Curriculum matters for all students?

Understanding curriculum from the perspectives of disabled students and teacher aides

Gill Rutherford

Abstract

The experiences of disabled students and the teacher aides who support them in accessing the New Zealand curriculum form the focus of this article, which begins with an overview of the legislative and policy context regarding students’ educational rights. Participants’ experiences are conceptualised as a continuum, in which students may have (a) full and meaningful participation in the curriculum, (b) partial access and participation mediated by a teacher aide or (c) no access at all. Interpretation of findings in relation to extant research is followed by a discussion of implications that must be considered if curriculum is to matter for all students.

Introduction

“… nowhere is education an uncomplicated ‘good’; it produces both justice and injustice, equity and inequity and the issue is to understand why, when and how.” (Walker, 2003, p. 169)

The compulsory education of a nation’s children and young people is characterised by complexity. This article focuses on the experiences of disabled students, whose education is sometimes marked by injustice in terms of inequitable access to and participation in New Zealand state schools (IHC, 2008).

Given the central role of curriculum in ensuring that “all young New Zealanders are equipped with the knowledge, competencies, and values they will need to be successful citizens in the twenty-first century” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 4), the purpose of this article is to examine the opportunities that disabled students have to access the body of knowledge deemed significant by and reflective of New Zealand society. This article begins with an examination of the legislative and policy context.

Legislative and policy context

Why is the right to education of such importance for all students? In a recent analysis of children’s rights in New Zealand educational policy documents, Quennerstedt (2009) noted that, while education is a human and social right in and of itself, it is also a critical means of attaining civil and political rights as an adult. If a child’s right to education is compromised, this also compromises their future opportunities for participation in and contribution to all aspects of community life, which in turn diminishes their opportunities to develop and exercise the civil and political rights that characterise citizenship in democratic societies. For some students whose human difference may diminish their humanity and educability in the eyes of others, the right to compulsory education can be conditional and contested (IHC, 2008).

It is encouraging, therefore, to note that over the last 20 years the rights of disabled children and adults in New Zealand society have been increasingly recognised in legislation (Education Act 1989; Human Rights Act 1993), in the commitment to United Nations conventions (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989; United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2007) and in the implementation of The New Zealand Disability Strategy (Minister for Disability Issues, 2001). The strategy aims to develop an inclusive and socially just society in which the importance of quality education for disabled students is emphasised. It is underpinned by current thinking about disability that recognises cultural and structural barriers to participation and justice (see, for example, Priestley, 2003).

Interestingly, current Ministry of Education policy documents present a somewhat inconsistent interpretation of disabled students’ right to education (Higgins, MacArthur, & Rietveld, 2006; Kearney & Kane, 2006). On the one hand, the ministry recognises its responsibility to implement The New Zealand Disability Strategy (see, for example, Ministry of Education, 2008), and to ensure that schools remove barriers to achievement for disabled students (see, for example, Ministry of Education, 2009); on the other hand, aspects of Special Education 2000 policy (Ministry of Education, 1996) impose barriers to students’ participation and achievement. For example, although disabled students have a right to attend local schools, some are required to go through a contestable, deficit-focused, needs-based application process (through the Ongoing Reviewable Resourcing Scheme [ORRS]) in order to get the resourcing required to access the curriculum in meaningful ways. Should their application be declined, students, their families/whānau and schools have to find the required resources from other sources, including schools’ Special Education Grant (intended to support students with so-called “moderate” rather than “very high” or “high” “needs”) and/or charitable trusts or private funding. In some circumstances, students are asked to stay at home when teacher aide support is unavailable (IHC, 2008). It would be interesting to consider whether such alternatives would be contemplated for the majority of students for whom school structures and practices are more accommodating.

Furthermore, the kind of support provided may also inadvertently compromise students’ access to education. Since the implementation of the 1989 Education Act amendments regarding disabled students’ right to attend local state schools, the provision of teacher aide support has become the most common way in which schools respond to these students’ needs (Meyer & Bevan-Brown, 2000; New Zealand Educational Institute, 2004). There is, however, no national requirement that teacher aides have any training for their role, nor is there a national policy regarding schools’ appropriate use of aides.

It is also worth noting the omission of disabled students in the Ministry of Education’s (2002) review of the national curriculum. Millar and Morton (2007) commented that the Curriculum Stocktake Report “was silent on the education of students with disabilities” (p. 174). A subsequent report noted a lack of consistency in terms of how schools utilised The New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993) in planning for students with “special needs” (McMenamin et al., 2004). The existence of such silences and inconsistencies at a macro or national level in the “intended curriculum” (Millar & Morton, 2007, p. 169) has implications for the enactment by teachers of the “operational curriculum” (p. 170) at the micro or local level. For example, how are the “two apparently separate worlds of special education and curriculum policy” (p. 163) interpreted by teachers who have a responsibility to teach all students?

Learning what the curriculum means to disabled students and teacher aides may illuminate our understanding of the extent to which the national curriculum matters for all students, and the role that teacher aides play in supporting disabled students’ access to this body of knowledge.

The study

This article draws from a doctoral study that explored disabled students’ and aides’ experiences of working together in New Zealand schools (Rutherford, 2008). It was an interpretive, qualitative study conducted within a framework of current disability, social justice and sociology-of-childhood theorising. A series of semistructured meetings were held with 10 students, aged from eight to 17 years, who attended schools in the South Island. These students, some of whom received ORRS funding, received varying levels of teacher aide support, ranging from five to 15 hours per week.

Semistructured interviews were also conducted with 18 teacher aides who supported ORRS-funded students in primary, intermediate and secondary schools in the same geographic area as the student participants. The aides’ experience, training, length of service, duties and employment conditions varied considerably, highlighting the ambiguous and complex nature of aides’ work. For example, participants were involved in different ways in providing academic, social, communication, behavioural, personal care, health, safety, extracurricular and transition supports to students. Only seven of the 18 aides had job descriptions, and most spoke of carrying out responsibilities that required them to do work they had no training for (for example, having to assume the role of teacher for “their” student, acting as an Applied Behavioural Therapist without training and supervision, providing home-based care for children). None of the participants had permanent positions, because their employment depended on the availability of students’ funding.

Discussion with both students and aides focused on their respective experiences of school and work in general, as well as their perspectives on working with one another. Data were interpreted using both inductive and deductive means of analysis.

Conceptualising curriculum access in terms of a continuum

The findings relating to students’ and aides’ experiences of the curriculum are conceptualised in terms of a continuum, in which students are positioned in contexts in which they have (a) full and meaningful participation in the curriculum, (b) partial access and participation mediated by a teacher aide or (c) no access at all.

Full access, participation and achievement

The first part of the continuum is characterised by an inclusive approach to teaching and learning, in which teachers worked with aides to facilitate all students’ presence, participation and achievement. Teacher-aide participants in this context worked collaboratively with teachers with whom they had developed a shared understanding of their respective roles and responsibilities. Teachers assumed responsibility for planning for all students, and worked in partnership with aides to deliver the curriculum in ways that were meaningful for heterogeneous groups of students. For example, Caroline, a primary school teacher aide, noted, “most of the teachers that I’ve worked with do the planning for the child”. Similarly, Lucy explained:

[Student] would sit with the rest of the class on the mat for the introduction part of it, and you’d have the whole class thing, then on the bottom of the pile of handouts would be our one. [Teacher] would slip it out and give it to her as she was handing them out to the rest. It was pretty much what the rest of the class were doing, but at her level.

Mae, a primary school aide, observed, “Most of the time it’s encouraging [student] to work with a group of children as well, so really just helping her access the curriculum.”

These aides used a range of strategies to simplify and interpret instructions, academic tasks and resource materials. Esther, a primary school aide, noted that “A lot of it’s just changing the way you put information across, because [student’s] more of a visual learner, he’s a lot more into visual things rather than talking.” By re-presenting verbal information in visual ways and concretising abstract concepts she enabled meaningful access to the curriculum for a student who has autism. “Changing the way you put information across” was one of the strategies mentioned by both Jo and Ellen in their support of teenagers who have visual impairments. These aides commented that part of their support involved “keeping up with the teacher”, Ellen noting that “I often see that I’ll keep a student on track and so you’re just kind of in between the teacher and student.”

The notion of the teacher aide as “in between the teacher and student” can be seen as a form of scaffolding learning. High school student Rachel clearly appreciated this support, commenting that her aides were “helping me process stuff that I don’t quite understand. It’s like, ‘ahhh, this is what the teacher’s trying to explain to me.’” Another high school student, Sophie, observed that her teacher “helped me with pronouncing words I didn’t know and [aide] helped me with writing”. By working in partnership towards a common goal, that of Sophie’s achievement, these adults not only facilitated her learning but also her enjoyment of the subject—as well as that of other students in the class.

Both sophie and Rachel emphasised the need for aides to be “good at the subject” (sophie) and “intelligent—to have knowledge of their subjects and what their strengths are” (Rachel). These students also identified the importance of training to enable aides to, in sophie’s words, “do things the right way”, such as knowing how and when to help. As Bill, a teacher aide, noted, “If you do it right you’re just kind of there, they don’t even really see that you’re there just for that student.”

What impact did teacher aides who provided the right kind of help have on students’ learning in this part of the continuum? Mae’s response echoed that of other participants: “I think I have quite a big impact, along with the teacher. I don’t think it’s only me … [Student’s] a visual learner, so watching the other children … I think a combination of the teacher, myself and the children really.” Too often, however, participation in academic school life was compromised for participants in this study, as outlined in the following section.

Partial access and participation

Students’ access to the curriculum in the middle part of the continuum is characterised by conditionality. Here meaningful access to the curriculum depended largely upon teacher aides who worked in situations in which the roles and responsibilities of teachers and aides were ill-defined. These aides worked with minimal guidance and support from teachers, using their own knowledge, skills and initiative to adapt the curriculum, resources and teaching strategies to support the student[s] to whom they were assigned.

When working with teachers who did not, for whatever reason, assume responsibility for teaching all students, some aides had to adapt “on the run”. Their ability to do so effectively varied according to whether or not they had knowledge of curriculum and teaching skills. For example, Ann described her experiences in supporting a high school student with a cochlear implant. Other than occasional workshops, Ann had no formal training for her role as a teacher aide, or in the use of alternative communication strategies. When asked about her means of communication with the student, she replied:

She does sign, but rarely. I mean, all the time we’re working with that, talking with your hands. I don’t sign but she will. If we don’t get it right the first time we do eventually. I think she lip-reads, I’m not sure.

Ann had to take on the role of interpreter, in deciphering oral language and explaining complex curricular concepts in ways that made sense to the student. Despite Ann’s best efforts, it is difficult to imagine how effectively this student would be able to access, let alone make sense of, the curriculum.

Ann’s experiences reflected those of other aides who had to use their judgement and resourcefulness to support students’ learning with varying amounts of teacher guidance. Participants attributed this to teachers not having sufficient time to teach all students in their classes, to work being too hard for some students and to difficulties in accessing suitable, age-appropriate resources for high school students. The role of aides in these contexts may be interpreted as a pressure valve for teachers, enabling them to get on with their work of teaching “the other 28” students in the class, as implied in Ann’s observation that “some teachers are fabulous … [but] some just want to get on with teaching and you do your job and look after that child correctly because I’m busy”. Similarly, Kate’s comment reflected the experience of numerous participants:

The teacher’s policy then, and i’m a wee bit disappointed, that she is one of 28, she deserves one twenty-eighth of my time and that’s what she’ll get. So she felt that she had achieved when she taught the child to say hello in the mornings and greet properly, but the rest of it was us.

Student participants shared similar experiences to those described by aide participants. Intermediate student Jack’s comments suggested that his teacher’s teaching of “regular” students was his priority, and that aides enabled teachers to do so by taking care of students who, for whatever reason, could not keep up with the class. Jack observed, “if the class is busy with Mr A [teacher], then I’ve been missed out, then I go up to Mrs B [teacher aide]”. He explained he had a teacher aide:

Rachel, a high school student who uses a wheelchair, shared her experience with a particular teacher. When organising a field trip for students enrolled in a senior school subject, the teacher did not consider the need for accessible transport and accommodation. Rachel explained:

Luckily I had family in [city], I was able to go and stay with them. And [school students] had a big bus, and I couldn’t get on and off the bus, so my mum had to come down and take me all around [city]. My mother was not impressed.

Had her family not helped out, Rachel “wouldn’t have been able to go” even though the field trip was part of the school curriculum. She observed:

I could’ve had a teacher aide come with me and had her drive me all about. I would’ve had to pay for a separate motel, and, like, at sixty bucks a night, and we’re staying there for three or four nights, that’s kind of expensive.

Rachel’s participation in the academic and social aspects of the field trip was severely curtailed by the teacher’s failure to consider her requirements. As well, Rachel reflected, “i didn’t end up doing all the work she wanted me to anyway. She just annoyed me that much. I thought, ‘stuff it, I’m not going to do your work.’”

These examples indicate that teacher aides made a significant contribution to students’ learning, effectively compensating for some teachers’ lack of preparation to teach all the students in their classes. High school aide Pip considered that, without her help, “[student’s] achievement levels would be far lower, he wouldn’t have even started NCEA”. Ann stated that, in the absence of support, “for the student i’m with there’d be no learning”. Grace captured the sentiments of the majority of the aide participants when she noted that “these children have got as much right to the curriculum and the teacher’s full-time attention and involvement as the other children. They don’t have to settle for second best—we’re not trained to teach the way that a teacher can.” Such circumstances are clearly inequitable, as are those described in the final part of the continuum.

No access

In the final part of the continuum the student participants had little or no opportunity to engage meaningfully in the curriculum. In these situations, aides had to assume full responsibility for “their” student, with minimal or no input from teachers. The aide was in effect the teacher, albeit untrained and, in some instances, unsupervised. For example, Rosie recalled, “As teachers have said to me, ‘we’re not trained in special needs either’, so they’re stuck with these kids they don’t know what to do with. So off you go, here’s a kid, get on with it.”

Lucy’s experiences in supporting two children in a primary school are particularly revealing. For the first three years, she worked collaboratively with teachers who supported the presence, participation and achievement of all students in the class. In her fourth year, however, the situation changed dramatically. Lucy described her current role as an “untrained teacher”, and estimated she spent “maybe an hour, an hour and a half a day” supporting the two students in the classroom, the rest of the time having to work with them on her own “in the back room”. For example, in science lessons Lucy had to remove the students from class to deliver curriculum content that she adapted to each student’s level of understanding, acknowledging, “I didn’t have a clue. I’m just floundering. I don’t know what i’m doing here.”

Lucy was not alone in having to structure students’ days. Regarding a primary school student, rosie explained, “i had to have a whole programme just for her because she just sat in the back of the class and we did totally different things.” Similarly, Caroline, who assisted a primary student who had complex support requirements, admitted that she felt like “a babysitter”. Kate’s experiences with an intermediate student also involved “filling up” the day. When asked how she knew what to do each day, she replied, “We didn’t. We asked, we asked and asked.” She and another aide resorted to nightly phone calls to organise the next day’s activities for students.

The role that aides played in supporting students appeared to be particularly challenging in high school settings. Liz’s experiences provided a compelling example of a problematic situation in which the responsibility for the education of a student perceived as having “high support needs” rested with an aide. Liz remarked that the student’s previous aide “never really went out of her way to try and help him”. According to Liz, this aide “used to sit there at times and just read her book. She would just give him a puzzle to do or something like that. So he never really did a lot of nuts and bolts learning.” In contrast, Liz made a genuine effort to engage the student in purposeful activities each day, albeit with tenuous links to the curriculum and in the absence of teacher guidance. Typically, much of the day was spent in the special education unit, where Liz made up the programme and worked with the student on a one-to-one basis. She explained that afternoon programmes focused on community-based activities, and recalled, “We didn’t know what to do with [student] on Thursday afternoon, so I decided that I’d get him mowing lawns. So I jacked up a friend’s lawns. [Student] absolutely loves it.” Liz noted however:

I often feel bad like, I’m teaching this child, am I doing any justice to this child? Because this is a child who’s ORRS funded … I’m not a teacher and don’t profess to be one by any means, and sometimes I struggle with that, am I doing the right thing?

In a different high school, Jo found herself in much the same position, admitting, “i found it really challenging with this wee fella I was with all year, who I just felt I was babysitting, which sounds really terrible but it sort of was.”

The notion of babysitting was also evident in situations such as those described by high school student Paul. In the event of teacher aide absence at his high school, a student sometimes had to “stay in the unit” rather than go to a subject class alone. Lack of relieving aides meant that students had to forego their participation in a subject class, their access to the curriculum thus disrupted by systemic factors beyond their control. In a different high school, teacher aide Pip explained, “if I’m sick then [student] doesn’t come to school.” In both situations, it appeared that subject-related work was put “on hold” until the aides returned. Participants operating in this part of the continuum were unanimous in their assertion that if “their” students did not have aides, no learning of any kind would occur. In Lucy’s words, “I think these kids would just get lost if we weren’t there.”

Students’ dilemma: The social cost of teacher-aide support

It is important to note that within the “partial” or “absent” continuum contexts, some of the student participants experienced the dilemma of having to measure the academic benefits of having an aide against the social costs of such support. For example, Rachel appreciated that extra adult assistance meant, “I don’t have to struggle and pester other students to help me.” At times, however, she felt that there was stigma in having an aide, “like with your friends, they start hassling me—‘you’re dumb’, ‘you’re stupid’, stuff like that”. Balancing academic progress with social needs presented an ongoing challenge for Ann (and other aide participants), as she noted:

As far as [student’s] learning goes, i’m sure one-to-one is better, but it’s not better for her socially, so we have to balance all that out. If she isn’t happy and feeling part of the system and doing what everybody else is doing, nothing’s going to go in there anyway.

The majority of aide participants, particularly in high school settings, were mindful that their presence heightened students’ visibility in terms of difference in a student culture in which it was not “cool” to be different. Students’ attempts to distance themselves from their aides were therefore understandable ways of managing the situations in which they found themselves, albeit at the cost of their learning.

Discussion

The findings of this study suggest that teacher aides can play a critical role in supporting disabled students’ access to the national curriculum. For the most part, regardless of the continuum context, student participants were very positive about the support provided by aides. Five of the 10 students were unequivocal in their belief that their aides helped them more than their teachers (only one student stated that his teacher was more helpful). That some students had full access to the curriculum and were achieving academically represents the most hopeful finding of this aspect of the larger study. That this was not the case for all students was the least surprising finding, consistent with previous New Zealand research regarding disabled students’ education (IHC, 2008; Cameron, 2004; Rietveld, 2005; Wylie, 2000). That so much seemed to depend upon the kind of teacher and teacher aide who had responsibility for students’ education is troubling.

The optimum use of teacher aides was found in the inclusive part of the continuum. While only two of the aides in this study had consistently worked in such settings, these findings reflected those of Howes, Farrell, Kaplan and Moss (2003) in their review of research regarding the impact of adult support on the learning of students in mainstream schools. They concluded that aides were most effective when working in positive, inclusive contexts in which they were respected and valued. In such contexts, students’ right to education is enacted in meaningful ways, in that they have “cognitive access to the curriculum” (Berry, 2006, p. 490) that is scaffolded by a qualified teacher. Such circumstances are consistent with the “enabling” international conventions, laws and The New Zealand Disability Strategy (Minister for Disability Issues, 2001) outlined earlier, in that students have equitable opportunities to study the national curriculum alongside their peers.

In the middle part of the continuum participants felt they had a positive impact on students’ education. The latter was, however, compromised by factors beyond students’ and aides’ control. The lack of clarification of teacher–teacher aide roles and responsibilities, an issue that has been well documented in international research (see, for example, Giangreco, Edelman, Broer, & Doyle, 2001; Howard & Ford, 2007), meant that untrained aides were required to work beyond the limits of their knowledge and skill, with limited guidance. This was particularly problematic at high school level, where both student and aide participants noted that aides tended to be allocated on the basis of timetable convenience rather than aides’ subject competence. As well, the stigmatising presence of an aide, which could result in students choosing social over educational participation (Broer, Doyle, & Giangreco, 2005; Giangreco & Broer, 2005; Hemmingsson, Borell, & Gustavsson, 2003), had the effect of further distancing some students from the curriculum.

In the third part of the continuum, the practice of expecting the least qualified staff to take responsibility for students who, through no fault of their own, may present the greatest challenge to qualified teachers, is inherently inequitable (Giangreco & Broer, 2005) and needs to be challenged to enable disabled students to enact their right to education. As teacher aide Bill noted, it is problematic that “somebody needs to be highly qualified to teach a child within the normal range, [yet] you can have just any old person teach a child who’s outside that range of abilities.”

While the first part of the continuum reflects New Zealand’s enabling legislative and policy context, in the second and third parts this context is less apparent. Instead, there is evidence of disabling barriers to disabled students’ participation and achievement that derive from inconsistent and absent educational policy (Higgins et al., 2006; Millar & Morton, 2007), and, as Quennerstedt (2009) noted, that may lead to second-class citizenship.

Implications

Ten years ago, Giangreco, Broer and Edelman (1999) suggested that using teacher aides to support disabled students’ education might simply be dealing with the tip of the iceberg, deflecting attention from less visible but nonetheless significant structural factors that perpetuate educational inequities. While cognizant of the complexity of the education system, I wish to highlight three aspects that I believe contribute to the kinds of injustice experienced by participants in this study.

The first relates to teacher aides. The findings provide support for Rietveld’s (2005) recommendation that “the deployment of minimally trained teacher aides for children with impairments may need to be reviewed” (p. 137) if the government is serious in its commitment to provide quality teaching and learning. A coherent research-based policy framework regarding the mandatory training and deployment of teacher aides needs to be developed to ensure that this valuable human resource is utilised equitably and consistently nationwide. Alternative ways of utilising teacher aides need to be explored, such as appointing whole-class aides to minimise the stigmatising effect of teacher aide help and provide a stable source of support in the classroom, thus serving all students and teachers more effectively. This would necessitate a review of both student and teacher aide funding, as already signalled by Wylie (2002).

Secondly, there needs to be investigation of initial teacher education providers’ effectiveness in preparing new generations of teachers to think about and respond respectfully to student diversity. Although Wylie, in her review of Special Education 2000 policy almost a decade ago, recommended the “mandatory inclusion of provision for students with special needs within core preservice teacher development courses” (2000, p. 97), Morton and Gordon’s (2006) study suggests that teacher-education providers throughout New Zealand vary considerably in their focus on and delivery of inclusive education programmes. It is imperative that, wherever teachers are educated, they enter the teaching profession with a presumption that all students are competent, and with a commitment to their professional responsibility to teach all students. For qualified teachers, the importance of ongoing professional development has been emphasised in earlier New Zealand research (Cameron, 2004; Wylie, 2000) and remains a priority.

Thirdly, I believe that a review by the Ministry of Education of the legislative and policy context regarding “special” and inclusive education is necessary. The “higgledy-piggledy” nature of current policy (Higgins et al., 2006) has resulted in higgledy-piggledy practice in some schools’ responses to disabled students. However effective some aides are in bridging the gap for students between the worlds of “special” and regular education, such circumstances are inherently inequitable and will continue to be so until policy inconsistencies and absences are addressed.

Conclusion

While mindful of the limitations of this small qualitative study, its findings indicate that education is not an “uncomplicated ‘good’” (Walker, 2003, p. 169) in New Zealand, and that it does indeed produce both justice and injustice. It reveals that the student participants’ access to the curriculum is conditional on a range of factors, not least of which is the nature of support provided by teacher aides, who may be working in conjunction with teachers, as untrained teachers or simply as “babysitters”. Would such situations be acceptable for “nondisabled” students? if not, why not?

Rachel believed that “changing people’s attitudes and perceptions” was a priority if schools were to respond more equitably to disabled students.

She wanted to “make teachers more aware that we are actually capable of doing things”. Her observations echo Ainscow’s (2005) claim that many of the barriers faced by disabled students derive from “existing ways of thinking” (p. 109). Changing our minds, and with this our policies and practices, would necessitate a genuine commitment to enacting existing conventions, laws and The New Zealand Disability Strategy. Providing “the best education for disabled people” (Minister for Disability Issues, 2001, objective 3) may, eventually, result in students being able to enjoy their right to be, as Rachel wished, “treated like everybody else”.

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The author

Gill Rutherford is a senior lecturer at the College of Education, University of Otago. She has had the privilege of knowing and working with disabled children and adults over the past 30 years. A former high school teacher, her work as a tertiary educator since 1995 has focused on inclusive education within teacher education programmes, and on teacher aide education. In 2008, she completed her Phd, Different Ways of Knowing? Understanding Disabled Students’ and Teacher Aides’ School Experiences Within a Context of Relational Social Justice.

Email: gill.rutherford@otago.ac.nz