INTEGRATION OF CHILDREN WITH CHRONIC LIFE THREATENING ILLNESS IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM FROM THE TEACHER’S POINT OF VIEW

The purpose of this study was to examine the process that teachers undergo in coping with the placement of a chronically ill child in their classes and the factors that affect this process from the teachers’ point of view. Several aspects in particular were examined:1) Special characteristics of the chronically ill child that influence the teacher’s educational endeavor in the integration process, as the teacher perceives it;
2) The personal and professional processes that the teacher undergoes during the educational act, as a teacher who integrates a chronically ill child into his/her class;
3) The “practical ideology” (worldview, practical knowledge) that emerges implicitly from the teachers’ remarks during the reflective process in which they describe their experience as teacher-integrators.
The rationale behind the examination of these aspects flows from the special importance that the topic of educational integration of chronically ill children has acquired in our time, in view of significant developments in the treatment of chronic pediatric illness. Innovative care allows many such children to return to school during and after treatment and medical progress has transformed pediatric illnesses once considered terminal into chronic conditions. Therefore, the population of children who suffer from these illnesses is steadily rising, as is interest in the early and later effects of the illnesses.
The research population consisted of homeroom teachers of primary-school children with chronic life-threatening illnesses. Some of the teachers integrated children who were ill upon arrival in the class; others integrated children who had been healthy and suddenly fell ill. To examine the integration process over time, only teachers who had been homeroom teachers of the ill child for at least a year after the onset of the disease or during a year since the beginning of the school year were included.
The data were gathered by means of open-ended in-depth interviews in which twenty teachers were asked to describe how they coped with the integration of an ill child in their class.
The data were subjected to analytic induction.The process included a search for patterns by comparing statements and events and culminated with theoretical conceptualization of analytical categories that were chosen on the basis of relevance to the subject’s domain, and number of enunciations.
The study makes a contribution at both the theoretical and the applied levels.
On the theoretical level: reveal an authentic body of knowledge that teachers structured as they went about the integration of an ill child.
The findings provide comprehensive information about the physical, cognitive, learning and social-emotional characteristics of the sick child, and clarified the differences that existed in the renewed inclusion process of a child who became ill suddenly as opposed to the inclusion of a child who was already ill upon arrival. On the practical level, the findings present a behavior profile of the teachers, relate to the child's various ecological environments, and advance or delay effective inclusion. Teachers can examine themselves in the light of these profiles.
In addition, it is possible to recommend curricular changes that may respond to needs of ill children as revealed in this study. These changes may enhance integration in view of the abilities of advanced medicine that allows a child with a life-threatening illness to enroll in class.