Creating an Inclusive School: Theory of Practice at SIT DarulAbidin, Depok, West Java, Indonesia
"He is tantrum again," exclaimed
one of our teachers.
"This form of injustice when they get a
different matter from his friend", said our other teachers.
"He's weird", the student talked to
the others.
"Should our children help for their
friends with disabilities all time? ', Our parents voices their concerns.
10 years ago when we tried to start the
service of inclusive education in our school, we were shocked and stopped for a
while because of a few sentences above. Is it right that we have made the
decision ?.
And now, in the name of Allah the Merciful,
the Compassionate, we want to share our stories and experiences in this article.
Hopefully useful and extend education for all paradigm.
As a learning organization, our school
continuous to learn and improve quality of service by joining together all the
elements of the school. We motivate them to share ideas, so our school can give
fast respond to the current issues in education. One of which is the education
for all (EFA) movement from movement towards the
world education forum (Dakar, 2000).We believe, closing in on EFA goals will
require new strategies. Many children with disabilities are not in school; this
means that the goal of EFA cannot be achieved. Inclusive education is one of
strategy to reach these children. It is based on the principle that all
children should have the opportunity to learn, and that children learn best
when they learn together.
Initiating a change that involves everyone in
the school we feel is not very easy. We need the activation energy to move the
new track. For example,we are already
familiar with the ways of judging students by the numbers and rankings. And
then we have chosen to start with changing the way of our admissions. If
previously we held a selection, now we accept all students with variety of
potential. We focus on interview stage and just sort of parents who can
collaborate with us and accept inclusive education principle. We place students
in classes of different abilities and believe all students have the ability to
be developed.
We always through the early weeks of school
year with activities that facilitates the school community to get to know and
appreciate the uniqueness of them. We conduct variety of simulations that make
them cooperate each other. One of activity is what we call as ta'akhi. In ta’akhi
activity, the seniors will be buddies for new students. The seniors guided the yuniors tour around the school and
simulate the rules applicable to each place. They will also be involved in sports
festival. They will be divided into 3 major groups and each group consists of
various grade levels. They will be involved, to help each other, support each
other to achieve victory in the competitions in the sport festival. In sport
festival, we have various competitions like yells, costumes and relay.All
activities make interaction that exists very pleasant.
To build understanding to their friends with
disabilities, we provide opportunities for our special students to perform
their special skills so that their friends can get new sight from this moment.
And the response given is incredible. Various positive expression written by our
students. We think this is a smart way to create a friendly environment for all
citizens of the school to develop an understanding of the potential and
advantages of each of them.
We have elective classes to accommodate the
variety of potential our students. We provide individual class of our children
with disabilities to get more specific skills needed them in real. Routinely when homeroom time, some classes,
they will go into regular classes of appropriate with their IEP. They also
participate in various outdoor activities such as fieldtrips and camp.
Best education should be carried out
collaboration between the school and parents. We formed a community of parents that
meet regularly and have interactive discussions to solve problems and create a
support for our students. Some time ago, we actively involve our students with
disabilities to prepare the parts of meeting. They created invitation cards,
ice breaker, souvenirs, play organs, to be host and read a poetry. We found
that we were all involved, happy and grateful for this achievement.
Today, when this article was written, we have
...
"The G is our friend",
exclaimed one of our students when get friend with disability can be
demonstrated something in their fieldtrip.
"We must respect our friends who that disabilities
to learn because we can learn from them", said a candidate for student
council.
“turn left (by tapping the left shouder),
turn right (by tapping the right shouder)”, said a student to guide her deaf
friend with pass obstacles in a team-building activities.
Of course we led this process is still long,
but the one thing we believe in the way that we choose in accordance with the
word of Allah in the Qur'an,
"We have certainly created man in the best of
stature (At Tiin:4)".
"And We have certainly honored the children of
Adam and carried them on the land and sea and provided for them of the good
things and preferred them over much of what We have created, with [definite]
preference (Al Isra:70)".
We believe our students with disabilities and
without disabilities should have opportunities to educate, collaborate with and
learn from their peers and their teachers.
How about your school?
Head of Curricullum Division
SIT DarulAbidin, Depok 16426, Jawa Barat,
Indonesia
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