Blog # 3 Special Education—Full Inclusion: Is this the best environment for the student?

As I was researching for the topic I wanted to Blog about this week, I kept watching my special needs students. At certain times of the day we pull them out of the regular education class room into small groups in a self-contained class. Then we would take the students back to the full-inclusion class room. I began to wonder if we are using the least restrictive environment for these students. How do we as teachers determine which is best for the students.

Wikipedia defines inclusion in education “as an approach to educating students with special education needs. Under the inclusion model, students with special needs spend most or all of their time with non-disabled students.” It goes on to say: “By contrast, inclusion is about the child’s right to participate and the school’s duty to accept the child” {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusion_(education)}. Does this definition really explain what “full inclusion” means?

From a teacher’s point of view, how do we decide what is best for the student? Should he or she be put in the full-inclusion classroom? Is the student capable of communicating with other students? Can he or she understand what the teacher is teaching without the assistance from someone? Or is he or she capable of learning but needs assistance with directions? Another teacher’s point of view would be: does the student distract other students from learning? Is this the Least Restrictive Environment for this student? What will be the educational outcome for this student at the end of the year? Would the student benefit more in a self-contained classroom?

These are just a few of the questions that I have been pondering these past weeks as we move toward the ARMT testing. There are no simple answers to these questions. We have tried both ways with this small group of students. The first couple of weeks worked great in a self-contained class room. Everyone was focused and on task, answered questions excitedly and wanted to read them out loud. But then all of a sudden the students could not stay on task. They did not want to cooperate and complete their assignment. It was like someone had taken over these sweet students bodies and they could not control themselves.

I questioned other teachers to see if this type of behavior was happening in the general education class rooms. Their responses were “Yes.” No one could determine what was causing all the irregular behavior. We wondered if it was the stress of prepping them for the ARMT test. Practicing the test has been going on for about four weeks now. I really believe this has made students, both special needs and regular education students to get stressed out. I know that we, the teachers have been getting stressed out over the practicing because we see where students who should be making good on the test are simply flying through the test to be first to have finished it. They really do not care about their test scores. So what do we do, especially with students with special needs? WE get them motivated to take the test! Somehow, we as teachers must capture their attention and keep them on task to complete these test.

I am going to continue my research about full inclusion. In my next blog, I want to look at self-contained class rooms. What are the pros and cons of both types of classrooms. This has been a very informative research for me. There are good points for having students in full inclusion classroom and there are some negative points. Both are determined by how the teachers collaborate with each other. This would also be a great idea for an upcoming blog. I hope every one has enjoyed their spring break. I know it was not nearly long enough, they never are.

Please enjoy the two videos about full inclusion. They have brought some new thoughts about how a student and a teacher feels about full inclusion. Below are two great videos about full inclusion classrooms. One is a viewpoint from a teacher and the other is the student wanting to belong.

The video below gives a teachers opinion about inclusion for special needs students.

This video shows how Special Needs students want to belong with their class members.