Dealing with disability as ‘matter out of place’: emotional issues in the education of learners with visual impairment

Abstract

ABSTRACT Globally, education of children with disabilities increasingly occurs in inclusive school settings, requiring specialised teacher education. Scholars emphasise relational and instrumental skills, to overcome prejudice and exclusion. Visual impairment (VI) is emotionally evocative, presenting particular challenges to inclusion. Using data from in-service teacher education for VI inclusion in South Africa, this theoretical paper explores the personal and emotional barriers which teachers must negotiate surrounding the ‘new reality’ of VI in their classrooms if successful inclusion is to be achieved, and how teacher education may support this. We set qualitative data from an in-service short course for teachers of VI learners against ideas from disability studies, critical psychoanalysis and anthropology, conceptualising relational issues arising from VI in the classroom. Due to VI's evocation of unconscious anxieties in the observer, we argue that the experiences and needs of children with VI may be felt as ‘matter out of place’ in the classroom, confounding inclusion. Teacher anxiety threatens the capacity for containment and creativity, undermining the secure relationship which is elemental to successful learning. To manage the experiences, feelings and needs of VI learners, teachers require education which facilitates processing of their own emotions surrounding this evocative form of disability.