As part of youth month , I sat down with an educator at a special needs school located in Soweto. The special needs education teacher asked to remain anonymous, but shared with me generously about his experiences, which relate to mainstreaming and accelerating the development of sports facilities and sports activities for learners with disabilities in schools, amongst other issues.

As a teacher in a special needs school, what kind of sports do you have at school, and what do you feel is the impact of this on learners?

We have the basic sports, which are: netball, soccer, running and shot put. In other types of sports, learners are really not involved. It is not based on their disabilities or impairments. I think there is just a lack of people who will coordinate the sports. Thus the only focus is on those popular or ‘major sports’ that each and every school does.

Do you feel any improvements can be made to the sports facilities or sports opportunities offered to learners?

Yes, the school doesn’t really have playgrounds; it is really underdeveloped. It has a netball court and just plenty of grass that is not cut well or taken care of. I think they are still in the process of putting in paving and what not. We will see how it goes in the end. As for now, I feel like there are really necessary improvements that are really needed from the government, because we struggle to practice. It comes to the point where they go out of the school to practice at the community ground next door. Learners are more motivated to come to school if they can play sport because half the time they do not want to come to school. I just feel that the school needs to be re-structured. There’s a bush behind some classrooms that needs to be cut in order to allow for space to be utilised in a proper way. It gives less motivation, because you can’t say, “you guys can practice rugby or soccer”, because there’s no space. We always first have to think about the space that would allow learners to practice sports or do whatever that they would like to do.

You have spoken about some of the challenges faced by teachers and learners when it comes to books or educational resources. Can you please give me an example of any of the challenges.

So with books, learners do not really have textbooks that cater for special needs learners with severe intellectual disabilities. You end up having to use a lower grade book. For a grade three learner, you might have to use a grade one book; which I feel is unfair for the learner because we should have a book that caters specifically for the learner. It’s not the school’s problem per se, but I feel it is a departmental problem because, even when they send books, they don’t send DBE books that are specifically created for Severe Intellectual Disability (SID) learners but they send DBE books that are the same for learners across the board in all schools. In a normal school and a special needs school, we use the same books; so that tends to be a bit difficult because some of our learners cannot write, some cannot speak and the majority of the learners cannot read. It will help if we have books that cater specifically to them because half the time the school has to end up printing activities from the internet specifically for them. It becomes really tricky when you don’t have an actual book that belongs to a learner that they can read. Teachers use the DBE books during very limited times. You also can’t keep giving a learner an activity over and over.

Can you please explain the differences or similarities between teaching in a mainstream classroom and a special needs school set up?

In a mainstream school, you purely focus on teaching, on sharing knowledge and making sure that the learners have acquired the knowledge; and are able to apply the knowledge on their own. Whereas, in a special needs school, it’s more about the learners. I think you are more of a caretaker also; more than just merely a teacher. Like in my school, you have to introduce a toilet routine; make learners able to go to the toilet and come back from the toilet, also make them able to say when they need the bathroom. You train learners, and help them to know it’s time to study now; it’s time to play.

The content that they learn is also different, they learn skills that will make them adapt better to society; because they are often seen as outcasts, it’s difficult for them to really merge into the community, so it helps in a special school because there is that love for them. In a mainstream school, the learners are more in charge of their education; whereas, in a special school, you still carry on from ‘elementary’ school. You can think of it as an elementary school, but for older learners.