Ten Encounters between Students and a Special Education Teacher at a Finnish Hospital School - Outlining Hospital School Pedagogy

This article presents a description of a special education teacher’s work and how it appears as student encounters during a month-long observation period at a hospital school. The teacher’s pedagogical skills are tested when she has to bend to many directions. Every day is different, students form an extremely heterogeneous group, and every one of them has their special needs. Teaching at a hospital school is special education at its best and work requires especial flexibility, understanding, acceptance, and caring as well as endless trust in students’ development regardless of their most difficult conditions. The article is based on Dr. Äärelä’s long-term experience as a special education teacher at a hospital school and her researcher’s diary of the everyday encounters in the teacher’s work. The month-long special observation period formed the data of this study. The findings are here presented as ten examples of student encounters. They are to illustrate the daily work at a hospital school and, thus, help to develop and support teacher training. The fundamental purpose is to lay foundation to the development of hospital school pedagogy.