I. Why not to send a blind child to a school for the blind?
II. What benefit is there for a blind child if he or she goes to a nearby ordinary school for integration with his or her sighted peers?
III. How can the educational quality be guaranteed if a blind child is arranged into the same classroom with his or her sighted peers?
IV. What expenses are needed for integrating a blind child into a regular classroom with his or her sighted peers?
V. Closed traditional schools for the blind are of no use in the future?
I. Why not to send a blind child to a school for the blind?
First, the scarcity of schools for the blind in a province is a too serious problem to allow for all the visually impaired children of that province. For example, in the prosperous Guangdong Province, there are only four schools for the blind, namely Guangzhou School, Meizhou School, Shenzhen School, and Zhanjiang School for the Blind. Shenzhen School for the Blind, however, enrolls students from the county of Shenzhen only, while although the three other schools are open to the whole province their annual enrollment is less than 50 students because of their limited capacity.
Secondly, schools for the blind are usually quite far from their studentsĄ¯ home, thus bringing about a heavy burden for the parents to take their blind children home and send them back to school for winter and summer vacations and other long legal holidays. In addition, it is often a tough problem for teachers to make weekend arrangements for their blind students because they are either too young or too far away from their parents.
And thirdly, parents most deeply understand and care for their child and are any childĄ¯s first teacher. For a six-or seven-year-old blind child, having to live on campus without a parent looking after them and the loss of access to a parent-child education are extremely harmful to the physical and mental development of a blind child.
II. What benefit is there for a blind child if he or she goes to a nearby ordinary school for integration with his or her sighted peers?
1. Placing a blind child in a nearby ordinary school with board and lodging at home causes no economic burden to his or her family. Similarly, an ordinary elementary school, by utilizing its available classroom and teachers to accept the blind child into the school, does not bring about an encumbrance to the school by and large.
2. Humanitarian education generally carried out before enrollment improves the environment for the blind child to live alongside the rest of the community, while at school or at home.
3. Living in harmony with his or her sighted peers with mutual respect and learning together can extend a blind childĄ¯s range of knowledge and friendship, which prepares the child for future life.
III. How can the educational quality be guaranteed if a blind child is arranged into the same classroom with his or her sighted peers?
Education for blind children involves acquirement of a good knowledge of literacy, development of accessibility to teaching through examples, cultivation of high ideals and moral integrity, and the development of adaptability towards society.
The blind child will be taught by the teachers trained in special education, using textbooks in Braille with the same content as those of sighted studentsĄ¯, so he or she can be fully expected to have a good knowledge of literacy.
At a school for the blind, objective teaching relies on the teachers only, while at an ordinary school the blind childĄ¯s classmates and parents can join to assist the teacher with teaching through models and examples. Consequently, better teaching results can be obtained at the ordinary school than at a school for the blind.
Blind children, when together, are more likely to complain about their miserable fate, and what is more, begin to convince themselves that their lives are hopeless cases. But when blind children become one with sighted children, through mutual learning, mutual care, and mutual encouragement will not only benefit the development of high ideals and moral integrity in blind children, but also help implement the character development of the rest of the campus.
Allowing a blind child to continue living with sighted children in a community since childhood is more beneficial to the development of his or her abilities of daily living and the development of adaptability to society.
IV. What expenses are needed for integrating a blind child into a regular classroom with his or her sighted peers?
These funds are mainly contributed to the training of the teachers at different stages. At the regular village elementary school where a blind child is accepted, we select a teacher to be the part-time classroom teacher for blind children, who must also receive pre-job training. In the following two years there will be mid-stage training every year. In view of the very probable uneven level understanding of special education these village teachers might have, from the county education authority we choose a good teacher as an itinerant supervisor in charge of professional guidance and management for all the classroom teachers of the county. In every prefecture-level city, we have set up a guidance centre, in charge of teacher training, mobile professional guidance, teaching research and teaching resource supply.
Furthermore, the teachers and educational administrators at the county and prefecture levels will also have to receive the three-stage lesson plan (which includes the pre-job training, follow-up training, and training in systematic theory). The Golden Key Project is implemented over a cycle period that covers three years. After the three years, all the local teachers and educational administrators will have a basic mastery of the theories and practices in educating visually handicapped children, which can be listed in the educational authority agenda of popularization of compulsory education for sustainable development in the years to come.
However, even with special integrated education methods, blind children still need some special learning aids and textbooks, but the expenses on these items account for a very small part of the total expenditure.
V. Closed traditional schools for the blind are of no use in the future?
No, they will be more useful than ever before. They can extend their professional range to the whole prefecture. All the participating blind children of the integration project are also the students of the prefectural schools for the blind. With its advantage in qualified teachers and equipment, the school for the blind must play a key role in professional guidance.
Additionally, the schools for the blind will welcome her blind students back to the school after graduation for further vocational education.
