Pedagogo padėjėjo veikla; socializacijos aspektai
A Teacher Assistent's Activities: Aspects of Socialisation

Summary/Abstract: Integration of the disabled started in Lithuania after the national revival is experiencing changes. Its participants are looking for kinder terms and innovations in organisation of education. Together with such widely acknowledged terms as "children with special needs", "special pedagogy", and "the disabled" we can usually find the term "exceptional children". Integration is realised more like some inclusion, though, probably, this variant is not the last one. In the integrated educational space, a new problem occurs: a humanistic attitude and favourable laws of special education have given the opportunity for plenty of children with different, sometimes with rather complicated forms of disability, to come to school. Teachers are involved in a difficult situation: they have not enough knowledge to work with special children; the classes are full, therefore it is practically impossible to differentiate and individualise education, applying it to specific features of disability. There are some forms of disability (such as hard disability of hearing or mental disorders), when all attention should be paid to one child. Meanwhile, there are no educational institutions in Lithuania preparing mediators, i.e. teacher assistants. In the course of investigation teachers working together with assistants in integrated classes wete questioned. The researchers spoke with the parents of disabled children; they would like to have not only the support lessons, but also breaks, events on their way to school and back. They would like also to get therapy and care for their children as well as guaranteed psychological protection, an opportunity to communicate and cooperate. So, this meaning cannot be contained in a teacher assistant's position. The author of the article thinks that this position should be called "manager of educational resources". The above words are attractive and popular in nowadays' context. It is significant to expand such spheres of activity where the teacher assistant would be strong and feel more like an equal partnet of integrated education rather than like a competitor or controller. From the talks with the teachers, assistants and parents, three branches of the assistant's activity or competences can be drawn: subjective (education), medical (care and help), and psychological (understanding of disability, mediation between the special child and his classmates or the society). We hope that Lithuanian colleges are able to educate such specialists, giving the opportunity to specialise in the studies of hearing and seeing (Braille and gesture studies require special preparation). Taking into consideration all the above spheres of activity, the educational programme would consist of such subjects as pedagogy, special pedagogy, psychology, medicine, kinetic thetapy and management.

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