I used to think an inclusion setting was not ideal for my kid. He has this double whammy of deafness and Autism that make sensory integration a huge challenge, plus he had an early history of hiding underneath tables in a more “typical” deaf preschool setting. The thing about our guy is the signing itself can be overwhelming and layer on the inability to sit for longer that five or ten minutes, truthfully advocating for inclusion at times seemed like advocating for hell. But then I started to work in schools, more specifically to work in special education settings and I had the opportunity to meet reality.
Plain and simple, both in schools and in society, separating “typicals” from “non-typicals” is counter-productive (whatever typical and non-typical mean anyway?). If we are all going to live well in our communities together, these interminglings must begin early. Often parents of differently-abled kids feel isolated, disconnected, and in their worst moments hopeless as they try to care for their children. Schools can and do perpetuate this isolation with self-contained classrooms and a lack of student expectation. In my own employment and when I substituted in my urban school district, I witnessed the degree of isolation teachers of special education and their assistants can be within school communities. They are often working outside of state standards and their students have questionable access to grade level curriculum. Administrators and other teachers often fail to include these staff members and students when they focus on improving student learning and teacher instruction.
How can self-contained classrooms meet student’s individual needs?
Self-contained classrooms in theory can insulate students from large class sizes where their specific academic goals and instructional needs may be glossed over in the sea of other faces. These classrooms reduce the teacher-to-student ratio and often pair the teacher with at least one instructional aid. The self-contained classroom can provide more direct instruction with some extra room to deal with behaviors that are challenging to navigate in a general education setting. Self-contained programs, deaf and hard-of-hearing programs, Autism programs, and programs designed to meet the needs of medically fragile students are usually created as an attempt to meet the specific and unique needs of the students being served.
What can be problematic about self-contained classrooms?
Students in self-contained classrooms receive fewer opportunities to interact with typically developing peers and grade level curriculum. Sometimes skilled grade level instruction is also a missed opportunity. Students in these classrooms vary in their ages and grade levels, at times to extremes. The range is often disproportional to a range found in a typical classroom setting. A teacher may be modifying a math lesson where every one of his/her students is working at a different grade/ability level, from prekindergarten to algebra. Realistically, day-to-day instruction suffers, as instructional trainings for differentiating curriculum lag behind their need. Teachers and instructional aids in self-contained classrooms are isolated from the school community, their peers, and school wide instructional improvement plans and goals. They are not visible enough and sometimes the insular setting allows teachers to believe they are doing more than they really are. There is a lack of instructional oversight and expectation.
How can inclusion classrooms meet student’s individual needs?
In inclusion classrooms typical and non-typical peers have access to one another as peer models. Students of all varieties regulate their behavior in the presence of their peers. Students model different learning styles and strategies and have access to the make-up of their whole school/world community. Often different ways of moving around in the world or dealing with stress that call attention to some students in public are ignored or become normalized in an inclusion setting. Non-typical behaviors are less distracting and they are accepted as day-to-day occurrences. In a full inclusion model, instruction is modified so that all students have access to the curriculum, teaching strategies take into consideration the varied learners in the classroom and this attention to differentiation benefits all students.
What can be problematic about inclusion classrooms?
Full inclusion usually translates into more adults in a classroom. Figuring out this working relationship can be chaotic at times for students and teachers and perceived power imbalances tend to stress the more sensitive students. Whether co-teaching or supervising instructional staff, teachers in inclusion classrooms have to skillfully manage student and adult relationships simultaneously. Additionally, in the inclusion settings it may be harder to address specific education goals for individual students and track incremental student progress. Sometimes meaningful student work may suffer to include a wider range of learners. Usually, it is those students at either end of the spectrum that lose out.
When my stepson entered middle school instructional intervention started falling away because the adults in his school communities stopped believing in what was possible for him. They concerned themselves with accepting him “for who he is” and his limitations. An inclusion setting offers a thin shield from this type of thinking. Even when these protections are the standards and expectations teachers and communities have for more “typical” students.
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