Abstract:

In Croatian system of elementary and secondary education one measure of social inclusion and enhancement of quality of life of persons with disabilities is introduction of teaching assistants – a project continuing during past two decades that enables students with disabilities to meet the educational goals appropriate to their individual abilities, skills and learning pace. To achieve expected outcomes for each individual student and for inclusive education to be successful within the framework of collaborative learning educational system provides continuous psycho-physical support mainly through agency of teaching assistants. Past research on this topic in Croatia is scarce and doesn’t address all the problems and deficiencies of the current model of assistance nor does it suggest possible alternatives for improvements thus the purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper insight and reveal a level of self-knowledge of individual points of strengths and weaknesses of teaching assistants. For the purpose of the research the roles of teaching assistant, researcher and respondent are combined in the same person and participants were providing support to a first-grade elementary school student with intellectual disabilities. Qualitative methods of analytical autoethnography (self-perception, self-reflection and self-analysis) through self evaluation are applied to indicate the development of personal emphatic communication skills, work efficiency and the degree of professional and personal advancement of participants and the results are analyzed with instruments of descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings showed that researcher/respondent’s self-perception, high intrinsic motivation and adopted personal value system based on patience, altruism, empathy and the ability to understand and comprehend the needs and desires of the students are strong points of strength while excessive emotionalism is recognized as a point of weakness because it is likely to disrupt the primary focus on the needs and interests of the students. In addition, the paper shows that empathy and determination to aid the students help to overcome initial fear and insecurities and enhance the personal growth of the author and the researcher involved in the research. Given the fact that research papers on individual and personal experience of teaching personnel working with students with disabilities are quite rare methods and findings presented in this paper pose valuable orientation for any future research in the field.

Keywords:

Auto-ethnographic research, collaborative learning, inclusive education, pupils with intellectual disabilities, teaching assistant.