わが国の弱視教育の現状と今後の課題

Abstract

In Japan the education for partially seeing children has developed with priority given to classes for the partially seeing in residential schools for the blind. Due to this fact, Japan is lagging far behind Western countries, especially the United States, in the advancement of an integrated educational program in regular schools for the partially seeing pupils. Public schools with classes for the partially seeing, either on a cooperative class plan or on a resource room plan, are still very few in number in our country. In addition, an itinerant teacher plan has not yet been officially adopted as a system. The itinerant teacher plan is particularly valuable in rural areas where the partially seeing children are widely scattered. We have carefully studied the details and procedures of this plan from the theoretical and practical viewpoint for the last few years. As a result of this research, we have found that there are several factors which may have an influence upon the effectiveness of school and home itinerant instruction. One of the most important findings of ours is that we cannot lightly determine, only by the degree of visual impairment, which one is more appropriate for the education of each partially seeing child, a public school or a school for the blind. Even a partially seeing child with serious defective vision, if his intelligence is high enough, can proceed to learn in a regular class with quite a high achievement level, provided with the appropriate advice of itinerant teacher, the ardor of parents and regular teachers in charge, the effective use of low vision aids, and the understanding and the help of his classmates. It is really desirable from the viewpoint of character building of partially seeing children to put them under a strict guidance, treating them equally with normal pupils with the scrupulous medical and educational care that makes up for their visual defect. In order to promote the regular school education of the partially seeing children in our country, it is necessary to provide classes for the partially seeing at some leading schools in the particular areas and further to attach there itinerant teachers besides special teachers, and thus to utilize these special classes as the education center for the benefit of many partially seeing children in the areas. Undoubtedly the classes for the partially seeing pupils in residential schools for the blind will continue to play an important role in the education of those children that are hard to take care of in regular schools for various reasons.