Special education presents a unique set of challenges specific to each child. Disabilities among children are varying, and different countries have different approaches to how they treat people with disabilities in general. In the U.S., I believe that we do a decent job of including and accommodating people with disabilities into the education system, as well as society as a whole. This is not the case in many developing countries.
When we lived in Mexico, we couldn't drive down the street without seeing a disabled person forced to beg to survive. Many of the disabilities easily apparent could have been eliminated early on with proper medical treatment; however, the poor cannot afford such interventions, and so they were siphoned out of the education system at an early age. This attitude toward disabilities is not unique to Mexico. I had friends that adopted a baby from Russia, but in order to do this, they had to be willing to adopt a baby with some form of a disability. The adorable little boy they adopted had crossed eyes, but after surgical intervention, his eyes are fine. This precious little boy had been left at the orphanage because he was different, but with the right attention and help, he was able to function perfectly in the world. If you take that example to a broader scale, the same can be done for disabled people around the world, and UNESCO is doing its best to help the disabled of the world with technology.
With the right tools and education, those with disabilities can learn to be productive members of society, but it will require a change in attitude in many countries around the world towards those with disabilities. It wasn't that long ago that the U.S. institutionalized people with disabilities, but fortunately we have learned that that is not the best for anyone. As more teachers are trained to help people with disabilities and more technologies are developed to accommodate them, hopefully the attitudes of developing countries will change to be more inclusive.
Finland has a unique attitude towards education, in that most kids that graduate from their system have had some sort of personalized special education. They believe in intervening at the first signs of a student struggling with the material, and creating a specialized plan involving a whole team of people to get the student on track. I think this is a wonderful idea, in theory; however, I don't know that it would work in many places that are more diverse than Finland. In a country like Finland in which the population is totally homogenous and there is very little poverty, they have the resources and the teachers have the training to provide such specialized education. However, in the U.S. where our population is diverse and the needs of the students are as varied as their culture, this plan would be difficult. And it just wouldn't work at all in a developing country.
I like the idea of the Classroom of One, where kids have the technology they need to be educated from many different sources. They have 8 learning center options, 5 of which are live, and 3 of which are online. They can talk to a teacher in another state, and type their questions into a computer, eliminating the embarrassment of voicing their questions out loud in front of their peers. Each student can progress at their own speed, and there are many safety nets in place to ensure an appropriate education for all, even those with learning disabilities. This program is not without its challenges, in that the resources must be available and teachers must be trained to use them. However, this could be a great solution to the disabled of developing countries. If someone can get them the tool they need to connect to a teacher in another country, they could learn the skills they need to function at a higher quality of life. And if enough people can be educated and enough attitudes changed through education, developing countries as a whole could move into the 21st century.
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