Critical Incident Paper

Talking to a sensitive group of people like students sometimes becomes tricky especially when tackling sensitive issues like having a sick student in their midst. Regarding this is the case about Mr. Laird and the new epileptic student, Chris, who is supposed to join his class (Gollnick & Chinn, 1998). Since this issue will affect all the students in Mr. Laird, it is wise that he informs them earlier before Chris joins them. Mr. Laird should inform his students in an informal way whereby he should take them out in the field and discuss with them the very basic knowledge they have about epilepsy. He should make them contribute freely so as to measure their knowledge about the illness.

After this, in relation to the information he has gathered about the class, Mr. Laird should give the students a scenario similar to Chris's case and ask them what they would do if they were in the teacher's shoes. He should let them give their views freely and accept every suggestion given. This way, the students will be gradually getting prepared psychologically and this will give Mr. Laird an easy time when introducing the actual case. Mr. Laird should then introduce Chris and that he will soon be joining the class. In his introduction, he should explain to them that Chris is just a normal student like they are only that he has some problem with his health (Michael, 1995).

At this, he should introduce Chris's case and give them all the expected symptoms; explaining to them that he will at times have some seizures that may frighten them. However, he should assure them that the illness is not contagious or the seizures painful, thus they should not panic when such symptoms are manifested (Michael, 1995). He should also inform them that it does not take him long and he usually recovers after a short time of attack and that they should cooperate in making him comfortable when he is in seizure and help in class work without discrimination.