Posted November 14, 2007

Temple’s Distance and Summer Program promotes the integration of disabled students through global education.

How Temple’s Distance and Summer Program promotes the integration of disabled students through global education.

 
As an elementary education major at Temple, Chrissy Kelly had two goals: to study abroad and to develop the skills necessary to teach children with special needs. She was able to do both with the help of a unique program.

Kelly is one of 11 students who have traveled to Brazil thanks to the U.S./Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program, which has been offered by the university’s Distance and Summer Program since the program received its first grant in 2003.

Through this program, jointly administered by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and the Brazilian Ministry of Education, 10 more undergraduate students from each of the two countries will have the opportunity to study in the other country during the fall 2008 semester and learn about how technology is implemented in different contexts to better integrate people with disabilities as productive members of their respective societies.

“We have had a tremendous amount of positive feedback from the students who have taken part in this program,” director Dominque Kliger said. “As principal investigator for this FIPSE grant, I was granted a one-year, no-cost extension in April. Because of that, we now have funding to recruit 10 additional Temple students to participate in this program.”

The goal of the program, Kliger said, is to enrich the education of these students with innovative, hands-on instruction on the important issue of helping people with disabilities overcome physical limitations. Students will experience the excitement of traveling abroad, practice a second language and make new friends in a culturally diverse atmosphere.

“We want to show these students that they can have education without borders, in order to facilitate a life without barriers,” she said.

While the students who travel to Brazil don’t have to have a disability, the program’s curriculum focuses on educating people about ways to use technology to help those who do have disabilities, Kliger said.



Getting the opportunity to learn different teaching techniques in a foreign country was what most impressed Kelly, who graduated from Temple in August with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education.

“It was a crazy experience because I had never traveled to another country before, let alone stayed there for five months,” the West Philadelphia native said. “After the initial culture shock, I was able to understand how other people live and, more importantly, see how they teach.”

The biggest difference in the teaching process, Kelly said, was how much attention Brazil’s education system gives to children with disabilities.

“They focus on different methods of teaching; for instance, they have a separate school for kids with Down syndrome,” she said. “They believe that keeping kids with the same disabilities in the same classroom will provide them with a sense of normalcy. It’s a very unique way to teach that America hasn’t quite grasped.”

During her time in Salvador, a city on the northeast coast of Brazil, Kelly attended five courses that concentrated on teaching special education skills and the implementation of assisted technology for people with disabilities. The courses, she said, will help her in her quest for a job as a special education teacher, and she already has been using some of the skills in her position as a daycare instructor.

The only prerequisite for enrollment in the program is that students who wish to apply for the fall must register for a course in Portuguese this spring to ensure they can communicate once in Brazil.

For more information about the Distance and Summer Program or to apply to study in Brazil, visit www.temple.edu/distanceandsummer.

— Written by Karen Shuey

For Temple University News Communications

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