《太空戰士六》︰第十三話 闖陣

(FFshrine.org)

13.1

艾卡、洛克與天娜坐在剛剛捕捉的魔導裝甲之上。

三人分別穿上帝國軍的軍服，並喬裝成帝國軍。

「不愧是汪洋大盜，真懂得化妝逃過軍方的追捕。」艾卡笑說。

洛克白了艾卡一眼，說︰「是易容術。而且我是寶物獵人，不是甚麼汪洋大盜。」

「不都是一樣。」艾卡說。

天娜看著鏡子，完全認不得鏡中的自己。她套上洛克自製的人皮面具，活像一個老軍官。

「若有人向你說話，不需要回應他，只要板起臉望著我們就行。我們會為你解圍的。」洛克道。

易容後的天娜，外表是無懈可擊，但是若在言語及行為上，卻難掩女兒家的神韻。

「只要坐著別動就好。」天娜提醒自己道。

「嗯。」洛克則像一個中年身經百戰的士兵，像天娜的副手在她身旁。

「那為何要我當新兵？」艾卡駕駛著魔導裝甲，忽然抱怨起來。

「古老機械文明王國的承繼人，扮演魔導裝甲的駕駛員不是很合適嗎？」這次到洛克反擊說。

天娜聽到二人又鬥氣起來，不禁笑了。

「天娜。」洛克提示道。

「只要坐著別動就好。」天娜再提醒自己道。

「來了。」艾卡說。

天娜聽見艾卡如此說，眼看到一大隊魔導裝甲迎面而來，立刻緊張起來。

這表示就快到達帝國軍的大寨。

天娜四平八穩地坐著，艾卡把魔導裝甲停下來，與洛克一同站起身來向魔導裝甲隊伍行禮。

魔導裝甲大隊上的軍官沒有理會天娜等人，駕著魔導裝甲離開了。

天娜輕輕呼了口氣。

洛克與艾卡坐下來，繼續上路。

13.2

穿過林木區，來到剛剛從遠處看到的費加洛山脈隧道前的大寨。大寨的圍牆以附近砍伐的大樹與泥土建造，雖算臨時性質，但已有效地防止敵人潛入。

只見大寨有三數個出入口，都由二部二足型魔導裝甲及數個步兵守衛，紀律嚴謹。

「想不到守衛如此森嚴。」艾卡嘆道。

「不要只是讚賞敵人。」洛克說︰「先過這關再說。」

艾卡把魔導裝甲停在哨站前。

「通行證。」哨兵問道。

洛克立刻遞上一本皮革製作的小簿。

「你們是？」哨兵望著通行證再望望艾卡說。

「五連第一隊，巡邏完畢。」艾卡答道。

「唔。」哨兵與身邊的士兵小聲說著。

天娜擔心哨兵沒有反應，是不是出了甚麼亂子。這時的心跳得很快，不用把脈，心跳機乎隔空可聞。

「我們可以進去了嗎？」洛克見哨兵沒有反應，催促道︰「基卡夫大人等著我們的。」

哨兵聽見基卡夫的名字，立刻驚慌起來，生怕他會怪罪，立刻開閘放行。

天娜正舒了口氣之際，哨兵忽然向天娜問道︰「今晚的口令是甚麼？」

天娜一時也不能答上話來，只睜大眼睛望著洛克與艾卡，心亂如麻。幸好洛克機警，搶著道︰「天滿，落日，源國。」然後小聲向哨兵說︰「今早老傢伙無端端給基卡夫大人罵得一面是屁，心情很差，請大兵哥體諒。」

哨兵像是心同感受，說道︰「快行快行。」

艾卡二話不說便開動魔導裝甲進了大寨。

「你剛才對哨兵說了甚麼？」艾卡好奇問道。

「基卡夫的壞話。」洛克笑道。

13.3

艾卡等人進入大寨不久，正不知到哪兒報到進入隧道。

「基卡夫你這個烏龜王八蛋，你給我出來。」在剛才進來的哨站傳來某人的高聲叫罵。

「這才是真正的說壞話。」艾卡說。

帝國軍的士兵突然緊張起來，不斷有士兵前往增援。

洛克初時不以為意，但增兵速度慢慢加速，甚至有主戰型魔導裝甲加入。洛克心感不妙，捉著一名士兵問過究竟。

「有費加洛正在闖陣。」士兵回答說。

艾卡心想已指示老將軍留在星之丘待命，這一帶還有哪一個師團？轉念又想：「難道有綠洲的不聽號令？假冒費加洛軍？」

「敵方一多少人？」洛克如艾卡肚中的蟲子，知道需要更多資訊作判斷。

「只有一人。」士兵爽快地回答。

「甚麼？」洛克與艾卡異口同聲道。

13.4

艾卡與洛克把魔導裝甲停在一旁，天娜則留作看守，然後二人到哨站看過究竟。

在哨站對出，三架二足型魔導裝甲把那一個人團團圍住，較外圍的有二隊士兵準備，而二部主戰型魔導裝甲則守在大寨的門口作最後防線。

「這種規模足以輕易把一個連的費加洛步兵完全殲滅。」艾卡小聲對洛克說。

但是帝國軍只是圍著那人，卻沒有進攻的意慾。而那人雖擺著架勢，也只是等待敵人。

「他在養精蓄銳，面對一整隊帝國軍，他不會白白浪費氣力。」洛克道。

這種拉緊的氣氛，被其中一架二足型魔導裝甲所打破。它按捺不住衝上前揮拳攻擊，其餘二部像是意想不到，雖然也一擁而上，但也慢了半拍。

只見那人不慌不忙，緊緊避開魔導裝甲的鐵拳。然後跟著拳勢轉身，雙手捉著，把自己作為支點，居然把整台魔導裝甲拋上半空。

這時第二台魔導裝甲已到，那人一個閃身，魔導裝甲撲了個空，失去了平衡，倒在地上。

拋上半空的魔導裝的墮落點正是後上攻來的第三部，兩部魔導裝甲撞上後火花四濺。

只短短數秒，三台魔導裝甲便全部擊破。魔導裝甲況且如此，血肉之軀的帝國軍士兵更當然不敢接近。

艾卡與洛克看得目定口呆，難怪帝國軍會如此緊張。

那人站起身來，說：「把傷者先帶走。」

少了魔導裝甲的遮擋，艾卡與洛克較清楚看著那個人。

他束了一把長長的金髮，身上只穿了件湖水南色的背心，露出了他健碩的身材。

「很面善……」艾卡自言自語。

然而，帝國軍沒有領金髮男子的情，在後面的主戰型魔導裝甲突然發難，主炮閃出強光。

「糟糕！」艾卡忘記了自己潛伏的身份，破口而出。

的確，那個人是不是盜用費加洛的身份已無關重要，反而艾卡欣賞他的膽色與材能。

所以不自覺替他擔心起來。

但見他只吐了句「卑鄙」，便雙手在腰間作了個球狀的手勢。

說時遲，那時快，主炮的閃光直飛金髮男子，而他把雙手同時擊出，作虎咬的姿勢。光束居然給他截停了，並發生爆炸。

爆風揚起沙塵，但仍隱約可見他沒有半點受傷。

「龍珠嗎？！作者的創意去了哪兒了？」

「你說甚麼？」艾卡問洛克。

「沒甚麼。」洛克反問。

13.5

天娜留守在魔導裝甲上，照著洛克的說話，雖然聽見來自哨站的激烈戰鬥聲，但一動也不敢動。

正在趕往支援的帝國士兵經過，看見天娜沒半點反應，便生氣地說：「老人家還不快來幫手？！」

天娜無奈地走下魔導裝甲，並打算與洛克及艾卡會合。

然而經過一個全白色的大帳篷時，卻讓天娜踝足不前。

那平平無奇的帳篷，散發出一種熟悉的氣息，天娜被深深吸引著。

天娜小心冀冀走到帳篷前，左顧右盼，確認沒有人留意自己，也沒有守衛，才靜悄悄揭門而進。

一進帳篷，感覺比在外面觀看時大上一倍，在四支鐵柱落在四個角落，並用鐵鏈與中央的一支直上帳篷的頂端鎖在一起。

鐵鎖的另一端是被人倒吊在中央鐵柱，戴著鐵面巨的金髮女戰士。

「鐵面的西莉絲！」天娜暗叫一聲。

第十三話   完

Why IT in education is so important in special school?

http://media.victoriaadvocate.com/img/photos/2012/01/07/kb_vine_school_01xx12_31b_163527.jpg

“Students, teachers, schools and other stakeholders will use IT effectively as a tool for enhancing the effectiveness of learning and teaching, with a view to preparing our students for the information age, turning schools into dynamic and interactive learning institutions, and fostering collaboration among schools, parents and the community.”(EMB, 2004)

In normal setting, IT is used mostly as information retrieval, and then knowledge enquiry communication, and then collaboration, and finally, very little as an analytical personal development tool.

However, the priority in special education may be different. It is because their abilities, but the most important is, when we need to satisfy the student’s special needs; we strongly need help by parents and community.

Nowadays, transdisciplinary (or collaborative) teamwork model is running in special schools. There is not only “Different perspectives lead to better decision-making; no one discipline can provide everything that a child and family needs.”(Kilgo J. L., Aldridge J., Denton B., Vogtel L., Vincent J., Burke C., & Unanue R.)

So, parents should be one of the member when we call meeting about teaching and learning for each of the student. Not only because parents have “best understanding” about the students, but also the primary role of parents is to encourage and support students to plan and achieve their educational goals. Parents also should encourage students to develop independent decision-making and self-advocacy skills.

So, as a communication tools with parents, IT can play the very important role that is everytime, everywhere connect with parents and sharing information.

Another function of IT in special education is as an analytical personal development tool. Not like normal setting, special schools have no test or very few writing assessment. How we assess our students learning progress? Mostly using observation and record whether they can finish their given tasks. So, you can imagine that the information and records just like a hill. To have better analysis the student’s development, IT would give the most help. For example, one of my student need to have toilet training, we would like to record when and how, so database is useful to analysis the progress. In short, Database can individualize the intervention to fulfill different educational needs.

“The majority of teachers expressed confident of basic IT skills, such as word processing, use of spreadsheets, presentation software and Internet usage. But they are least certain about advanced multimedia design and WebPages production.” and “…simply replacing chalk and board by multimedia presentations/animations.” (EMB, 2004). However, in special school, drawing the student’s attention to teaching and learning is the most difficult task. “Multi-media simulation” and “non-error interaction”[4] is powerful teaching and learning elements to students.

Then, I would to specify three topics to illustrate how IT in education fulfills its function by some activities.

In special education, we mostly concern how to satisfy the special educational needs of our students. To specialize and to make the discussion more realistic, I would like to introduce one of my students, KaPo. He is a 17 years old boy with moderate mentally handicap.

KaPo’s case is very typical in my school. Autism is called “Autism spectrum disorder” as its full name. As the name says, Autism has no clearly defined single syndrome (Wing, 1996) and no two children with autism have identical characteristics (Koegel, Koegel, Frea & Smith, 1996; Wong & Westwood, 2002), it covers a wide range of behaviors and abilities, and it is a matter of degree, from mild to severe. However, children with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, interactions and leisure or play activities (ASA, 2005). As the above report mentions, KaPo has behavioral and emotional problem, too. He cannot concentrate to do the given tasks. Actually, he also has some stereotyped behavior patterns to bother his learning, for example, hand flapping, clapping and always washing his hand.

Teaching self-management has been effective at improving a variety of behaviors, including appropriate vocational (McNally, Kompik & Sherman, 1984), and even generalization (Koegel, Koegel & Parks, 1996).

The model is called “teach the individual” model, in which the generalization occurs spontaneously in numerous environments and in the absence of a trained interventions provider after the person is taught a skill in a manner. So, self-management is a “pivotal” behavior (Koegel, Schreibman, Good, Cerniglia, Murphy & Koegel, 1989).

Thus, we have using the multi-media program called “FLASH” to design the so-called “social story” and then upload it on the school website. It just like e-book or karaoke that have a story about what he should do. Unlike the social story in paper, it not only has pictures and himself tells story told by teachers, it even has short film that the main character is student himself and the story, too.

For example, we want to reduce KaPo’s unwilling behavior like crying or shout when he wants to express himself unhappy. We first record the willing behavior (e.g. go to toilet to wash his face) by digital camera, and then record his reading by computer, “when KaPo unhappy, KaPo would go to toilet to wash his face.” Then input both into FLASH. When the lesson, teacher would help him to access “e-social story” to modeling and replace his unwilling behavior.

It gives very strong impression and very good to modeling the unwilling behavior. And also it may have a checklist online, when student watch one part of the social story, he should check the box to move to the next part. Teachers is helping him and teach parents to access and to use this tailor-made online software.

“In the present preliminary review, it was found that the problems and issues faced by special schools are very complex and often quite different from the mainstream schools. There are different categories of special schools catering for children with different special education needs. Use of IT in special schools includes the integration of assistive technologies, which often differ greatly across different categories of special schools. Further, the specific educational objectives often differ greatly across different special school categories to take into account the students’ special contexts. It is recommended here that a separate component of the review study be commissioned to address the specific evaluation questions, methodology and instrumentation necessary for conducting a proper review of IT implementation in special schools.”(EMB, 2004)

You can see that, all interventions for different students must be tailor-made. Assistive technologies, for example, most children with moderate mental handicap can’t use keyboard and mouse, touch-screen is needed. However, it is not enough in school, and also at home. All software and programme must be tailor-made by teachers while they can accessible. Time is very important and consumable to satisfy each students special educational needs.

Another problems so-called “Digital Divide”. Many families haven’t computer and of course can’t online at home. Their social status may be low and haven’t enough knowledge to handle their child or teach them by using IT. When the ongoing training is not stable, the effectiveness would down very quickly. For example, to changing KaPo’s unwilling behavior, social story must be told day by day, if the intervention stopped may be in the long holidays, the unwilling behavior will come again.

By the way, Multimedia and interaction elements in IT in education are used to draw the attention of the children and give them the responses directly, and it is very successful. In future, portal computer or PDA can help children with autism to express themselves (using images, sounds, even short film to communicate) and to have better self-management (give them hints or as a reminder).

Reference

1.       Autism Society of America (ASA). http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=whatisautism.
2.       EMB. (2004). Empowering Learning and Teaching with Information Technology. Hong Kong.
3.       EMB.(2004). Information Technology in Education (ITEd) Evaluation. Summary and Recommendations of the Preliminary Study, pp.201-206. http://www.emb.gov.hk/ited_eval/
4.       Information center on disabilities and gifted education (2005). http://ericec.org/digests/e598.html#top, 10/3/2005
5.       Koegel, R. L., Koegel, L. k. & Parks, D. R. (1996). “Teach the Individual” model of Generalization. In Koegel, R. L. & Koegel L. K. (Eds.) Teaching children with autism: Strategies for initiating positive interactions and improving learning opportunities (pp. 67-77). Baltimore: Brookes.
6.       Koegel, R. L., Schreibman, L., Good, A., Cerniglia, L., Murphy, C. & Koegel, K. L. (1989). How to teach pivotal behaviors to children with autism. Unpublished manuscript, university of California, Santa Barbara.
7.       McNally, R. J., Kompik, J. J. & Sherman, G. (1984). Increasing the productivity of mentally retarded workers through self-management. Analysis and Intervention in Development Disabilities. 4, 129-135.
Westwood, P. (2003), Learning and Learning Difficulties. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.

[1] ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis (Scheuermann & Webber, 2002).
[2] PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System
[3] TEACCH stands for Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication-handicapped Children (Connor, 1999).
[4] Sometimes we give wrong response to students answers, this may border students learning. But computer wouldn’t.

Meeting Individual Needs: Case Studies

http://autismmythbusters.com/

Introduction

KaPo, who is a 15 years old boy also with moderate mentally handicap. Before we discuss his case, we are better to know more about his characteristics from some observation of classroom teaching. Here is the conclusion of KaPo’s academic report I wrote in last semester.

“KaPo is stubborn and crabbed; he only will to finish the tasks that he wants to do. When we don’t follow his own ‘routine’, he would be unhappy, sometimes he may cry, shout or jump. However, when he is taking drugs, he can calm down easily. So, we hope that he can keep it on and reinforce him to express feeling by using verbal language at home, too. In academic, he is good in mathematics, and he can calculate arithmetic of primary 1 level, but it is still have space to improve in application. Also he loves computer very much and enjoys the lessons.”

KaPo’s characteristics and performance in the classroom

It is obvious that he is autistic, although there is no clearly defined single syndrome (Wing 1996), and no two children with autism have identical characteristics (Koegel, Koegel, Frea & Smith, 1996; Wong & Westwood 2002), but KaPo has most of typical pattern of behavioral deficits and had been assessed in early childhood.

As the above report mentions, KaPo has behavioral and emotional problem. It makes that he cannot concentrate to do the given tasks. Actually, he also has some stereotyped behavior patterns to bother his learning, for example, hand flapping, clapping and always want to wash his hand during the lesson.

Another barriers to KaPo’s learning are that, he just repeating what you are saying and asking. It is a typical echolalia, and it seems to be immediate, because it fulfill what Laski, Charlop and Schreibman (1988) defined, “inappropriate repetitions of words and phrases” (p.394). We are not discussing which categories he should be classified, but it makes difficult to learning and teaching, application and generalization. For example, he cans calculate “12398+9872”, but cannot answers “if you bought 3 apples and then bought 2 apples, how many apples did you buy totally?”

Reflection about the school and the teacher

School: Not only in mainstream school, the curriculum in special school is also facing different types of constraints. Parents’ expectation, prevocational and vocational needs and EMB guidelines, for example, EYE programme, have determined curriculum. In KaPo’s case, if we are too focus on the training for working in shelter workshop after graduated, it narrows the whole development of student, although it is “relevant” and important to his future. Moreover, KaPo have emotional fluctuation when he feels off task. If we just follow what he wants to do, he will learn nothing. I am not challenge the learner-centered approach or the concept of “realistic” in “4R Test” (Brennan 1987), but it is really need to concern that did students really know what they are interest or benefit to themselves, especially they are moderate mentally handicap?

The emotional and behavioral problems have been “created”, when we are using the “real” situation, for example, visiting shelter workshop or practice cleaning job, because he didn’t adopt the environment and also strengthens him to have ritual behavior. Moreover, Practice about the cleaning in EYE programme or school leaver programme; it reinforces washing his hands after touching something dirty. Also, in special school setting, it is difficult to gain acceptance from classmates when the interaction between pupils are weak.

Teacher: Task analysis is usually used in teaching the working skills. It is because students can more easily to understand what the task is doing. Also, when the steps are smaller, teacher can use more simple language to teach students to finish the task. However, it has limitations as Westwood (2003, p53) said, “…a limit to how far one can go with this step-by-step reduction of learning without creating separate tasks which by themselves are meaningless.” Actually, KaPo is usually off task when he didn’t know the “meaning” of the task.

Students with moderate mentally handicap have a few responses, so, when we want to make sure that KaPo is listening and understands the instruction, we would like him to speak once again what we are asking him to do. Echolalia is reinforced. Moreover, when teacher using task analysis approach, questioning is not easy and efficient to apply in the direct-teach and demonstration. It may affect KaPo that leaning to distinguish between question and instruction.

Moreover, most of us use Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to reduce the undesirable behavior. Because it is effective, and the research have also provide the evidence (Scheuermann & Webber, 2002; Waterhouse, 2000). We are using positive reinforcement, maybe allow him to play computer after lunch, to stop his problematic behavior. It works, but when he didn’t have the reward, he really depressed and off task more often than we are not using it.

Evaluation of teaching and management program for KaPo

Beside the above matter, some teaching and management program is designed for KaPo.

TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autisitc and communication-handicap Children):

Whatever it is an intervention strategy or a teaching method, even it is a curriculum and programme, evidence has proved that to be effective, it should be highly structured (Waterhouse, 2000; Smith, 2003). Structured teaching is an important priority because it fits the “culture of autism” (Mesibov, 2002).

TEACCH is respects this culture, in the other words, respects autistic child’s need for structure, routine and predictability in the daily programme in school and home, and uses such devices as a picture time table or schedule to show the child what activity he or she is to do now and what is to come later during other parts of the day (Wong & Westwood, 2002). In short, TEACCH is emphasized structured teaching, and uses a combination of cognitive, behavioral-change strategies (Connor, 1999), visual strategy and also using IEP. So, Individualization, structured learning and environmental adaptation are the defining features of TEACCH (Dempsey and Foreman, 2001).

It is true that KaPo feels more comfortable when structure and organization in the classroom or any other learning environment is provided. It helps student to alleviate or moderate the behavioral and emotional problem caused by poor communication. Moreover, when KaPo is occupied by the working task, it can reduce the time for stereotyped behavior, in long run; it can fade out the rigid behavior.

Self-Management:

Teaching self-management has been effective at improving a variety of behaviors, including appropriate vocational (McNally, Kompik & Sherman, 1984), even generalization (Koegel, Koegel & Parks, 1996).

As Koegel, Koegel & Parks (1996) stated that many of the most widely used methods of promoting generalization are based on a “teach exemplars” model, in which generalization is programmed to occur in different environments by actually teaching the individual in one environment after another. It is effective, but not practical. Not only because it is time consuming, in KaPo’s case, but also have emotional problem when adopting a new environment.

The second model is called “teach the individual” model, in which the generalization is occurs spontaneously in numerous environments and in the absence of a trained interventions provider after the person is taught a skill in a manner. So, self-management is a “pivotal” behavior (Koegel, Schreibman, Good, Cerniglia, Murphy & Koegel, 1989).

Consider the functional reinforcers, computer or IT should be used as self-management device. It is effective not only because KaPo like to play computer very much, but also because multimedia and interaction can draw him the attention and give him the responses directly. In future, portal computer or PDA can help autistic children to express themselves (using images, sounds, even short film to communicate) and to have better self-management (give them hints or as a reminder).

Conclusion

According to Snell and Brown (2000) child with intellectual disability will have experienced difficulty in making friends and gaining acceptance—particularly if he or she has some irritating or challenging behaviors. Even in the class, many students didn’t like KaPo when he cry and jump. So, to reduce or to eliminate rigid and stereotypic behaviors and maladaptive behaviors are not only for the ways that to foster further development in the child and to promote learning, but also to alleviate family distress. All interventions, teachings, programs, and IEPs are archiving this common goal.

References

1.    Brennan, W. K. (1987), Changing special education now (2nd ed). Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

2.    Connor, M. (1999). Children on the autistic spectrum: Guidelines for mainstream practice. Support for Learning, 14 (2) 80-86.

3.    Dempsey, I. & Foreman, P. (2001). A review of educational approaches for individual with autism. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 48 (1), 103-116.

4.     Koegel, R. L., Koegel, L. k., Frea, W. D. & Smith A. E. (1996). Emerging interventions for children with autism: Longitudinal and lifestyle implications. In Koegel, R. L. & Koegel L. K. (Eds.) Teaching children with autism: Strategies for initiating positive interactions and improving learning opportunities (pp. 1-15). Baltimore: Brookes.

5.     Koegel, R. L., Koegel, L. k. & Parks, D. R. (1996). “Teach the Individual” model of Generalization. In Koegel, R. L. & Koegel L. K. (Eds.) Teaching children with autism: Strategies for initiating positive interactions and improving learning opportunities (pp. 67-77). Baltimore: Brookes.

6.     Koegel, R. L., Schreibman, L., Good, A., Cerniglia, L., Murphy, C. & Koegel, K. L. (1989). How to teach pivotal behaviors to children with autism. Unpublished manuscript, university of California, Santa Barbara.

7.     Laski, K., Charlop, M., & Schreibman, L. (1988). Training parents to use the natural language paradigm to increase their autistic children’s speech. Journal of Applied Bahavior Analysis, 21, 391-400.

8.     McNally, R. J., Kompik, J. J. & Sherman, G. (1984). Increasing the productivity of mentally retarded workers through self-management. Analysis and Intervention in Development Disabilities. 4, 129-135

9.     Mesibov, G. B. (2002), TEACCH – What is TEACCH? http://www.teacch.com/aboutus.htm, 10/18/2002

10.  Scheuermann, B. & Webber, J. (2002). Autism: Teaching does make a difference. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth-Thomson.

11.   Smith, D. D. (2003). Introduction to Special Education (5th Edn). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

12.  Snell, M. E., and Brown, F. (2000). Instruction of Students with Severe Disabilities (5th edn), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

13.  Waterhouse, S. (2000). A positive approach to autism. London: Jessica Kingsley.

14.  Westwood, P. (2003), Learning and Learning Difficulties. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong

15.  Wing. L. (1996). The Autistic Spectrum, London: Constable.

16.  Wong, Y. Y. & Westwood, P. (2002). The teaching and management of children with autism. Hon Kong Special Education Forum, 5 (1), 46-72

Additional readings

17.  Horner, R. H., Junlap, G., Koegel, R. L. (Eds). (1988) Generalization and maintenance: Lifestyle changes in applied settings. Baltimore: Brookes

18.  Poon, K. F. (2002). Meeting Special Needs in Mainstream Classrooms. Hong Kong: Longman

19.  Prizant, B. M. & Rydell, P. J. (1993). Assessment and intervention considerations for unconventional verbal behavior. In Reichle, J. & Wacker, W. (Eds). Communicative approaches to the management of challenging behavior. Baltimore: Brookes

20. Quill, K.A. (1995). Teaching children with autism. Delmar.

21.  Robert, L., Koegel & Koegel, L. K. (1996). Teaching children with autism. Baltimore: Brookes

22. Rutter,M.(1985). The treatment of autistic children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 26:193-214.

23. Rydell, P. J. & Prizant, B. M. (1995). Assessment and intervention strategies for children who use echolalia. In Quill, K. A. (ed). Teaching children with autism (pp105-132). NY: Delmar.

24. Schopler, E. & Reichler, R. J. (1979). Individualized assessment and treatment for autistic and developmentally disabled children (2nd ed). Austin, TX: PRO-ED

25. Worthington, A, (1999). The Fulton special education digest. London: Fulton

2003/12/31

Why do we expect pupils to go to school?

http://teaching.monster.com/benefits/articles/2073-special-education-an-introduction-for-new-teachers

Introduction: The role of the aims of education

One of the arguments, which is used to reject or to ignore discussing the aims of education among teachers, is that: we are just required to follow what the government stated in the official documents. There has no room for us to discuss. Or the aims of education is variant, different people has different points of view. There has no model answer for this question. However, the aims of education is very important for teachers, not only because it affect on our teaching, but also is a process that for reflect what is education and what we have done.

The background of the special school

I am teaching in special school, the children with moderate mental handicap. To satisfy all their diverse special needs, we use eleven methods for ten students.

They often have learning difficulties in attending to the relevant aspects of a learning situation, in storing information in long term-memory, in generalizing what they learn, and in language (Westwood, 2003). And also some of them are children with autism. Children with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, interactions and leisure or play activates (ASA, 2004).

The interventions usually are ABA[1], PECS[2], visual strategies, TEACCH[3], situation teaching and learning, Snoezelen and Interactive Process Approach, Life Application Training (生活流程教學), social stories, even mediation and psychotherapy.

These all interventions need long-term training and co-operation with parents. So, the bottleneck of their education is not only their own abilities, but also whether the parents willing to co-operate.

Taking one of my students as an example, whose name Stonely, his abilities are pretty good. He came to my school in this year, but he had already picked up the schedule of schooling. He can just only utter some sound but understands what you said. We all believe that he can learn more while he experiences more. However, his mother rejects most of the school activities. When we had taught some self-care skills, such as washing head, he couldn’t practice at home, and finally he forgot what he had learnt.

The consensus in school on the aims of education

From the above, we can see that it has a very close relationship among school, teachers, students, and parents. The co-operation is demanding. If the aims of education of each membership are different, it is very difficult to have a successful education. Now we are investigating what students, teachers, parents and school believe to be the purpose of education, see whether they believe same aim or thinking in different ways.

Talking about the students first. As we saw in Stonely’s case, students are very enjoying in school’s life. It is because unlike mainstream school, students have much fewer activities than normal students when both of them are not going to school. It may because students with special needs need much more care from parents when they are outing.

In fact, nowadays, normal students have many reasons to reject going to school. Because of Internet, information and knowledge is easily acquired. Also, the knowledge grow rapidly, it seems that teaching in school cannot follow the main trend of knowledge expand. Taking computer studies as an example, many students blame that what they learnt in school is ten years ago technology or programme, for example, Basic and Logo. They are not popular or even vanish in IT’s world.

If they want to make friends or be “socialization”, they can go to centers or join some interest group in society. If go to school for the economic reason, that is training as an employee. It seems much more effective when they are learning from doing. That means they can have on job training rather than going to school. We does not say that it is no use to go to school, but it seems it has many alternative way to achieve what students expected doing in school.

Students in my school have no such reasons, or may be they cannot achieve that level of critical thinking or reflection. But through their smiles, we can see or even feel that they enjoy the lesson, activities and school’s life. For them, it is clear that the aims of education are improving their qualities of their life.

However, parents have different thought about schooling and education. From the interviews in the parent’s day, we can see that the topics, which the parent’s most interested is where do their children go after, graduated. Of course, they also concern whether their children enjoy the school’s life, but their expectations about what children learnt in school are not very much. Taking about Stonely, why his mother rejects the outgoing activities? From the dialog with his mother, we know that she worried about the safety of the activities. It seems that emphasis is on ‘care’ more than education.

So, what is the teacher’s point of views? Although it is not a ‘model answer’ because it has labeling effect which we didn’t want, but the fact is every teachers in special education are doing the same things, that is transform students to have a normal life, to fulfill or even to expand their potential and capacity. Once we can see the improvement of the students abilities, although it has no significance to mention, we have the most successful feeling and proud for that change.

The aims of education of my school are follow the mission statement of Hong Chi Association (2003).

“Hong Chi Association is dedicated to serving people with mental handicap and their families. We believe that people with mental handicap have the same rights and freedoms as other members of the community. They should be given every opportunity to develop physically, intellectually, socially and emotionally. And they should be encouraged and helped to participate fully in family and community life. All forms of discrimination against people with mental handicap are wrong. We will listen to the needs and wishes of people with mental handicap and their families, educate and train them so that they can develop to their full potential, assist them to find jobs and to live as independently as possible, and promote understanding and acceptance of people with mental handicap.”

To use categories, which learnt in lecture, it is obvious that the aims of education of my school can be classify as social and economic reconstruction. To promote understanding and acceptance of people with mental handicap, that mean the needs is here, why? It is because she thinks that the society has inequalities or misunderstanding about mental handicaps. To change it, to promote. It is a future centered. Parents care whether teaching can fulfill the requirement of future jobs; it is similar to economic and social efficiency. Of course, teachers and students can be classifying as personal enlightenment and empowerment because we concern about qualities of life. All above these are unlike official aims of education in Hong Kong in Education Commission (2000), which is include all elements, but has no focus.

From the above analysis, we can see that there has no consensus on the aims of education among government, school, teachers, students and parents.

The concept of education and the aims of the education

John Dewey (1859-1952) said that education as such has no aims; it is people involved in education, teachers, schools, governments, parents, and even students, who have aims. But people have often tried to clarify or defend their own aims by asking what are, or what should be, the aims of education.

As Haydon (1996) said that “to ask what the aims of education are—when this is a philosophical question and not an empirical question about what actual teachers and others are aiming at—is to suppose that certain aims are implicit in the concept of education. Thus, the question about the aims of education can be reducing to debate about the central features, and the boundaries, of the concept of education.

Under this background, most philosopher of education now would probably agree that the important question about the aims of education is a normative one: what should teachers (and others in related positions of influence) be aiming at? Debate around this question is effectively debate about what the aims of schooling ought to be.

So, the articulation of a concept of education may well furnish a central part of the answer. In analyzing the concept of education by Peters (1966), there have explicit three characteristics of education processes as follows:

• That ‘education’ implies the transmission of what is worth-while to those who become committed to it;
• That ‘education’ must involve knowledge and understanding and some kind of cognitive perspectives, which are not inert;
• That ‘education’ at least rules out some procedures of transmission, on the ground that they lack wittingness and voluntariess.
• Therefore, “education processes are voluntarily pursed and cognitively involved desirable changes.”

Teachers as mediators

What should teachers do? To facing the different aims of education, the tensions between individual and societal, vocational and academic, economic and democratic, stability and change, local and global, etc. And as White (1982) said that the list of aims is almost endless. As in the introduction mention, I think it is a process that reflects what is education and what we have done. To balance those tensions, to improve students qualities of life, and to involved desirable changes, that is our jobs and no cook-book to tell us how to do is the best.

Reference

1. Autism Society of America (ASA). http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=whatisautism. 4/3/2004.
2. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. NY: Macmillan.
3.  Haydon, G.. (1996). Aim of Education. In J.J. Chambliss (ed) (1996). Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia. NY: Garland.
4. Hong Chi Association (2004). http://www.hongchi.org.hk/ 1/4/2004.
5.  Peters, R. (1966). Ethics and Education. London: George Allen and Unwin
6. Poon-McBrayer, K. F. & Lian, M. G.. J. (2002). Special Needs Education: Children with Exceptionalities. HK: The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
7. Westwood, P. (2003), Learning and Learning Difficulties. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong.
8. White, J. (1982). The Aims of Education Restated. London: Routledge.

[1] ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis (Scheuermann & Webber, 2002).

[2] PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System

[3] TEACCH stands for Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication-handicapped Children (Connor, 1999).

2004/5/29

《末日公投》(The Philosophers)：外表漂亮的爛蘋果

在沒有期望下，還為甚麼可以完全失望？

 作為一個曾讀哲學的人，都自信對這們愛智慧的學問有多少認識。要把哲學搬上大銀幕，必有極多的限制，那是必然發生的。故此，這是沒有抱著甚麼期望的理由；故此，我連所謂剪得很好的宣傳短片也沒有看過。 但是沒有期望並不代表連爛蘋果也要吃下。

 哲學並不是背誦金句，甚麼莎氏「早到三小時勝過遲一分鐘」(better three hours too soon than a minute late)；甚麼「柏拉圖洞穴的比喻」。不是說哲學不可以引用別人的金句，但是你必須有個解釋，而非無頭無尾的亂拋書包。

 哲學也不只是思想實驗，甚麼「電車兩難」，甚麼「會作莎氏劇目的猴子」。不是說哲學不做思想實驗，而是思想實驗是用作討論的手段，而非胡亂一通地嘩眾取竉。 就拿第二次末日來說，要在防空洞中令女角們懷孕不成功，教師提出要改變策略而進行雜交，但女角不同意，最後居然打起上來，教師受傷憤而開啓大門令所有人死亡。那根本就是亂作的故事橋段，而非思想實驗，也沒有帶出背後可能的討論，例如女角為甚麼不同意，例如為甚麼這個思想實驗是失敗的。至於第三次末日，由女高材生轉選一些看似不重要的人而最後因沒有核爆而大家齊齊生還，那不是發白日夢還是甚麼？連思想實驗也談不上了，就戲言戲，只是自圓其說地自我推翻的爛片而已。 

要說深度，最初的設定是蠻可接受的。一開始是床戲，然後是一個舒適的的環境，走到較為混亂的巿場，最後走到柚木傢俱為主的課堂，本以為可以刻畫出一種西方世界與發展中國家的對立，當然，最後原來甚麼也沒有發生，或曰，這故事在甚麼地方發生是沒所謂。至於最尾一段，教師重複走上樓梯，食三文治，走上樓梯，有槍，有槍聲，又走上樓梯，故弄玄虛，完全破壞整套戲的主題，是偽裝有深度的補鑊措施。 

論戲，把思想實驗重複三次已經令電影的橋段重複，讓人沉悶，也是編劇不智的做法，正如劇中不只一次有學生表示「又來？！」那是代表連編劇本人也可能覺得「頂唔住」。故事本身所牽涉人物不少（二十個學生與一個老師），要做得個個生動立體著實不易，更何況電影除了把那一年走到防空洞的生活只要頭要尾的陳述出來，所有角色根本無法發揮。而最後更把一切教師的所作所為都是與男學生爭囡的陰謀，作弄男同學一番的小把戲，為這戲劇性作出最無厘頭致命的一擊。 

有說把電影當作一次觀課，若這是哲學課，我是最不能接受的。因為，這是連甚麼是「邏輯」都攪得狗屁不通。教師一直強調自己最邏輯，但是，不知道編劇明白不明白，這種以人多投票作為生死唯一標準的方法，正正是教師用來質疑男同學的柏拉圖最痛狠的民粹方法。

 若果要介紹哲學給大眾，還是免費在網上睇Micheal Sandel的正義課堂好看得多。

 附註：其實這套本來可以很有發揮，很有深度的電影，無奈被攪得一塌糊塗。若是真正讀哲學的，一開始就應該挑戰故事要為人類留種的設定，與多數決的設定。而不是開頭用M.S.正義課堂中批評功利主義後，又用滿足功利主義為前提的思想實驗。