Sunday, March 6, 2011

SPECIAL EDUCATION: INCLUSIVE OR EXCLUSIVE

"We see a lot of openness and willingness to accept kids of all abilities. At this age, they don't know to be prejudiced." --Sandy Davalos, a special education teacher in an inclusive classroom

I enjoyed teaching kids of every ability level during my twenty five years as a K-5 teacher and continue feeling good about my career even now as a substitute elementary school teacher.

Last week I had experiences in two classrooms that brought home a problem facing many teachers today – namely, how to provide a good education to children with special needs. One class of fifth graders had four or five students who went to another room for a major part of the day. When they returned to their home room two of them brought along their negative energy resulting in disruption. I was frustrated. Their classmates were irritated.

The other class, in a different school, had one student with severe behavioral issues who was in the regular education room full time. I learned from the teacher that their school had switched to an inclusion model this year, even though many teachers were not happy about the change. Promised resources did not follow. After several months, however, she had finally found ways to achieve some success with the student, but the cost to that student's classmates was a lot of lost learning.

I remembered all too well how difficult it was to maintain a high level of learning in an environment where disruptions occurred frequently during the day. I often wondered if the people making special education decisions really had the best interest of the majority in mind, or understood the resulting impact to learning.

Here is where understanding the different available learning environments gets confusing for people, even educators. Most people understand the regular education classroom. Some may not realize that the “pull out” model means that children go out of the room for a certain number of minutes per week to work on areas of weakness in reading, writing and/or math with a smaller group of children and the special education teacher or instructional assistant. Some schools have a fully self-contained classroom which has a small number of students, a special education teacher and an aide. During my last years as a teacher the word “inclusion” was added to the learning options.

WEAC (The Wisconsin Education Association Council) has a great article providing us with a common vocabulary of inclusion learning environments beyond the regular education classroom, the pull-out model, and the self-contained special education classroom. They explain the differences between mainstreaming, inclusion and full inclusion, and it would be worth a few minutes to check out this easy-to-read article.

In short, mainstreaming refers to putting students who qualify for special education into the regular education class for certain work. Sometimes the mainstreaming only includes music, P.E., library, science, social studies and other such classes.

Inclusion involves bringing support services to the classroom so that a learning disabled student can spend the day in a regular education setting. The benefit is largely one of being with one’s peers rather than actually keeping up with the work.

Full Inclusion means the student will be in the regular education room at all times regardless of the handicap, and services are brought to the child.

For my part, I taught a regular education classroom. Over the years I experienced children being pulled out, and aides coming in to help those needing assistance. For two or three years our school had a special education self-contained class with an amazing teacher who was so exciting and talented that all of the students wanted to go out to the portable where she was teaching just to be with her. That was a lucky time for those special education children who ranged from low i.q. to severe behavior disorders. Her students became writers who were later published in a book of poetry, the poems actually written by and credited to them.

It’s important to remember there are several kinds of handicapping conditions, i.e. physical impairment, learning disabled (because of such things such as dyslexia, low IQ., etc.), and behavioral disorders. I experienced many students who had a hard time learning. Some examples included ADHD, ADD, Muscular Dystrophy, Asperger’s Syndrome, hearing and vision impairment, Down’s Syndrome, and severe anger management resulting in destruction of school, student and personal property. Home environments exacerbated some behaviors so that students coming to school angry, hungry or abused often acted out. This resulted in disrupted learning and a potentially unsafe situation. Some of these children should have been in special education classes, but did not qualify or the available programs were not funded at the school.

One example of the latter: A first grade student in my room had behavior problems that would later be deemed Asperger's. On one occasion I looked up from a reading group to see him stand on his chair, fling himself in the air and land with a thud on the floor. You can imagine the reaction - mine and the other students. The child sat stunned, blood dripping from his chin. 911 was called and he was taken to the hospital for stitches. I later asked him what made him do such a thing. He said he had seen the movie Matrix where the hero had done something similar, and bounced on the floor. He thought it looked like a fun thing to try.

Here are some of my thoughts about special education based on (1) assessing my ability as a teacher, (2) how parents of special needs might feel and (3) how students in a regular education classroom look at children who learn differently.

Regarding my ability as a teacher, I can honestly say this. I am proud of my teaching, the creativity and academic rigor I brought to the classroom, and the love and compassion I felt for my students. I believe I maintained that excellence with students who had physical handicaps and some learning disabilities. It became more difficult when students had emotional problems. Sadly, I know that I am less effective when I have to spend an inordinate amount of time managing behavior.

Regarding parents of special education students, my experience told me that many were worried their children were not getting a top notch education, or had poor self esteem because of being out of the regular education classroom. Some had had negative special education experiences themselves which colored how they felt. Others were unwilling or unable to help their students at home with homework or behavior modification.

Regarding negative interaction between special education students and their peers because they are either in a self-contained class or are being pulled out for help elsewhere, I believe that concern is largely unfounded. I should point out here, though, that I am referring to elementary age children. The situation may be quite different in middle or high school. In the younger grades most students don't know or care what is going on in other rooms. Actually, a special education child's learning deficits become more obvious when in the regular education room. On the flip side, kids love helping each other learn. The one thing you can be sure of, however, is that children with behavior problems are often disliked or feared.

Here are some additional thoughts:

1. It's good to be inclusive where we can -- in the library, P.E., music, social studies, sciences and other similar classes. It is not o.k. to be inclusive in basic skills such as reading, math or writing if by being inclusive the students do not get the help they need or disrupt others when their needs are not being met.

2. Every student who either cannot or will not function well in a regular education program should be in a special education program that has specially trained teachers and aides equipped to maximize that student’s learning experience. Every available resource should be given to help them reach that goal.

3. Recognize that pulling out a student whose IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) says he gets a prescribed number of minutes, i.e. 20-30 minutes a day in reading and/or math, is short changing that student.

4. Recognize that bringing an aide into the regular education room for twenty or thirty minutes a day to assist a struggling student is short changing that student.

5. Think about the fact that these days it costs nearly $40,000 a year per inmate, to incarcerate that inmate in a Washington State prison.

6. Then recognize that it costs far less than $10,000 to educate a special education student.

7. Consider restructuring our educational system and the way the money is spent. Take a hard look at how and when we identify special needs students and get the resources to them earlier when it can make a greater impact. Too often so many "Ts" have to be cross and "Is" have to be dotted that months of lost learning go by before students get the assistance they need. Let's help them and their parents with anger issues, abuse and learning problems so that they will not need to be incarcerated later in life at triple the cost.

8. Stop worrying about the self esteem of the child in a self contained classroom. If the self-contained classroom is an outstanding classroom, the other children will want to be there as in the true example I cited above. Make all classrooms, especially special education rooms, great places to be. Make sure the special education teacher has competent assistants to avoid burnout and keep the learning going. Appreciate the special education teaching staff. Their work is difficult in my opinion.

9. Regarding self-esteem, consider that kids who are acting out in a regular classroom are looked down on or feared by classmates. Bullies are born here, and need help. Others need protection. Consider also that those who can't keep up academically know they are not able to do so and often feel better where they are learning at their own pace in a setting where they don't feel ignorant. Ask yourself which is better for self esteem?

10. Help parents of struggling students undertand how they can help their children be more successful.

I just keep thinking about all those dollars spent to keep people incarcerated, when the possibility of spending some of that money in the early years could minimize this social problem. If you think this way as well, write to your congress people. In the meantime, get involved with your local school and see if you can at least mentor a child in need. If that child is one with special needs, so much the better.

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