Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 1; January 2002

Getting Past Barriers and the role of Positive Beliefs in Teaching

(Editorial note: this piece is by a Special Needs teacher working on literacy skills in a Further Education college in the Liverpool area, UK. Her own life experience has turned out to be central in her professional life. Without her personal struggles would she have been so full of insights into her students' problems and needs?)

At the age of 37 I had suffered from epilepsy for about 9 years. As time moved on the fits were getting more frequent, and it got to the point where 3 days out of each week I was having fits. It occurred to me at this point that if my epilepsy increased much more I would be fitting every day. The hospital changed my medication but this didn't help or stop the fits. My sister came with me for an appointment and commented on the doctor's distraction with various things like his following appointments and his disinterest (as far as I could see) in me; I had been seeing him for over five years. I felt that this was a no hope situation and that the hospital would simply keep increasing my medication. Shortly after this, for the first time ever, I saw a consultant privately and it was the best money (£80) I have ever spent. He talked to me for 45 minutes asking me about my fits and listening to what I had to say. He then referred me to the Walton Neuro-Centre. They put me through tests to see whether or not they could operate to remove damaged tissue from my brain. The tests were successful and I was operated on to remove the part of my left temporal lobe that was causing the fits. This should have been the only operation, but due to complications caused by infection I required six further operations. This was preferable to the fits increasing and thankfully the NHS did not keep me waiting too long.

You can get past any barriers

After the first operation it was 10-14 days before I regained the ability to speak. My mother found this very difficult to cope with, as although I was "talking" I was not making any sense whatsoever! I must say at this point that I did feel God very close to me here, more so than ever before or since. My husband thankfully believed that I was going to be myself again and I found this very reassuring. I remember being able to read words, but not able to read all of the words in a book. I was unsure for the next 4-5 years that I would ever feel "normal" again. I found it really helpful to find someone that I could say what I liked to, who would give me feedback, who wasn't connected to my family. The operation affected my confidence a lot and I see this lack of confidence first hand - I needed people to see the potential in me before I could even begin to see it myself. This has now changed to me seeing the value in myself, personally and professionally. I can see my own potential, and see the potential in my students. My own experience has taught me that you can get past any barriers if you want to, if you put your mind to it and you believe that you can - it also helps to see that someone else believes in you too. I have a greater empathy with my students, and can honestly say to them that I know how it feels to be in their position, and that it is only that we, the teaching staff haven't found the way through yet.

Helping Students who have come to think they are stupid

I talk to the students very openly and honestly, I am straight with them and then I do get past the facade. I can encourage them to see that they are not as "stupid" as they, or others think that they are (their words, not mine). I do point out to them that it is us teachers who need to find the best way of teaching them whatever they want to learn. I feel that I must further my own education, not only for myself, but also for my students, for as I develop so I will be able to help them to develop more as well.

My own experience has taught me that you can get past barriers, whatever they are, by breaking down these barriers/mountains down into achievable steps, which still push you but just enough. The lack of confidence, "learning difficulty" over a few years has taught me that the right attitude, right person, encouragement and teaching can move the problem from the student, to the solution being within the teaching. By changing the emphasis from the learning difficulty being located in the person and based on a deficit model, to a problem-solving approach of "what do you want to learn and how can we achieve that?" with the students and the teacher working side by side, we can achieve the goals together. Another key in this is to get the students to help each other; team work, as they are all good at different things. Although I am the tutor most of the written work, on the white board or the flip chart, is done by the students assisting each other with spellings, and whatever else they can help each other with.

We really do make contact with each other. I haven't found any of them feeling insulted by my approach, but rather they see us as working together to find a way through their learning difficulties. Following my operation I suffered memory loss problems and I had to find new strategies to remember things. One of the most successful of these was putting things to tunes. I have been able to pass some of these strategies and methods onto my students.

Singing and Sign language with an autistic Student

One of my students is 19, is autistic and has come through school but cannot read or write. I had to give lots of thought to how we could include her in the class more, and involve her fully in the lesson. I have found that singing what I want her to learn e.g. the concept of nouns, the letters of her name has, used alongside the sign language alphabet, made this click into place so much so that she can do you the letters of her name individually and in a different order. She recognises them. The smiles I have had from this young lady now have made it very worthwhile. She can also sign and sing out the letters of " M u m " and her dog's name.

We need people to believe in us

The big thing with me was that I did feel that I had a problem, which I had to admit to in order to be able to get help. I had to find the right resources, one of which was the Drop-in Study Centre at the college where I work. I had to swallow pride here and go back to maths and English at stage one. As I said earlier we (being me and my students) need people to believe in us, more than we can sometimes believe in ourselves - someone who makes the steps forward achievable, manageable, and encourages us to go for it. There have been other "knock on" effects in my life. I am employed as a tutor for students with specific learning disabilities, and I am able to put into practice what I had to experience and try for myself. I have organised my work, my life more than ever before, I have achieved C&G 7401, C&G 7307 and almost finished the Certificate of Education. I have also achieved a lot more in my personal life.

There is a lot of opportunity here. We as teachers need to believe that our students can achieve and strive hard enough to find a way through a help them learn. Although I do realise in some cases we have to listen to them dealing with the emotional barriers and get past them, we can then move on to the real learning issue.