Meeting the Needs

Maria Alicia Esteva

I just graduated from college a couple of months ago. Even though I just graduated, I have already had 4 years of experience within a classroom environment. In my country, the Dominican Republic, it is common for teachers to work in schools while studying their career. Since the beginning of my college years, I started to understand how important it is to provide a quality education that allows each child to reach his or her maximum potential in life. Still today, I worry about equity – it is something that I’m passionate about. It is such a challenge for me as a teacher to try to meet each and every one of the different needs inside the classroom. It is not an easy job, but when you are in a school system that does not have the tools or the resources to help, it is even worse.

In my country, equity and attending to the particular needs of children can be a struggle and a real challenge. This is true especially when it comes to public schools. The public schools in the Dominican Republic are funded by the government, which does not give them the support they really need. Teachers are not well paid, they do not receive a good professional education, and they have no material resources at hand to plan their classes. As a product of all this, and many other factors, all kinds of students in Dominican public classrooms are not receiving quality education. In private schools, most of these issues I mention are not a problem. Even in private schools, however, there are problems when it comes to special education. The inequity of educating children with special needs is evident. Most likely, these kids are segregated and sent to “special schools.”

My sister Maria Victoria is a living example of this. She was born with Down’s Syndrome. She is such a joy to our family. She is a unique human being, with feelings, likes and dislikes, a sense of humor, and full of many other beautiful characteristics that make her special just the way she is. My family and I have lived through many hard experiences with her schooling, and this is one of the most important reasons why I am so inclined to be a special education teacher in the Dominican educational system.

Maria Victoria was born in 1991, and since my parents found out about her condition, they started looking for answers. “What is Down’s syndrome?” “What are we going to do as parents to give her the best life we possibly can?” And this is where our journey began, through many uncertain paths, in a country where special education was a new concept really, only in the beginning stages of development.

At home, my brother and I were so excited to have a new baby sister. We both started to notice that something was different, and like any other child would, we started asking questions. “Mom, why doesn’t she speak?” “When will she start to walk?”

I have always admired my mom for her wise answers and the way she handled situations. “God knew you were a special brother and sister, so He sent us a special baby sister to take care of,” she would reply calmly. No more questions after that. She was just my special sister, and has been ever since.

Trying to find a preschool was not that hard for my parents. Maria Victoria quickly found a place in one of my mom’s friend’s preschool. Everyone there had the best of intentions at heart, and provided her with opportunities to play, sing, and explore her world with similar aged children.

After the preschool years went by, the search for an elementary school that would accept her started. After various attempts and observations, she was accepted into a Montessori elementary school. That was the most wonderful school experience she has had until this day. At the beginning, parents of the school were opposed to having a Down’s syndrome child in the classroom with their children.

Maria Victoria’s adaptation was not easy. She started biting the girls in her class. Soon she was assigned a teacher assistant to help her. Every time her behavior was not adequate, the whole class would stop what it was doing and would reflect on solutions that could be applied to maintain a respectful environment in the classroom. Maria Victoria was invited to replace her negative actions with those suggested by the students, kissing and hugging instead of biting. At the very beginning this would happen more than 10 times a day. Then the frequency of incidents started decreasing until a balanced classroom environment was achieved. Later, teachers and even parents that had been opposed, realized that having Maria Victoria and investing time in these reflections resulted in the growth of the whole group.

The students all became so bonded together and interested in helping her in school work that procedures had to be established. The boys and girls that finished their work on time were the ones who could help her. This became a motivation for all of them - they all eagerly tried to do their best and finish on time. Everybody loved her; she was so well integrated into her group! She never learned how to read or write, but she was a happy child. On their 6th grade graduation day, the students wrote a speech on how having Maria Victoria in their class had made them better persons. They talked about how they had learned to understand her and respect her in spite of their differences. We all learned from this wonderful experience.

“What do we do now?” we asked ourselves after 6th grade. This is when we all started bumping into high walls and trying to open closed doors. It felt like there was just no way out. Some schools offered to take her, but their school environments were not prepared to handle a special needs child like Maria Victoria. Teachers wouldn’t know what to do and no special education department was, and still isn’t, available in any of the schools in the country. Centers that are available for children only with special needs are very scarce and not very well taken care of.

So my sister stayed home for the next two years of her life working on daily living skills. She went to gym five days a week, to Special Olympics practice on Saturdays, and received visits from a nanny two times a week that would help her do crafts. This did not affect her in a positive way. After spending so much time inside the house, she didn’t want to go out anymore. It was hard for us as a family to try and convince her to do things we really knew she would enjoy.

My sister was accepted this past year into another school, one in which my mom is a principal, where she is now integrated into a 5th grade classroom. My mom, with the backup of the psychologist of the school, is in charge of preparing all of the activities she does in school. At first it was very difficult because Maria Victoria had gotten used to a sedentary house life. She didn’t want to do certain things of the class routine and socializing was hard. Thank God, right now she is doing much better. She is very happy and adapting to the routine. She participates and does most of the activities, though there are still some she refuses to do. She loves to go to the specials and enjoys doing arts and crafts. What will happen in the next few years? We don’t know. We do hope she can be a part of a learning environment and can enjoy being part of a school community.

This is only one family’s example, one that shows how challenging it can be to have a child with special needs and to provide an educational place for that child to fit in. You should know our family story is one of privilege; children who are born into very poor families only have access to public schools, and probably aren’t able to find a place to go. Even if a placement occurred, the child would most likely not receive the attention he or she needed.

In my country, this inadequate access to learning not only happens to children with severe special needs like my sister, but also to those who have only moderate learning disabilities. As I said in the beginning of my story, as teachers, we have to strive to meet each and every one of the different needs inside the classroom. It is difficult if you have 30 children inside a classroom, a handful of them with learning disabilities, and you have to try and figure it all out by yourself. Teaching is not an easy job ever, and almost every teacher in the Dominican Republic finds him/herself in this position of needing support to fulfill the needs within the classroom.

I have been truly blessed with the opportunity to come to the United States as part of an exchange program that was established with the university where I graduated and a public school system in the U.S. I have been participating as a teacher in a wonderful 4th grade class. One of the things that immediately caught my attention, from the first day I came, was that suddenly, in the middle of the class, some children would look at the clock on the wall, stand up, and walk out of the classroom. At first I thought they were just out for the bathroom, but they were gone for much more time than that required. So I inquired about where they where going. They were leaving to attend different kinds of special classes: Response to Intervention (RTI), Occupational Therapy (OT), Gifted and Talented (GT), and the resource room. The children with weaknesses in the reading areas went to RTI, those that needed help to better control their fine and gross motor skills went to OT, others that needed enrichment attended classes that addressed high math and extended learning opportunities in GT, and those with learning disabilities went to the resource room. As a first impression I thought this was amazing. The children and teachers have so much help! All the children received the extra support in the areas that they need the most.

During my 4th grade placement, I started to notice something I felt was important. Those children that left the room often missed assignments that were going on inside the classroom. A vocabulary lesson, group work, literature discussion groups and read-alouds, were some of the things the students missed or walked out in the middle of. I felt it was challenging to make up for lost assignments, discussions or incomplete work. I had a literature discussion group with five students. For most of the time that we had to work together, two of the children had to leave to go to their special classes. The result of this was that they missed the sheets we worked on, did not participate in our group discussions of what we had read, and when we were together next time, they had to make up for what they didn’t read to catch up with the others. It was hard to manage and to keep the group assignments completed.

I also had the opportunity to observe the support classes offered to students. I noticed that the teachers were really focused on providing individualized instruction to the children, but totally out of context. Many of the things they did in the resource room and other special classes had nothing to do with what was going on inside the classroom. I wondered if this was the best teaching practice and the best way to reach the children’s needs. Was missing classroom instruction all those times going to bring any more problems? These were some of the questions that came to my mind and that I still wonder about.

On one of my visits to the resource room, I met a girl who reminded me of my sister Maria Victoria. This particular student had significant special needs and was being integrated into a 4th grade classroom. She had a wonderful teacher assistant who was with her at all times. I wanted to observe her in both academic settings, the resource room and the regular classroom. I had a really hard time finding where in the schedule she was actually in her assigned classroom. I thought, “Was this really inclusion? Or was her program an example of segregation?” I did get to see her in the classroom, but before I knew it, when the class was given a direction to do a worksheet, she went out to the hallway to work with her teacher assistant.

Maria Victoria had a teacher assistant with her at all times, but she was never pulled out of her room. I wonder if this was why her classmates had embraced her in such a way. She really was a special friend to them and an important part in the classroom community. I ask myself if this would be the same for the girl I observed. I feel it probably wouldn’t be the same.

In the United States laws protect and ensure the education of all students. I know that this special girl in the 4th grade, along with other children with severe learning disabilities, will be provided what they need in schools until 12th grade.

This reality is not the same in the Dominican Republic. I have shared with you a very close example, which would not describe the reality of the greater part of Dominican special need children. I worry about what will happen to them and where they will go. I also wonder about those children who are in schools but are not receiving what they need to reach their highest potential. These two important reflections I don’t have concrete answers for. I know it is possible to provide such educational experiences for these children with special needs because I have seen it here in the United States. I question if what I have observed is the best way to integrate them, but at least they have a place to go where they are accepted and cared for.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, but whatever I do I want make a difference. I want to be a part of an educational movement and join others who are speaking up for children with special needs who right now don’t have an active voice. I want to be the teacher who puts into practice the kind of education we often hear about, the kind that gives every child what they need; the kind that really has equity. This is what all children need, both in the U.S. and in the Dominican Republic.

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