Shervina Small is passionate about special needs children

SPANISH TOWN, St Catherine:

Shervina Small, founder/principal of the Faith Education Centre in Willodene, St Catherine, is devoted to the education of special-needs children.

According to Small, teaching children with special needs is a passion she is committed to embrace for life.

Going against the advice of many of her peers, Small started the Faith Education Centre five years ago to cater to students with special needs whom, she is convinced have the capacity to learn despite the misinformed view that they are incapable.

Over the years, Small has not been able to cater to more than 10 students at a time throughout the school year because of inadequate space and the fact that the ratio has to be kept at a manageable level.

“I love teaching special-needs children, when I teach them I feel a sense of satisfaction. I love to interact with these children and will never give this up for no other position,” Small told The Gleaner, adding that she has had offers to go elsewhere, but has declined.

Small recounted her first experience teaching a child living with Down’s syndrome, noting that he made incremental progress by using his hands to hold a crayon to colour between the lines on the page of a colouring book, after starting out unable to do so.

“It meant the world to me after I saw the steady progress of the child having a firm grip on the crayon, something he could not do when he started out.

“Above all, what really moved me more was the elation of the child’s mother when she saw his progress, many would say this is nothing, but to see the mother’s joy with this incremental improvement, brought a sense of satisfaction to me, so from this point, I never turned back,” Small beamed.

The special education teacher, however, has found a way to create additional space to facilitate younger students in a new programme that she is ready to roll out.

MAINSTREAMING

“What I am aiming at is mainstreaming, I will take them from about two years old and integrate quote and quote normal children with those with special needs and teach them to socialise at a tender age. I don’t want to segregate them.”

“I want people to understand that these children have special needs, but they are humans and if they integrate with other children, who are not challenged, and learn to socialise, this will help them to develop skills they would not normally learn by been around their peers,” Small insisted.

According to her, other than the lack of adequate space to house more students and put in more facilities to aid their learning, there are also the problems of location and affordability.

“I would have over 30 students if I had the space and the parents could afford the fees. Most of these parents are low-income earners who will enrol their children, but not able to sustain them on a long-term basis, I tried my best to work with them by putting payment plans in place, but, in the end some just cannot afford the fees.”

Small said that because the institution is located in an area that is stigmatised, there is some difficulty in attracting more students.

rural@gleanerjm.com