Restructuring Teacher Education: The Integration of Undergraduate Curriculum.

Overview & Synopsis

This paper presents ideas on restructuring teacher education in the field of special education and the ensuring implications for training personnel. The reform of the American education system requires the simultaneous reform of the teacher education system. The different procedural standards, methodologies, and certification tracks used by each state, and often each university, in special education teacher education make effective reform difficult to achieve. To educate children of varying abilities and disabilities in the same setting requires that a true partnership be cultivated between regular education and special education professionals. Efforts to implement models that infuse special education concepts into the general education curriculum have met with resistance by both general and special educators. Moving toward the ideal of a merged general and special education calls for combining regular education and special education classes in teacher education, and incorporating team teaching by faculty who represent both general and special education. Teachers of students with severe and low incidence disabilities should have additional training beyond the basic special education level. (JDD)