Thai early childhood educators’ perspectives Transforming inclusive teachers to move beyond...

Chapter 10

Thai early childhood educators’ perspectivesTransforming inclusive teachers to move beyond religiosity

Sunanta Klibthong and Joseph Agbenyega

This chapter is based on research investigating preschool teachers’ knowledge, skills and practices related to inclusive education of young children in Thailand. Inclusive early childhood education and care programs play vital roles in young children’s holistic development, and teacher insider perspectives are crucial in understanding how teachers’ programming and children’s behaviors affect the learning environment in which children are educated (Allen & Cowdery, 2012). The chapter supports professional development based on insider perspectives of the teachers themselves that can help transform teachers’ professional practice and build their capacity to support every child to their fullest potential. This chapter advocates that, although there are no universal models for the implemen-tation of inclusive education (Ashman, 2012), children everywhere have the same fundamental human rights to life and quality education (Berthelsen & Brownlee, 2005; Petriwskyj, 2010). Recognizing this right and putting it at the forefront of inclusive education can encourage teachers to avoid practicing oppressive, dis-criminatory and unresponsive pedagogy (Freire, 1973, 1998). The following questions guide the discussion in this chapter:

1 What can teacher educators learn from the insider perspectives of early years teachers working in an inclusive classroom?

2 How do teacher educator researchers gather insider perspectives of practicing teachers?

3 How do teacher educators come to understand what teachers need to know for inclusive practice and how teachers come to know, do, appreciate and be through promoting greater appreciation of insider perspectives?

Introduction

The study reported in this chapter took place in Bangkok in Thailand. Traditionally, the family is the cornerstone of Thai society. The typical unit comprises biological parents and children with close extended family ties (Knodel, 2009). Thai people respect hierarchical relationships (Vorapanya, 2008), and social relationships are characterized by one person being superior to another.

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122 Sunanta Klibthong and Joseph Agbenyega

Buddhism is the predominantly practiced state religion among 95 percent of the population in Thailand, alongside a minority of other world religions represented throughout the nation (Limanonda, 1995; Vorapanya, 2008). Buddhist ideals play a signifi cant role in the societal organization and societal practices.

An important aspect of Buddhist faith that impacts attitudes toward children with disabilities and additional needs is the belief in reincarnation. This belief holds that life does not begin with birth and end with death; rather, every person has several lives based upon the lessons of life not yet learned, and the acts committed (karma) in previous lives can haunt the person in the next life (Vorapanya, 2008). Thai religious beliefs have far-reaching implications for the organization of the education system and how children, particularly those with disabilities, are perceived. For example, attitudes toward parents of children with disabilities remain negative, as disability or additional need is viewed as (karma) receiving punishments for their actions in a previous life (Fulk, Swerdlik & Kosuwan, 2002). Additionally, many regulations regarding children’s behavior and etiquette are consequences of the Buddhist religion, where children are subjected to the extreme authority of adults (Vorapanya, 2008).

Literature review

As part of its inclusive agenda for Thailand, the Offi ce of the Education Council has identifi ed fi ve policy imperatives to respond to the needs of all disadvantaged and marginalized children. Figure 10.1 represents the imperatives detailed by the Ministry of Education in Thailand (2008) and illustrates the expectation that all children would have equitable access to educational services of high quality on a continuous basis by the year 2011.

The move toward inclusive education refl ected in this policy considers every child as having the right to receive quality education to enable full, social and economic participation in society. It also includes the right to care and education for children who are underprivileged and who were previously excluded from education (Vorapanya, 2008). Despite this laudable move toward inclusive education, policy on curriculum, teaching and assessment of young children is rigid and prescriptive, and children transitioning from kindergarten into primary schools are expected to sit competency tests to determine their eligibility for favorite schools. The move toward inclusion is slow; therefore, the majority of children with disability are educated in segregated special schools (Ministry of Education, Thailand, 2008).

In the light of these policy imperatives, we explored the views and practices of three teachers and one teaching assistant related to the inclusive education of young children in one kindergarten class in a large public school that was described as inclusive. The concept of inclusion which guided our research supports the statement that an early childhood program is inclusive if every child ’is able to identify and connect with the school’s social environment, culture and organizational life’ (Dei, James, Karumanchery, James-Wilson & Zine, 2000,


Early childhood educators’ perspectives 123

Figure 10.1 Thai Ministry of Education imperatives, 2008.

Source: Ministry of Education, Thailand (2008, p. 12).

p. 13). This notion of inclusion formed our theoretical basis and enabled us to question whether inclusion was really happening in the classes we visited. The questions that guided the research are:

1. How do the teachers involve all children, particularly those with disability in classroom activities?

2. How has the teachers’ university education/professional development prepared them for inclusive education?

3. What do the teachers consider rewarding or stressful about implementing inclusive programs in their classroom?

The research project

Research design

We conducted 30 hours of observation in one kindergarten classroom (5- to 6-year-olds) over two weeks that included individual data collection about how



three teachers and one teaching assistant interacted with all the children in the class. Although we observed the whole class, we had a particular focus on the adult interactions with James (a pseudonym), a 5-year-old child who had a label of autism. In addition, we conducted a 30-minute face-to-face interview with each of the four teachers, which we tape-recorded and transcribed. The teachers and teaching assistant had the opportunity to read the transcript and confi rm accuracy.

This classroom is part of a large public primary school with more than 1,700 children located in the city of Bangkok. This school includes children with disability and was described as inclusive by the school principal and the teachers. Across the school there were 11 children with an identifi able physical disability and one child with a label of autism. The kindergarten class we observed had 23 children, including the child with a label of autism.

The class had one main classroom teacher, her teaching assistant and two visiting specialist teachers – an English Language teacher and an Information Technology teacher – who each taught once a week. The three teachers held bachelor’s degrees in education with early childhood specializations, and the teaching assistant held a diploma in domestic science. The average age of the four adults was 29.4 years, and each had more than two years’ teaching experience. The main classroom teacher had studied a special education module at university, but the other three teachers had no knowledge of children with disabilities. James comes from a Thai middle-income family. He is the second of two children and has verbal language, although developmentally his language was observed to be below that of his classroom peers.

Observing James in search of inclusion

Throughout our observation we found that rote learning dominated every feature of all the children’s learning. For example, during drawing sessions the teacher and her assistant would make sketches of images on paper and ask the children to color them. We observed that the majority of the children (15 out of 23) in the class appeared off-task and verbally stated they would like to draw their own objects. During the interviews, we asked why the teachers would not allow the children to draw freely and were given a policy justifi cation:

If we allow the children to draw spontaneously, they will deviate from the prescribed curriculum and draw fancy things like robots and cars, which are not the topic of the day. We are working under strict regulation, and we must show the work that children do every day, and this must be consistent with the curriculum given to us.

(Teacher)

Predetermined copying or coloring activities were seen across all subjects in the classroom. We observed James did not respond well to this structure. Specifi cally,



in the computer class, we observed his refusal to copy an object drawn for him by the teacher and his preference for drawing his own objects. On entering the class, James showed initial enthusiasm about the computer; this enthusiasm faded quickly when the teacher assigned all the children a task to copy a tree she had pre-drawn and displayed on the projector screen. James ignored the teacher and drew his own car; when the teacher noticed this she erased his car and attempted to redirect James back to the tree task. When this occurred, James screamed, left the computer, ran around the room, touched other children, pulled their hair and kissed some of the children on the mouth. The teacher commented: ‘He is always like that; he wants to do what he likes, and if he does not get his way he moves around.’

There was a pattern to James’ non-compliant behavior. In another lesson, he refused to join other children watching the teacher demonstrate a cooking task, and chose to sit at the back of the class alone with his toys. Similarly, in the English class, he refused to sit with the other children to repeat English words or phrases. The teacher would hit hard on the table with a stick whenever James appeared off-task or refused to comply with her instructions. This appeared to frighten him, and he screamed and clinched his fi sts toward the teacher in return. The teacher commented, ‘He is a diffi cult boy and everybody knows him in the school.’

Through our observations and interviews with the teachers and teaching assistant, we realized that James was not served properly in this class but, in addition,the other children appeared not to be receiving appropriate teaching from the teachers. The teachers shared a concept of what inclusion meant to them and why they needed to include children with disabilities, but this was accompanied by feelings of frustration, helplessness and stress. However, they also collectively shared examples of rewarding moments in the classroom, linked to religious experiences, which served to contribute to their ongoing commit-ment to inclusion.

Emerging insights

Knowledge of inclusion

All four adults appeared to understand inclusive education as the process of educating children with disabilities with other children and other people in society. The class teacher suggested that ‘When children with and without dis-ability are studying together then it is inclusion.’ This was justifi ed in the belief that if children with disabilities study together in the same classroom, they may not come to understand how to live with different people without disability in society. It appears that this is what motivates the teachers and teaching assistant to accept children with disabilities into their classrooms. In spite of their desire to work with children with disabilities, they also painted a picture of frustration, helplessness and stress.



A feeling of frustration, helplessness and stress

The classroom observation data revealed that all four adults struggled to engage James. The interviews explored this further and highlighted potential issues that may help to explain this. We discovered through our interview with the class teacher that sometimes James would come to school with bruises on his skin, suggesting his parents had beaten him at home. Both the class teacher and teaching assistant talked about James’ parents referring to him as a ‘naughty boy’ who often disobeyed home rules. They shared that James’ parents asked them on several occasions to infl ict more severe punishment on James to change his bad behaviors to normal. This demonstrated the parents were clearly struggling with James at home, just as the teachers were at school. It also highlighted their lack of knowledge of James as a child with a disability who required additional support both at home and at school.

It was revealed through the interview that the teachers and teaching assistant were not adequately prepared to teach in an inclusive program. Although they had learned some theory about inclusion, the practical knowledge of curriculum modifi cation and support for children with disabilities was not included. The classroom teacher, who had completed a special education component in her studies, illustrates this:

I learnt about inclusive education when I studied [for my] bachelor [degree]. But I never do practice teaching about inclusive programs. This is because when students do placement, they have to separate between major in special education and early childhood education. We studied roughly about the theory but we did not understand deeply about inclusive programs, and we did not practice them in the school.

Indeed, the teaching assistant who was employed to support the main teacher had had no training or professional development around inclusion:

I do not have any idea about it. I graduated . . . a long time [ago] and since [then] I have not done any training on how to work with children with disability. I cannot support him . . . I never take any courses about special education or inclusion outside university.

She indicated that her job was not to teach, but to prepare food for the children, clean the room and look after the children during sleep time. This lack of knowledge extended to the specialist Technology and English Language teachers:

I only learnt from the university . . . I think what I studied did not help me in my practice; I just know about theory. But if I face the real situation in the classroom, I cannot apply it to the classroom. What we learnt is not [directly



applicable] to the situation we face. When I face situations [with] James . . . I do not have any idea about [them]. I do not know what to do.

(Technology teacher)

The English teacher attributed her struggle to support James to time factors and her lack of knowledge about inclusive practices:

I believe in teaching children through play, but the time allocated for English is one hour, which I fi nd diffi cult to teach through play. Play takes a long time, and if I use it I cannot achieve my target . . . Besides I am help-less when James is at his behavior again, and I can’t help because I don’t know how. Sometimes, I scare him a little bit so that he can sit down and listen, but it does not work. I thought his class teachers could help, but they are just like me who do[es] not know what to do. I think he is better off in a special education class . . . That is how I feel.

It became apparent that they felt most frustration and stress when trying to manage James’ behavior outbursts, particularly when he extended his frustration to other children in the classroom. When this happened the teachers would stop teaching the whole class in order to remove James from the situation. This was highlighted as very problematic by the class teacher and confi rmed her concern that she was not meeting James’ needs in her classroom:

I feel frustrated about the way the same teacher should care for both children with and without disability. This is because if I look after only the child with disability, I may not be able to look after other children thoroughly in the classroom . . . I like the idea of inclusion because if children with and without disability can study together in the same classroom, I think it is good for all children . . . children with disability can develop their social skills from others. But the problem is that I do not have knowledge about inclusion. If I continue to teach him in [an] inclusive program, I am afraid that he may not gain anything from school. For example, the activities that I prepare for the child with disability may not be suitable for him or he may not feel interested in the activities. I worry that he may have more problems in the future if I do not know the right way to teach and look after him . . . I am also worried about [the] assessment [to] pass to the next level because sometimes I am not sure [whether] he can pass and go to the primary school or not, but if he still stud[ies] in the kindergarten he may not [gain] anything because I also do not have knowledge to teach him.

The teaching assistant echoes this:

I prefer [that he goes to] the school that is more appropriate for him to learn because I do not have knowledge about inclusion [and] I am not a specialist in



special education. Moreover, I do not have time to look after only one child in the classroom because nobody will look after other children for me. I have to look after them too.

Despite the enormous challenges that were expressed in the implementation of effective inclusive practices, there were a few areas that brought joyful moments into their professional lives.

Rewarding moments

Despite the expressed diffi culty, all adults shared in engaging James in classroom activities, and all adults interviewed were passionate about the spirituality and religious entitlement of all children. They ensured that James participated fully in all classroom Buddhist religious activities. Through the classroom observa-tion data, we found the teachers and teaching assistant were patient with James and ensured that he did not miss his prayers or any activity connected to religious ceremonies at school. In the interviews, it is clear they were very concerned about the spiritual and physical well-being of all of the children, including James:

Although he does not want to learn anything, we need to make sure he takes part in all religious activities. Spiritual activities make children laugh, smile and enjoy their time in school. It is about children’s happiness in the classroom, and it is not good if he does not take part.

(Class teacher)

It became apparent that the teachers and the teaching assistant believed religion provided therapy for James, as well as instilling in him values for the future: ‘Religion is good for him; it helps him calm down . . . You will see that when they are praying or singing religious songs, he does not disturb others. It is the only time he is fully involved in anything’ (class teacher). And, ‘I think it is a good way to start with him. Religion will make him become [a] good person in society and have a good morality and enjoy happiness in school’ (teaching assistant).

Lessons for teacher educators

We gained much from this research by combining fi rsthand observation of the classroom and the gathering of the insider perspectives of the teachers and teaching assistant. We learned about the many challenges they face when working with children with disabilities. However, we also learned about impact of the current policy constraints on the teaching and learning of all the children. This notion of accountability to education authorities compelled the teachers and teaching assistant to ignore children’s individual differences and potentials. This presents a systemic barrier to effective inclusive education of young children, and



adheres to the ‘one size fi ts all’ approach. This approach led to many of the children becoming frequently disinterested in learning activities.

There was a strong commitment to the spiritual/religious development in which the children, including James, were encouraged to participate. The ideals and practices of Buddhism, as the predominantly practiced state religion in many Thai schools (Limanonda, 1995; Vorapanya, 2008), play a signifi cant role in the societal organization and school practices (Vorapanya, 2008). As noted in the beginning of this chapter, hierarchical relationships and social stratifi cation, where one person is superior to another, were refl ected in the ways the teachers designed programs and worked with the children as subordinates and not as co-learners. Within this ethos, the constructed pedagogical relationships were counterproductive to inclusive education as echoed in Max van Manen’s (1991) statement:

Pedagogy is not just a word. Pedagogy is not found in observational categories, but like love or friendship in the experience of the presence . . . pedagogy is cemented deep in the nature of the relationship between adults and children.

(1991, p. 31)

This glimpse into some of the ways the teachers and teaching assistant gave meaning to their practices are embedded in the inclusive policy and social context in which they work. This highlights the need to place context and policy at the forefront of any teacher professional learning to interrogate and question existing orthodoxies that privilege teachers against the children they teach. The teachers’ revelation that James often comes to school with bruises, suggesting that he is often beaten at home, indicates the need for a strong family-centered practice where parents and teachers are educated about issues of childhood behavior and the impact of particular disabilities.

While we acknowledge that the inclusive discourse emphasizes that teachers must respond to individual children’s needs, we acknowledge the problematic issue of limited knowledge in professional preparedness and the frustration expressed by the teachers in this school. The limited professional knowledge of all adults who engaged with James created a barrier between them and James, in particular, illustrating the need for a transformative professional learning.

To be able to work successfully with children with disabilities, teachers need to have professional learning that provides the appropriate tools, skills and competences (Dei, James, Karumanchery, James-Wilson & Zine, 2000). Such transformative professional learning highlights the need for teachers to be aware of individual learning styles (Agbenyega, 2011; Agbenyega & Klibthong, 2011, 2012). In the Thai context, we believe teacher educators could shadow pre- and in-service teachers to nurture understandings of children with disabilities and coach pedagogical skills that effectively allow teachers to engage in transfor-mative professional learning. This should include the family context and involve



home visits to better connect with children’s families and educate them about their children with disabilities. Teacher educators in Thailand and elsewhere must deliberately seek to enhance teachers’ professional knowledge of disability and inclusive practice by explicitly addressing barriers to professional identity such as reducing hierarchical relationships and building positive pedagogical relationships with children. In this way transformative professional learning and teaching will not only:

govern by principles of effectiveness, but also by special normative, ethical or affective considerations . . . the head and heart working together[,] know . . . what is appropriate for the changing contexts in the group and for the individual.

(van Manen, 1995, p. 33)

In this research, we found religion plays a crucial role for all adults in the classroom. The religious (heart) drive of the adults could be combined with principles of pedagogical effectiveness to ensure that children with a disability are more fully engaged in all classroom activities. In order to accomplish this, teachers must ensure that every child enrolled in the program makes a real connection with the learning activities, not from an assimilationist point of view but with reference to their individual interests and learning styles.

This will demand a move away from rote learning that is very adult directed and controlled. We believe that this will support positive behavior for all children and, as teacher educators, we need to help teachers to develop classrooms where the social conditions of the classroom accentuates children’s individual and col-lective knowledge (Dei et al., 2000). We see value in the religious practices, but religiosity should not be considered the only source of happiness to children in the classroom. Children experience well-being and happiness when they are given opportunity in their learning environments to build positive relationships, enact free exploration and achieve according to their interests and potentials. We recognize that the skills children with and without disability learn in inclusive early years programs are important for future life success which religiosity alone cannot afford to give. Therefore, inclusive early childhood education must be made to ‘function appropriately to provide all learners with the requisite skills for accessing society’ (Dei et al., 2000, p. 61). This means synergizing religiosity and pedagogy to guide children through the daily maze of increasing classroom demands as they engage in productive learning.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have presented a picture of some of the fundamental issues and challenges that confront Thai early childhood teachers as they work to implement inclusive education. Inclusive education for young children presents complex dilemmas to teachers and teacher educators that are related to belief



systems and pedagogical practices. However, quality education cannot be limited to a few selected children. To advance early childhood inclusion and meet the developmental needs of all children, particularly in Thailand, teacher educators must assist early childhood teachers to challenge historical and traditional understanding of childhood, teaching and learning. Traditional Thai views of childhood consider children as simplistic thinkers and as such they are seen as passive recipients of knowledge. Effective inclusive schooling requires transformative teacher education to realign teachers’ knowledge capital about the nature of children, how they are different and how differently they learn.

Requisite professional knowledge empowers teachers and reduces the helplessness (Soodak et al., 2002) often experienced by teachers in inclusive classrooms. In our view, quality, inclusive, early childhood education cannot just happen; it has to be developed, implemented and evaluated on systemic and practical levels. This includes a commitment by teacher educators to draw on the insider perspectives of teachers for teacher training programs and a willingness to embrace partnerships with families to adopt new ways of thinking and doing (Agbenyega & Klibthong, 2012; Tomanovic, 2003). Teacher educators must consider the role of professional placements in inclusive classrooms as essential so that teachers can see best practice in inclusive education. More importantly, teacher educators need to nurture teachers to become open to multiple per-spectives from the children with and without disability. These developments require removing systemic barriers for teacher educators and teachers to bring innovation into their practices.

References

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