-time education for low income and disabled students. He stated that the Section of Education was committed to ensuring that all children—including children with disabilities—receive a high-quality didactics (U.s.a. Section of Education, 2004) . Before IDEA, if students with special needs were not spending their days in an establishment, they were segregated from their peers at commune schools in dissever classrooms run by teachers who were not properly trained in special education (US Department of Education, 2007) .

Great strides have been made in the field of special instruction in the last 50 years to evolve to the current special instruction practices of less segregation and more integration. IDEA requires that a continuum of placement options be available to come across the needs of students with disabilities (Anderson, 2018) . The law ensures that to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities should exist educated with children who are typically developing. Special classes, separate schooling or removal of children with disabilities from typically developing peers occurs only when education cannot be attained satisfactorily with the use of supplementary aids and services (Classroom Leadership, 2001) . Students with disabilities are spending less time isolated from their peers and more time interacting and socializing in general education classrooms known as inclusion classrooms. From 1989-2010, at that place was a 90 percent increase in the time special education students spent in inclusion classrooms (Anderson, 2018) . These inclusive classrooms afford both special education students and traditional students more instructional time, fewer absences, ameliorate post-secondary outcomes, and increased social benefits for both populations every bit students learn to better relate to various populations (Anderson, 2018) .

The perspectives of special educators and their leaders are vital to positive alter in advancing the do of inclusion. These perceptions and experiences provide a crucial lens through which educators and researchers may view inclusion theory and literature. Educators must be multifaceted to properly run an effective inclusive classroom and encounter the needs of a diverse educatee population. Teachers accept created inclusive classrooms conducive to learning past consulting Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), relaying content in diverse ways, using various approaches for processing information, incorporating life skills preparation into lessons, collaborating with other teachers, and following a flexible behavior program (Special Education Guide, 2019) . These positive changes have taken place in both inclusion classrooms and special teaching leadership positions. A special education leader has clear responsibilities for understanding the ever changing laws and regulations and working closely with state departments of education on compliance and monitoring. They are responsible for ensuring that students with disabilities are provided a loftier-quality education. Additionally, they evaluate the special education staff to ensure that special educational activity students are making progress (Bateman & Cline, 2019) .

Significant legislation over the past 50 years has transformed special education and brought awareness to the best practices of inclusive classrooms. Perspectives and experiences of special educators are essential in creating a foundation for continuous improvement in the field. To obtain this showtime-paw noesis, an interview with a special education leader was conducted in order to gain insight into the field of special education. The interview questions were aligned with the literature with regard to best practices in inclusive settings, federal regulations and challenges inherent to the field.

3. Methodology

three.1. Setting and Participant

A face-to-face interview with a leader in special education was conducted in April of 2019 at an unproblematic school located in due south Louisiana. The special education leader has 29 years of experience as an educator, 20 of which were as a special instruction instructor within a local schoolhouse commune and the last 9 years as a special didactics leader within the same school district. He was selected due to accessibility and his all-encompassing years of feel in special education. In addition, the interviewee has received regional and state recognition for his contributions to the field of special education.

3.2. Questionnaire

The interview questions were developed by the authors in society to obtain the interviewee'southward insights regarding his experiences in special education. Twelve questions were developed as extensions from special didactics literature with the overarching goal of discerning how do SPED teachers and leaders perceive special teaching every bit well as how special education teachers create success for all students with learning differences? Based on the literature, the authors including the following: i) What are your job responsibilities? two) What are your past piece of work experiences? 3) What is your philosophy regarding special education? 4) How have you implemented this philosophy? 5) What major changes take you lot seen throughout your career in special pedagogy? 6) What are your thoughts on recent SPED initiatives? 7) What is your approach to collaborative teaming in SPED? viii) What were the rewards of being a special educator? 9) What are the challenges of existence a special education leader? x) What is the state of special education with regard to inclusive settings? 11) What practice yous come across in the futurity of early childhood special didactics? 12) What advice would you requite to a new teacher in special education? These questions were designed as a cursory probe into the perspectives of a SPED leader. Interview questions and responses may exist found in Appendix A.

iii.3. Procedure

In April of 2019, the selected interviewee was contacted and asked if he would see for a face-to-face interview in gild to gather his insights regarding the field of special education. The interviewer met in the interviewee's function in the school district for approximately i hour. The interviewer posed 12 questions and recorded the responses on a phonation memo app on her mobile device while taking paw-written notes.

four. Results

Interview responses were transcribed from the interviewer's notes and mobile recording (see Appendix A). From the 12 posed questions, two chief themes emerged (run across Table i) as support for the overarching question: how do SPED teachers and leaders create success for students with disabilities? The first theme

Tabular array 1. Overarching question: how do SPED teachers and leaders create success for students with disabilities?

that emerged was the SPED Environment with the post-obit responses categorized inside: 1) virtually natural environment; two) least restrictive surroundings; 3) environments that expose students to new learning and new experiences; iv) growth constitute in moving from self-contained to inclusive classrooms; and 5) student growth in inclusion classrooms. The second theme that emerged from the interview is approaches for successful SPED teachers including: a) multi-faceted approach to education; b) collaborative teaming; c) team approach in delegating tasks; d) flexibility and growth with response to change every bit significant; and east) continued advancement of inclusion classrooms.

5. Give-and-take

The responses were and then analyzed in conjunction with the literature to obtain a more thorough understanding of the field of special teaching from the vantage point of a special education leader. The interview offered insight into how special didactics has evolved and how inclusive settings will go on to evolve in the years to come. Responses that supported theme one (SPED surroundings) included the interviewee'south greatest reward in condign a SPED teacher; that of pupil growth. He stated that special education is extremely gratifying to him because of the growth that he observes in his students as they overcome various obstacles. Based on his experiences, the interviewee believes that inclusive settings are the most beneficial settings in which to see growth amid students with disabilities. He stated that he is extremely satisfied that today's model of special teaching is the inclusion classroom and in most cases, placing special didactics students in inclusion classrooms is the virtually effective way to meet their needs. Just equally Anderson (2018) found a reciprocity in social growth for special needs and regular education children within inclusive classrooms, the interviewee also shared his experiences with these multi-directional benefits for all students.

The 2d emerging theme institute in the interview centered on the approaches of successful SPED teachers. The interviewee stated the biggest challenge of a special educator and/or special educational activity leader is the continuously changing federal regulations. Keeping electric current with the changing laws and policies with regard to special education and the implementation of these laws and policies is a claiming that necessitates flexibility. He likewise shared that learning to be flexible is the advice he gives to new teachers; "Regulations are always irresolute; rules are ever changing; and IEPs continuously change. Never get too complacent. If you learn to evolve with the job, you will be successful." In addition to flexibility, the interviewee shared that SPED teachers and leaders must engage in collaborative teaming in society to provide students with all available resource. The interviewee explained that by providing special education students with everything they need to be successful, whether it be specialty educators, therapists, school psychologists and/or nurses, they are given an equal opportunity to larn and grow in their most natural environment. Furthermore, the interviewee agrees with the multi-faceted arroyo of assisting the students with disabilities in a diversity of ways in gild to assistance them attain their full potential.

6. Limitations

This study independent several limitations. I special education teacher/leader whose experiences have been specific to one commune was interviewed. In the future, input from multiple SPED teachers/leaders across school districts should be sought in a focus group format allowing for greater depth of information collection leading to greater generalizability of results. In addition, the interview questions were not based on existing survey tools and questions were designed equally a cursory swoop into perceptions of a SPED teacher/leader. Future survey questions should exist piloted prior to implementation and consist of a narrower focus on the two themes that emerged from this written report.

7. Hereafter Implications

The history of special teaching has been wrought with the seclusion and labeling of children with disabilities. To address this challenge, advocates in the field of education have championed policies for children with special needs over the last fifty years, transforming the landscape of special didactics. This study prompts futurity investigation of SPED teachers'/leaders' perceptions of inclusion classrooms besides as the skills identified as crucial in creating success for students with disabilities. Future exploration of the two themes identified in this report will expand the strategies and tools that are perceived as useful and afterwards assist to support other teachers and professionals provide effective guidance and instruction to students with disabilities. The interviewee in this study stated that the schools in his district typically only take ii inclusion classrooms out of every five non-inclusion classrooms in any given course level. Futurity examination of SPED teachers' strategies and real-world experiences may prompt policy makers to expand the resources bachelor to special education so that every classroom in every grade level volition be considered an inclusion classroom.

8. Conclusion

The field of special educational activity has fabricated incredible progress since it was founded fifty years ago. "In the early 1970s, multiple landmark courtroom decisions provided states with the responsibility to provide special instruction resources and schooling to students with special needs. These decisions altered the entire landscape of special pedagogy history in our country" (All Educational activity Schools, 2018) . Through the literature review and interview process, the authors found that incredible progress has been fabricated in the field of education. Students with special needs are fully integrated into regular education inclusion classrooms. In order to manage an constructive inclusive classroom, the authors believe that educators must be multifaceted and develop their abilities to meet the needs of a diverse pupil population. Thus far, special educators take created classrooms conducive to inclusive learning by consulting Individualized Educational activity Programs (IEPs), relaying content in diverse means, using various approaches for processing information, incorporating life skills training into lessons, collaborating with other teachers, and post-obit a flexible behavior program (Special Didactics Guide, 2019) . Special Education is ever-changing and as information technology continues to improve, the need for leaders educated in special needs is imperative.

Appendix A. SPED Leader Questions and Answers

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this newspaper.

References

[one]	All Pedagogy Schools (2018). A Brief History of Special Educational activity in the United States. https://world wide web.alleducationschools.com/blog/history-of-special-pedagogy
[two]	Anderson, A. (2018). Inclusive Classrooms: Looking at Special Education Today. http://inservice.ascd.org/inclusive-classrooms-looking-at-special-education-today
[iii]	Bateman, D., & Cline, J. (2019). Special Didactics Leadership: Building Effective Programming in Schools. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/x.4324/9781351201353
[4]	Block, M., & Carter, E. (2016). A Meta-Assay of Educator Training to Ameliorate Implementation of Interventions for Students with Disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 38, 131-144. https://doi.org/ten.1177/0741932516653477
[5]	Classroom Leadership (2001). Including Students with Disabilities in General Education Classrooms. Schools and the Police force, five. http://www.ascd.org/publications/classroom-leadership/dec2001/Including-Students-with-Disabilities-in-Full general-Educational activity-Classrooms.aspx
[vi]	National Education Association of the United States (1978). P.L. 94-142: Related Federal Legislation for Handicapped Children and Implications for Coordination. Washington DC: The Association.
[7]	Special Education Guide (2019). The General Ed Teacher's Guide to the Inclusive Classroom. https://www.specialeducationguide.com/pre-k-12/inclusion/the-general-ed-teachers-guide-to-the-inclusive-classroom
[8]	United states Department of Education (2004). A Guide to Instruction and No Kid Left Behind. https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/guide/guide_pg20.html#disab
[9]	US Department of Didactics (2007). Twenty-Five Years of Progress in Educating Children with Disabilities through Thought. https://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/idea/history.pdf

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