Abstract:

Teachers' ability to respond to the diverse educational needs of children and learners is significantly influenced by their very attitudes towards inclusion, as well as their feeling of readiness to work with such children. According to Norwich (1994), teachers' beliefs and attitudes play a crucial role for ensuring successful inclusive education. Several authors confirm that teachers' attitudes towards inclusion are very often based on the practical implementation of inclusive education rather than on a specific ideology and understanding of inclusiveness (Burke, Sutherland, 2004; Scruggs, Mastropieri, 1996). Nevertheless, we still believe that attitudes towards inclusion and the ideas about what an inclusive school should look like form an inseparable concept. In both cases, it is essential to keep close contact with real school practice, in particular to give students during their studies the opportunity to actually work in classrooms, educating children with diverse educational needs, where certain pro-inclusive measures have been, at least partially, implemented. That's why we face the appropriate question of whether, as a teacher, I will be able to respond to the various needs of pupils and whether I can ensure appropriate conditions for their education. The intensity of experiences, both from their life and work, was also confirmed in the findings of our questionnaire survey. Our paper presents the findings of a questionnaire survey that includes the opinions and experience of 207 future teachers from three Faculties of Education in Slovakia. The research sample consisted of 158 future preschool teachers and 49 future primary teachers.

As part of the survey, we focused on the subjective degree of readiness of the respondents to work with:
1) gifted children,
2) children from socially handicapped background,
3) children with physical handicap,
4) mentally handicapped children,
5) children with hyperactive disorder ADHD,
6) children with autism,
7) children with impaired communication skills,
8) children not speaking the language of instruction/limited instruction language skills.

The findings of the questionnaire survey prove that the future preschool teachers feel most prepared to work with children from socially handicapped background and feel to have the limited abilities in providing educational needs for children and learners with mental disabilities. The assessment of the degree of subjective readiness was the same for future primary teachers. We believe that the knowledge and skills the future preschool and primary teachers acquired during their studies, have greatly influenced their feeling of readiness for their job. Although the results indicate the subjective opinion of the respondents, they show low level of experience with educating these children, as well as the absence of effective support tools for children education. One of these measures includes the work of multidisciplinary teams at schools, these teams help to create a stimulating educational environment for all participants and offer various possibilities and forms of help, which enable easier and faster achievement of set education objectives.

Keywords:

Teacher, inclusion.