Abstract
Abstract
The school from the very beginning until the mid of 19th century has been a sort of media for cherishing exclusiveness, separation and discrimination of women, poor, disabled , chronically sick etc. Through the centuries school was supporting just the most capable ones those who were able to adjust to the system and in that way excluding others. The democratization of education throughout the 20th century followed up with an inclusive approach conceived in a belief to change the access to regular education radically in a global perspective. However, it showed a number of problems and weaknesses. Only placing children in regular school environment without necessary adjustments of curricular features, strategies of instructions and organisation to suit the individual needs, do not have desirable outcome. Inclusion challenged schools to reinvent themselves in order to become flexible, creative learning environment that include and are responsive to a full range of pupil diversity.
The educational system in Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the process of education reform. However, it is still struggling with the process of adapting rigid and burdening curricular features to children with special needs that, for the time being, we can only encounter in the regular schools in the small numbers.
The purpose of this study was to provide information enabling the school to effectively implement the inclusion of a child with special needs into regular class, through designing a curriculum and teaching that will accommodate his/her individual needs.
The curriculum relation model (Johnsen, 2001) introduced, as a structural frame for this study, is an example of a professional tool for creating relevant teaching/learning situations in accordance with individual level of mastery, learning preferences, needs, and personal interests.
This thesis presents a detailed description of the entire process of assessment of one purposefully selected pupil in his educational and environmental context and based on that adjusting the curriculum to his individual needs. For that purpose, observation, interviews, check-list, tests, scales and document analysis, were used. The interpretation of data is given in a narrative form, developing the pupil s profile of educational mastery, nearest learning possibilities and need of support. The process of curriculum adjustment is also described in details, explaining all the activities done. Lesson learned from this single case study and innovation project (assessment and process of curriculum adaptation) is given in a thorough description in the Manual for teachers and special needs educators. The Manual may be the sum or the first draft for teachers and special needs educators as a professional support in their future efforts towards meeting the needs of children included in the regular school system.