Abstract
A course in special education (20 credits) was held for twenty teachers in a vocational education school in Eastern Finland in 1995 - 1997. The aim of the course was to aid to the teachers in their meetings with students who had e.g. special education background.
One of the problems faced in the project was in designing the curriculum for the course. There was not a clear view what kind of students the teachers really met in everyday working situations. So a research project was put in practice to find out kind of students are the most challenging ones.
A themed interview was made for 30 teachers and 30 students. The data was analysis with grounded theory method. The teachers stressed the students' skills and behaviour in the classroom. With these two axes the students could be divided into bad learners, succeeders, unsuitables and unmotivated ones. If the teacher felt he or she could communicate with the student the feeling of challenge in the student was reduced dramatically.
The students stressed teaching skills and understanding the student when talking about challenging teachers. The teachers could be divided into nice ones, popular experts, incapables and feared knowers. The teachers when talking about themselves talked about same qualities.
So finally it was tried to find out what teacher and student features fit together better than others. The basic finding in the research was that the teacher should change the working style from situation to situation and to mix counselling and teaching in meaningful proportions.
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