Learning through creating stories: developing student teachers understanding of the experiences of pupils with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms

This paper explores the roles of story in the training of teachers in the field of special education. It describes and evaluates a project that promoted the learning of student teachers both through hearing stories and writing stories themselves. The students combined their existing knowledge of schools and children with newly researched knowledge of an identified special need to create a story about the experiences of a pupil with special needs. The quality of work produced in this course, and the expressed changes in attitude suggest that story not only engages and motivates but also has the power to produce a deep level of understanding and a clear link with practice, with consequent potential for professional development and social action.