Co-enrollment..
In the past few weeks, I read many of my colleagues' blogs, articles, and discussions about inclusion, technology, assessment, and the classroom environment. Each component contributes to each individual child's strengths and weakness. Each component offers advantages and disadvantages. Because I am a strong advocate of promoting American Sign Language (ASL) as a language pathway for all children to learn and use until they learn how to speak/or continue to use ASL if they do not have verbal ability, I want to present a discussion and new insight on Co-enrollment.
Before I get into the purpose of co-enrollment, I would like to discuss what we know about children with disabilities and children without disabilities. We often see children at child development centers and there is almost no children with disabilities there. Why is that? Children with disabilities are often at home with a caregiver or at a residential school/day school that provides services for children with disabilities and that usually mean the young children are far away from home and their families.
What is co-enrollment? Is it same as inclusion? Co-enrollment is a bigger picture of inclusion conception. Co-enrollment classroom has two teachers (co-teachers). Both or one of them are fluent in ASL and one of them teaches in spoken English. The students in the classroom are hearing, deaf, and hard of hearing. This concept is relatively new and gradually increasing across the global. There is not sufficient research to support the results of this program, not enough to determine if it is beneficial program. The social between deaf/hard of hearing and hearing peers seem to increase in positive ways, which means that children show acceptance toward one another regardless of his or her abilities.
Since co-enrollment is relative new in education system, I am intrigued to learn more and possibly support this model. What are your thoughts? This kind of education will require parental involvement, assessment, technology, inclusion, and classroom environment to meet this new idea.
