Physical Education

The role of physical education in rising self esteem depends on how children perceive their achievements. This is necessary to pay attention to what is considered success in school environment among pupils. Winning competition can rise child’s self esteem and develop self confidence, yet for pupils with certain physical disabilities and poor health condition winning competition may become unattainable. This is important that children evaluate their success as compared to own previous achievements but regardless of other children’s success (Hardy and Mower 1999, p.109). According to Vallerand studies (1987) the intuitive appraisal has a greater impact on emotion than the objective outcome. This is why special attention teachers must pay to developing child understanding of own importance and achievements through physical education. Currently little attention is paid to appraisal of success during physical education process and that is why curriculum must include the development of child’s self esteem through teaching appropriate appraisal of own success and development (Hardy and Mower 1999). This is important to notice that children with physical disabilities may never be able to come close to the physical level of their peers but this is important that they understand the importance of their individual physical development regardless of their current physical condition and disabilities. One more thing to notice is that currently curriculums do not develop individual programs for disabled children and teachers must come up with individual exercises on their own taking into consideration individual needs of a child. This is important that curriculums develop programs of physical education which would enable children of different physical conditions to work in group while demonstration individual success.

ICT

The importance of ICT to develop self esteem and facilitate learning process is hard to underestimate. This has been shown by numerous studies and researches (Slate et al. 1998, Shneiderman 2000, Page 2002). Yet ICT also plays an important role in studies of children who have special educational needs and disabilities, low-achievers and children with low self esteem. Research of Garagouni-Areou and his colleagues has shown that children with attention disorders and other educational difficulties are sensitive to short educational movies, programs, games and audio materials which are available through the use if ICT (2004). Including more of these technological developments can drive good educational results for children with disabilities while being an acceptable and efficient teaching method for majority of pupils in mainstream schools. Such curriculum changes will benefit all students and raise self esteem of low achievers as they will be able to comprehend and study more effectively and on the same level as majority of students does (Garagouni-Areou et al. 2004). ICT education is also very important for developing self esteem of children with hearing and speech deficiencies as they will learn to communicate their ideas, study and understand others using text messages, e-mails, and other means of ICT. This can help building up the self esteem of physically disabled children. Providing children with access to modern technological advancements must be considered in primary school curriculum as a mean to eliminate the difference between studying opportunities of children with physical deficiencies and their peers (Leask and Meadows 2000). Such approach is a good mean to raise self esteem of disabled children and provide them with an opportunity to use abilities they have in common with majority of children. This can help them to feel equal members of society and facilitate their learning process. This approach definitely requires a lot of investment before it can be applied to modern primary curriculum, yet this is a question of time in our rapidly developing world of technological advancements.

Motivation and Reward

The necessity of motivation and reward for successful performance and self esteem needs has been discussed in almost any psychological work. Yet modern primary school curriculum does not provide guidance for motivation and reward of young children (NCCA 2006). This is necessary to include specific motivational and rewarding guidance for teachers in curriculum which will allow individual appraisal of every child and which will contribute to realizing specific needs of separate children and providing for their self esteem needs. Children who are not able to perform as well as their mates due to certain disabilities must be able to feel proud of individual achievements if they can not be praised for achievements in the broad meaning of this concept as appraised in comparison to the best achieving classmate or according to general primary school expectations (Mercer and Witzel 2003). Such motivational approach can definitely serve well for self esteem needs of the children with certain educational disabilities, yet this is almost impossible to suggest a unique motivational and rewarding method in national curriculum as individual needs of these children are very unique in nature and this probably will always remain the task of a teacher to realize those unique needs and provide for them based on personal performance of each child.

Performance Assessment

Effective assessment recognizes the positive achievements of students and informs planning. It is important that assessment takes place throughout the whole range of curriculum areas and experiences, concentrates on the whole student and not just on areas of difficulty, provides an accurate picture of students’ levels of development, knowledge, skills and understanding, including strengths and needs; assesses readiness to progress, acknowledges and celebrates students’ learning. Such successful assessment will provide child with recognition of own individual achievements and help concentrating on the areas of difficulties (Conner 1999). According to NCCA (2006) primary school curriculum must include special assessment forms which will include information about individual needs of every child and which will enable to record and control child’s achievements. This is necessary that child can record and understand own progress even if this progress is weak in comparison to majority of classmates. This can help child to build higher confidence in own strength and help concentrating on difficulty areas.

Other Ideas for Developing Self Esteem of Primary School Children

This seems necessary to give more respect to parental meetings in primary school curriculum. First of all this could be a successful mean for parents to share their experience of building up the self confidence of their children, share problems and concerns and find solutions for those problems in common. This would also be helpful to set certain dates in school curriculum when parents are invited to school for class time which can help children to feel more confident about their actions, learning process and self evaluation when they feel parental support in school environment.

The other available mean to develop children self esteem is to invite special SEN consultants who will help school teachers to approach to children’s special needs individually. Usual school curriculum does not allow teacher to provide a lot of special attention to separate pupils that is why inviting special consultant may generate a positive outcome of educational process of SEN children and help them develop self esteem by increasing achievements in studying process and feeling special care and attention to their individual needs.

Including such activities as field trips, drama club, exhibitions, etc into curriculum may drive positive result in developing child’s self esteem. Such activities release child form the pressure of educational expectations and allow free communication and expression of individuality among peers. These activities are usually considered extracurricular and little attention is paid to such activities. Including them in curriculum can help generate better understanding among children, parents and teachers and provide space to express individuality and show talents which otherwise are hidden under the strict schedule and limited set of activities that children perform at school. Such practice can be very helpful in developing child’s self confidence and esteem.

Conclusions

Children with special educational needs often feel under pressure of school environment and expectations. Their needs must be regarded with respect of their individuality and abilities. Unfortunately at this time very little advancements have been made to realize the potential of low-achievers and provide them with opportunities which would allow this potential blossom and provide for successful educational experience. Under such circumstances children with special educational needs can not perform at their best in primary school which results in lowered self esteem and poor educational opportunities in future. Even though in the middle of 90’s educational reforms have made it possible for children with special educational needs to study in the mainstream schools this is yet not enough to provide them with positive educational experience as their special needs are not fully recognized among the majority of children without such special needs. This is necessary that children regardless of their individual abilities or disabilities receive equal opportunities to develop, learn and flourish into successful individual who will be the important member of society, will benefit society and recognize oneself as a unique individual with understanding of self worth and recognition of own potential as a learner and valuable member of society. Unfortunately unsuccessful experience of education among better performing children can result in lowered self esteem of a child and hamper future learning process this way. Children with special educational needs may process information slower than their peers and experience certain learning difficulties. This is important that primary school curriculum provides children with activities where they can express themselves and learn different skills regardless of their abilities or disabilities. This can be crucial success factor in developing child’s self esteem and realizing own potential and importance. It is also important that curriculum regards children with disabilities as full members of educational process and regards their special needs with respect. Considering that individual educational needs and self esteem needs vary a lot, curriculum must provide a flexible solution for realizing each individual problem and need and allow teacher and parents to treat personal needs of children with respect of individuality and with an insight into future educational needs of a child and his or her inner feelings about self importance and self actualization.

Recommendations

First recommendation that may be driven from the above study is to enroll children with low self esteem and special educational needs in mainstream schools whenever this is possible. Mainstream curriculum must provide for equal educational opportunities for all children regardless of their abilities and helps in developing child’s self confidence and self esteem as a valuable member of society who has equal rights and possibilities.

The other important factor to regard is the environment where educational process takes place. Curriculum must foresee flexible timetable which will allow children with different abilities to study, rest, play and eat with equal comfort. Educational environment must also provide for physical needs of any child. Curriculum must provide equal access of children to different educational facilities such as library, computers and educational games.

Partnership with parents must also take place in curriculum. Parental meetings, special lessons with parents’ involvement and teachers’ interaction with parents can help better understand special needs of children, help them in realizing own importance and in developing self confidence through successful educational process.

Curriculum must pay more attention to communication skills which can be developed during any lesson through challenging children to express own opinions, participate in discussions and listen to peers. Group work when children learn to interact with each other while pursuing common goal can help children to develop the feeling of own importance as a part of a team and facilitate children educational process as team members learn to communicate ideas to each other. Successful communication is one of the best means to develop child’s self esteem and that is why primary school curriculum must pay special attention to communication skills.

Subjects that develop creative skills must be paid special attention. The research has shown that creative skills and evaluation of these skills help in developing child’s individuality, as appraisal of these skills is different form appraisal of academic achievements. Curriculum that pays more attention to such subjects as art, music, and design technology, as long as these subjects can facilitate the development of SEN children self esteem while compensating for low achievements in academic fields. Even though it seems impossible to increase number of hours provided for creative activities by curriculum, yet this is possible that creative skills are encouraged during the learning process as applied to such subjects as mathematics and science.

Physical education also plays an important role in building child’s self esteem. This is a subject where it is easy for child to observe own progress and where children with learning disabilities are on the same foot with their peers. That is why curriculum must provide space for participating in different contests and for self actualization through sports.

ICT must play an important role in educational process in modern world. Especially computers can help children with attention disorders and with such physical disabilities as speech or hearing deficiency. This is why curriculum must foresee the computerization of the learning process. This can aid children in their communication and realization of own abilities, compensating for certain disabilities while being acceptable form of educational process to majority of children.

Assessing children’s performance during educational process must be discussed in curriculum and provide means to realize unique educational successes and failures, provide flexibility to treat children individually, regardless of their initial abilities. Flexible assessment criteria discusses in curriculum can help teachers to provide necessary motivation and reward to any child regardless of their individual performance in comparison to average. This will help children realize own potential and see own educational advancements which is a necessary part of developing self esteem.

Inviting SEN children specialists can help children gain more understanding from parents and school teachers, help developing individual curriculums for SEN children and therefore result in increasing the level of self importance that child feels in educational environment. Including normally extracurricular activities such as field trips and exhibitions into curriculum may also benefit in self actualization processes that child experiences as it will give more importance to such activities in comparison to current educational approach which pays more attention to academic achievements.