Special Needs Educator gets GTU recognition

Oct 12, 2014 News

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– urges Education Ministry to rethink process of integration

Children requiring special needs education are accommodated and not integrated into the normal school system.  At least this is the conviction of Special Needs educator for more than two decades, Ingrid Peters.

According to the 54-year-old retiree, the Ministry of Education is embracing what it calls ‘integration for the blind and visually impaired’ meaning that children can be taught alongside sighted children.
In fact Peters is taking credit for proposing this very strategic tactic many years ago.
But according to Peters, while the Ministry has acknowledged and is from all indication embracing this integration of special needs students, she is convinced that it is certainly not at a place where it should be.
“It fell through because the Ministry of Education has not been, for the longest while, training teachers in this area as much…and I am worried about it because the children right now as far as I am concerned they are not being integrated at all,” said Peters.
“It is more an accommodation setting than integration,” said the former educator who however noted that while integration is important, this should not occur at the level of nursery and primary education but rather at the secondary level.
According to her while at the early levels children should integrate by socialisation, this should not be done in terms of learning.
“At this point they need individual education where they need the foundation to learn to read and write properly and that is not being done right now because we do not have the kind of human resources,” asserted Peters.
She is therefore calling on the Minister of Education to ensure that this whole integration process is closely examined and addressed.
It was in recognition of 36 years of teaching in the education system that Peters was duly recognised when the Guyana Teachers Union held an award ceremony recently. Several other teachers were also recognised during the ceremony.
For 22 years Peters was integrally involved in special needs education after which she offered another six years of her life to teaching music at St George’s, St Rose’s and St John’s College. She retired from the latter mentioned school last year June.
Peters in speaking to the GTU recognition said, “I feel excellent, I feel good…I feel that somebody cared. I felt that my service has been acknowledged, it has been accepted…it had worth in it.”
She learned music while a student in Trinidad and was able to write five Grades in Music with the Royal School of Music in England. She passed with merit and distinction and was well versed in this field as well.
Music was definitely a subject she taught with particular precision. Special needs education was certainly one of her passions.
This is mainly due to the fact that Peters herself was a special needs student back in the day. Reflecting on her younger days, she recalled being born with defective vision which resulted from congenital cataract. As she grew older her eye sight diminished considerably until her teenage years when she became completely blind.
Although she was born here, to a Guyanese mother and Trinidadian father, she grew up in Trinidad. It was no major challenge for her parents to find suitable schooling for her in Trinidad despite her visual challenge.
And so she was well schooled at the Santa Cruz School for the Blind. But after 12 years her parents decided to return to Guyana with little Ingrid in tow.
It was around the late 1970s that she was encouraged to share the special needs education she was able to acquire. “I really didn’t like teaching but somebody told me that there was a vacancy that existed at the David Rose School for the Handicap in the field of Braille Teaching to the Blind,” recounted Peters.
On November 2, 1977, Peters assumed the position of a Braille Instructor.
It was at this point that she really recognised the importance of integration among special needs children. She recounted that she was integrated during her schooling in Trinidad. And this, according to her, was only done when students were found to be 75 per cent or 85 per cent independent.
Being independent back in the day meant that students were well equipped to use their Braille machine. However today because of technological advances there are laptops and other devices that can aid the learning of the visually impaired. Once students are able to utilise the various learning mechanisms well they can then be deemed independent, Peters said.
“What is happening here in Guyana is that children are placed in the classrooms and they are being ‘spoon fed’…” lamented Peters who is adamant that this should not be the case.
“There should be more individual attention to ensure that children are learning…especially at the younger level.” This, according to the awardee, will ensure that students are well prepared for proper integration at the secondary level.

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