Cheerful Laughter Comes Out of the Kindergarten That Accepted Both Retarded and Normal

At 3 year-old children`s room of Hankuk KyungJin School at Madu-dong Ilsan-gu, Goyang City in Gyeonggi province in the morning of 15th.

2 teachers were instructing 5 mentally retarded children along with 12 normal children.

These mentally retarded children were setting blocks, scissoring or applying paste imitating or learning from normal friends.

Fifteen days from entrance, all children were cheerfully absorbed in the class. No one could tell the handicapped from normal.

Since this school opened in 1997, it has organized 15 mentally retarded and 40 normal children into 3 classes for 3, 4 and 5 year-old children and instructed them together. This school uniquely brought handicapped and normal children together completely while some other schools partially integrate them.

Watching what normal children learning and doing, retarded children can more quickly and efficiently learn than when they were gathered by themselves.

Normal children feel awkward when they first meet the mentally retarded children, but soon get to know how to associate with them.

Ten times more normal children compete to enter the children`s class of this school, as the merit of this class is known to everybody that children can learn scrupulous care and love for others while they live together with retarded children.

Another reason parents prefer this school is that each class has two teachers and less than 20 children, and educational fee is cheap as this school is government-established, and it has best educational devices.

Assistant principal Lee Young-Sook (48) said, “integrated education has a good influence on both retarded and normal children. I feel encouraged when children love and care for others. ”

argus@donga.com