Sept. 6, 2001
BY ALAN WHITE ~ Telegraph-Journal

Changes needed in training of NB teachers: says advocate

EDUCATION: Community Living official calls for increase in special-education university courses.

With figures showing that one out of five children in New Brunswick's English-speaking classrooms has special needs, an advocacy group says it is time to better equip teachers to deal with today's classroom.

The Department of Education's first survey of 'exceptional' students in the anglophone school system reveals that about 15,000 of the 85,000 students in the system have a myriad of special needs, ranging from autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to schizophrenia.

"You've got to know how to teach all kids," said Krista Carr, the executive director of the New Brunswick Association for Community Living.

"With 17 per cent of children in the New Brunswick school system needing some sort of extra support or attention, I think it's more important than ever that we're prepared to teach all children.

"Teachers need to be equipped to be able to teach to all children", Ms. Carr said.

Where that equipping must begin is in university, Ms. Carr said, calling on the government to require that university education faculties in the province increase the credits required in special education training as part of their education degree programs.

"Over a two-year program or a four-year program, one course is not [a lot]," she said. "It's not necessarily a course in teaching an inclusive classroom, it's a 'special-ed' class.

"It's not 'how do I teach all children in the same setting,' necessarily. I think there need to be some changes to how we educate teachers at the university level."

Ms. Carr said the hard numbers produced by the survey also reinforce the need for more in-service training for teachers who have been working in the system for years, or even decades in some instances.

"Teachers are very professional people, but sometimes it takes extra training to be able to deal with certain situations," Ms. Carr said. "There definitely needs to be an investment in more training."

The education department already dedicates $31 million a year for services specifically for special-needs students, with most of that earmarked to pay 625 teacher assistants and 398 teachers that are specially trained in using different teaching methods and resources to assist students with special needs.

Ms. Carr calls for more methods and resource teachers ahead of more teacher assistants.

'If there was to be more money to be invested, we would certainly support more investment in methods and resource teachers before we would support more for teacher assistants," she said.

"The reason behind that is that methods and resource teachers tend to have more extensive training. We would hope that methods and resource teachers would be encouraged to facilitate inclusion and support the classroom teacher to make inclusion happen in their classroom.

"I'm not saying we wouldn't support more [teacher assistants]," Ms. Carr said. "I'm just saying that dollars are always limited and what we would support first would be an investment in more methods and resource teachers."

Reach our reporter tjfred@nbnet.nb.ca