Dr. Anne Ryan:

Co-teaching is a model of choice. It is the choice of the teachers involved to engage in the scheme. Neither the principal nor anyone else imposes the model. We visited a school in Finland and saw how teachers opted to join the scheme. The special education teachers that we saw in Finland had worked in special education settings but found the system did not work for them and, more importantly, did not work for the children. As a result, they decided to do something about the problem and a scheme was developed from the ground upwards. We envisage a scheme that is run on an invitation only basis or, to put it simply, people who envisage the system working for them would be invited to participate. Personality, teaching style, curriculum, subject and a variety of different variables would be at work.

As Dr. Mehigan mentioned, training would involve an introduction to a variety of different models. I agree with him that there are many ways to co-teach. We are familiar with at least six established models. I recently spoke about this topic at the conference on special education for teachers that took place in Marino, Dublin. A very interested principal teacher seated in the audience asked the very same question but called for training. We do not want ad hoc training but a concerted approach.