ABSTRACT
Professional uncertainty seems to have been one of the main forces behind Vicki’s second research project which focussed upon the two handicapped pupils in her own mainstream class.
From the outset, her feelings about having the children in her class were mixed, vascillating from a slight ego trip ‘because the powers that be decided I could cope’, she wrote, to a sense of inadequacy at ‘the realization that my knowledge and experience in dealing with handicapped children was very limited’. She remembered some painful experiences in early adulthood when she took a holiday job in a school for mentally handicapped children. The job was made almost totally unrewarding for ‘lack of understanding and immaturity’ and from an absence of help and support for the unqualified staff at the school. She left with bad memories and a hole in her arm, inflicted by ‘one large boy’ who ‘attempted to bite chunks whilst professing his love’ for her.
