Summer Institute Welcomes Teachers From Around the World to Perkins' Campus
The 2011 McLetchie Institute participants spent two weeks on Perkins' campus.
On a steamy summer afternoon, special education professionals from around the world sat around a long table in an air conditioned conference room. They eagerly took notes on their laptops as Susan DeCaluwe, who was a long term Perkins School for the Blind expert in deafblindness, presented on the topic of communication and concept development for learners with deafblindness and multiple disabilities.
The 2011 McLetchie Institute Developing Meaningful Curriculum for Learners who are Visually Impaired with Additional Disabilities welcomed 18 participants hailing from Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia to the Perkins campus for two weeks of workshops and observations related to this theme. The group included teachers, administrators, leaders of advocacy organizations, Perkins International consultants, as well as two representatives from Indonesia’s Ministry of Education.
Regardless of their unique challenges and circumstances, these professionals share a global vision to improve educational opportunities in their countries and empower children with disabilities and their families so that all children can fulfill their potential as integrated members of society.
“This is such an amazing gift and an honor for me,” DeCaluwe said about training the international institute participants. “Even if there’s just one concept someone takes back home, that kernel will grow.”
DeCaluwe, who started working with children who are deafblind in 1973, knows what she’s talking about. She has been sharing her expertise with educators around the world for over 20 years and the rewards have been exponential and humbling.
Malgorzata Ksiazek, one of the McLetchie Institute participants, first met DeCaluwe in 1992 while working in a school for the deaf in Poland. When the school’s population expanded to include children who also had visual impairments and additional disabilities, Ksiazek said teachers did not know how to communicate with the children who were unable to speak or use sign language. DeCaluwe introduced Ksiazek and her colleagues to tactile teaching strategies they had never tried before such as using tangible symbols, calendar systems, and hand under hand instruction. (DeCaluwe details such strategies in the Perkins webcast: The Communications Portfolio for Learners with Deafblindness and Multiple Disabilities).
“She is the one who changed our minds about communication,” Ksiazek said, after the two old friends embraced and began to share stories of hope and progress.
Ksiazek, who now works for the Polish Association for the Deafblind, remembered using some of these strategies with a boy in her preschool who was deafblind and couldn’t sign. At first, she said, the classroom teacher looked at her strangely. Ksiazek used tactile objects (tangible symbols) to represent common tasks and activities of the school day. She placed her hands over his and signed the concepts the objects represented. One day when all the other children left the classroom for lunch, Ksiazek’s student stayed behind to finish a task. Something clicked that day when he realized where he should be and retrieved the symbol for “lunchtime,” handed it to his teacher and put his hand to his mouth making the sign for “eat.”
“I never forgot that day,” Ksiazek said. DeCaluwe held up her arm which was covered in goose bumps. The moment Ksiasek described is a moment in which the life of a child was forever changed. “That is so powerful,” DeCaluwe told Ksiazek. “You are the teacher now. You are the mentor.”
Bernice Mavyuva came to Perkins from the Kitui School for the Deaf in Kenya with hopes of achieving similar breakthroughs with her students. Mavyuva is in charge of the school’s deafblind unit but she is not yet trained in working with children with deafblindness and multiple disabilities.
“Most of our students are very poor,” said Mavyuva, who talked about scarce teaching materials and an overcrowded school where the teacher/student ratio can feel overwhelming.
She learned about Perkins’ teacher training opportunities when Perkins International Director Aubrey Webson and Marianne Riggio, coordinator for the Africa and Caribbean region, visited her school last year. Webson suggested Mavyuva apply for Perkins’ Educational Leadership Program, a nine month intensive teacher training program in which international educators receive instruction and gain first hand experience working with students who are deafblind or visually impaired with additional disabilities on Perkins campus. The McLetchie Institute, however, provided Mavyuva with a more immediate to get started.
I want to know how to handle these deafblind kids. I’ve become a part of them,” Mavyuva explained. There’s nothing like the feeling she gets when she witnesses a student making progress. “They come to the school in very bad shape; maybe they don’t know how to feed themselves. When you see a child sitting at a table and holding a spoon you see the impact.”
Marcela Toscano also knows the satisfaction of making an impact in a child’s life. Toscano works in early intervention at a school for children with multiple disabilities in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has been dreaming of coming to Perkins and learning from experts firsthand for over a decade. This year Toscano became a trainer of teachers after earning her master’s degree in multiple disabilities from a Perkins International supported university training program in Chile.
Toscano shared a video on her laptop of a mother interacting with her infant who is deaf and has low vision. The mother ducked in and out of a tactile curtain of streamers hanging and swaying within reach of the infant who giggled at his mother’s touch. Toscano smiled widely as she recalled how the mother first came to her school crying because she had no idea how to communicate and interact with her baby. Toscano is eager to expand her knowledge to help more families.
“I will share with teachers I’m training to improve education quality so teachers in our schools can be ready to work with these children,” Toscano said.
At the end of her presentation, DeCaluwe encouraged the participants to put themselves in their students’ shoes.
She said: “Think about the most challenging student you know. Use your imagination and think about yourself as that child for one day. How do you communicate with your world? How do you get dressed? How do you eat?” When you wake up, DeCaluwe said, write down everything you think that student needs to make progress.
“Everything I’ve learned has been from a student who challenged me,” DeCaluwe said.
More on the McLetchie Institute and Additional Resources
Dr. Barbara McLetchie, who supports the McLetchie Institute, is a world renowned expert in deafblindness and a consultant for Perkins International and has been an expert in this field for more than 30 years. She is co-editor, along with Marianne Riggio, of the publication: “Deafblindness: Educational Service Guidelines,” which is available online in downloadable chapters in English and Spanish.
McLetchie is also featured in Perkins Training & Educational Resources Program “Ask the Expert” series.
She is also co-author, along with Barbara Miles, of “Developing Concepts with Children who are Deafblind,” available in English, Spanish, and Chinese.
She is co-editor, with Marianne Riggio, of "Competencies for Teachers of Learners who are Deafblind" and "Competencies for Paraprofessionals working in Early Intervention and Educational Programs with Learners who are Deafblind."
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