Many people view inclusion as a goal for all students with special needs. I'm not one of those people, because my experience as a parent has showed me that all students have their own needs -- and the range of autism is so wide that no one-size solution will meet all students' needs.
A new report on inclusion hit close to home for me, since it looked at Montgomery County, Md. (where I live) and because next year my 5-year-old daughter will leave the safe confines of a special autism preschool for a program (yet to be determined) provided by the county. A year ago, the county had a big push to integrate students with special needs and closed specialized learning centers -- and to say the results are mixed would be generous. Read "Special Ed Integration Fails Expectations," from the DC Examiner.
Levels of academic achievement for the special ed students were very low, but that's not what troubles me. The report says only about 25 percent of teachers used "differentiated" instruction for the special-needs students -- they taught everyone the same way. More disturbing -- just over half of the teachers attended a mandatory training about how to integrate these new students into their classrooms. (Which makes me wonder what "mandatory" means in Montgomery County schools. If a teacher skips a mandatory training, how about docking their pay till they attend a makeup session?)
Kay Romero, president of the county’s PTA, testified to the school board this week in support of an effort to re-evaluate the decision to phase out the learning centers. "Our most complex students should have an educational path that is tailored to their needs, and not tailored to fit a square peg in a round hole," she said.
7 comments:
I have to say that I'm totally against inclusion because of my experience with it in California.
My son went to a special class on the campus of a large middle school He was teased and tormented so much that he finally refused to go to school.
After enrolling in a school for kids on the autistic spectrum, he blossomed into a confident popular kid who likes the motto "We're here, we'er weird, Get used to it!"
I still feel bad about how much he suffered from inclusion.
I have to disagree but agree on many of your points. My five year old transitioned from early intervention and with some advocacy on my part into a general ed kindergarten last year and so far it is going really well. I have to admit I engineered the transition in a lot of ways and also had good luck on my side. Her teacher has no autism experience and this is her first year as a teacher so I have been able to train her myself. The other bit of good luck is that her best friend since prior to being diagnosed is in class with her and she is a TAG student. She has become my daughter's aid on her own. I just recently got a book for her friend called the autism acceptance book to help her understand why my daughter might not be as appreciative of her help all the time and will express it by hiding under the table and whining on real bad days.
I can't use my own experience as a reference because it has been unusually lucky and I might be singing a different tune in 1st grade. Where I do want to comment about inclusion is that special schools are a slippery slope backwards. I go to a lot of schools for my work and have seen a lot of life skills and self contained classrooms. I would never want my child to be segregated and saddled to some kind of token economy where she just hops cubicle all day. If you need to learn how be in the world then that is where you need to be. Immersing children in lack of communication and new behaviors in a segregated setting is the norm in my state. However, the inclusion only district is just farming kids out to day treatment programs or the ESD if they can't handle them. I am an inclusion advocate but you MUST have the differentiated education. I work with some really intense kids that might hurt other children seriously so I recognize the safety need for some students to be in secure schools. Inclusion is subjective as well. I am working with a parent right now that considers inclusion being in a public school in a life skills classroom vs. the special behavior school he is in now.
There is still so much work to do in education across the board and as much as I want to push for inclusion in my district I know it would cause more harm than good. I just advocate towards individual inclusion case by case in my network to try and get a slow burn going in this state.
The slippery slope I referred to is thinking about how hard parents fought to get their kids IN school and using Brown vs. board of education to then fight to be in the same schools as other children. Speaking with self-advocates as adults they wanted to be included in school despite the stigma. I transitioned adults from an institution into the community. Many of these people were toddlers when their parents put them in the institution and never came back to see them. The history of being hidden away is something I don't ever want to forget so I can make sure it never happens again.
I love the motto though Sister Wolf and it sounds like this school was what your son needed and that is more important than an agenda. As my daughter gets older I will definitely listen to what she is asking for even if it goes against my personal philosophy.
I agree that each child's needs must be met. Inclusion is not the problem in either of these two situations though. There are schools whose culture is nurturing and accepting and whose educators are enthusiastic and strive TO teach--rather than NOT TO teach--every student (by differentiating, by getting their training, by supporting each other and each individual student) and in those schools inclusion is BEAUTIFUL... and then there are the other situations that stink.
Likewise there are special settings that empower and challenge and grow the kids that go there which are WONDERFUL... then there are the schools that segregate and limit and create smaller and smaller worlds for their students which equally stink...
It isn't the philosophy that is flawed, it's the implementation--and it's culture/attitude more than anything else that creates either success or failure.
Well said Terri!
I have seen some amazing results when children are included and I have seen them flourish after being pulled into a self contained setting with the right support. It is my hope that any parent looking at these options does know the history of the struggle to get children with disabilities out of the charity schools in church basements where they had to sneak in the backdoor and try not to be seen by the community for fear of the school getting shut down. Prior to that kids not being able to go to school at all.
It seems there are a lot of examples these days of history being rewritten or disregarded. I am always surprised when I am the first person telling parents the history of inclusion.
On this same topic, read this article from the Hartford Courant about the advantages of "differentiated instruction." http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-readers0306.artmar06,0,5791544.story
My almost 5 year old daughter is severely delayed (Down syndrome and classic autism), but we put her in an integrated PreK class with one special ed teacher and one regular teacher. She's done wonderfully with her typical peers as role models.
Unfortunately, this situation does not exist in our rural school district. I spoke to a mom of a Kindergartener with "high functioning" Down syndrome--the first such child to be fully included in our district.
The regular teacher doesn't know how to teach her child and so she ends up spending a lot of time in the resource room.
If the teachers and administration aren't 100% behind inclusion--which includes providing an "appropriate" education, it just won't work, no matter how much parents believe in it.
In looking under inclusion for Maryland, I found this post. We are considering making a move back to Maryland from Ohio, but I'm not sure we could leave our school behind. Our sons (one with autism, one neurotypical) both attend a fully inclusive charter school...which I believe is the only one of its kind. It is run using a standard curriculum, but all the teachers are special ed trained and the teacher to student ratio is about 1:6 on average, but no more than 1:8. It's absolutely incredible. My younger son is a typical peer and loves the school and both kids are thriving (son with autism is rating above average to his neurotypical peers state wide). There is a preschool, elementary and high school. There is a waiting list a mile long (took 2 and 1/2 years for my son on the waiting list to get in). I wish with all my heart that there was something like this in Maryland, because Maryland is home. I also wish with all my heart that people could see what REAL inclusion is and how well it works. If any of you here know of such a school where there is 1:1 autism:typical peer, please let me know. Thanks!
There is a possibility that a school like this could be started. If you can't find the education you want for your child, you can make the education for your child.
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