First off, let me state that I do not have children with autism or any other mental or physical challenge. I do not have any children and I do not plan on changing that. I have, however, been a teacher for children as young as two and as old and college-age, including ESL and special ed classrooms.
The phenomenon of autism is a massive challenge. I struggle so much to imagine what the most effective and most loving thing is for these children, and to balance these needs against what is best for the rest of the children at a school.
On one hand, there is the argument that autistic children desperately need to interact with "typically developed" children in order to learn how to deal with society, and vice versa - and this is a very valid argument. Integrating special needs children into a mainstream classroom can provide just that healthy interaction that is necessary to building healthy social skills and fostering respect for differences.
Yet on the other hand is the very distinct need for society to provide to all children a complete, well-rounded education that develops their minds and bodies into critcally-thinking, globally-minded adulthood. (It is my personal belief that all people who can should be: polyglottal; familiar with the "major" literary works, philosophies, and history of most cultures and times; aware of scientific thought and theories including biological, chemical, physical, and mathematical sciences; and capable musicians, dancers, and athletes - a true classical education.)
In today's environment, at least in modern America, schools are faced with a choice between the humanities and the sciences, and unfortunately these two sides of the same vital coin are being framed as opposites and mutually exclusive. As our culture presses for greater and greater external production, the value that is placed on internal virtue is less and less, and the arts and humanities are being forced out of our schools. Instead of building well-educated individuals, we are manufacturing production-minded drones.
With teachers being expected to provide their students with measurable production capacity, at the rate of thirty to thirty-five students per classroom, they are stretched to their limits. Yet we then cut out important programs like healthy nutritional support for all children, recess and gym classes to help children develop healthy habits while burning off excess energy, and school nursing programs. Teachers are then expected to deal with three dozen hungry, anxious children, all while administering insulin shots and ritalin tablets - not to mention the anger and fear of those otherwise healthy children who come from unhappy and unstable homes.
Add to this melee the pressures of one or two special needs children.
Website after website provides these teachers with advice about how to make the classroom an inviting and comfortable place for autistic children. They suggest eliminating lighting and noises that are uncomfortable for these children, as well as any smells that are overwhelming - even down to the particular shampoo the teacher uses. The teacher is therefore told to be mother, father, nurse, psychologist, janitor, nutritionist, and educator - and now interior decorator - as well as what personal hygeine products she may use on her own body.
To be completely honest, these seem like utterly ridiculous demands to place on a teacher. But justice to the educator aside, the amount of attention that she has left to provide to her students as a teacher once all of her other chores are done is almost nil. The healthy, average-intelligence children from stable homes don't have a chance - to say nothing of the gifted children, whose AP and Magnet programs are also being eliminated.
So is it fair to further distract ourselves from the education of a "typically developed" child? Is it just to deny an especially brilliant child the opportunity to spread his wing and soar? Is it loving to put a child with special needs into an environment where he risks being forgotten or - worse - abused by an understandably stressed-out teacher?
I argue no. The benefits that might be reaped from integration of children with special needs into mainttream classrooms pale in comparison to the damage done by spreading ever thinner our resources.
I argue that children with special needs belong in a safe environment where those needs can be met, in small classrooms designed with the lighting, sound and textures that best foster their development, and where teachers specifically trained to address their needs and deeply called to help those children can do what they do best, and help those children develop the skills they will need to meet the world where it is - funny smells and all.
What do you think?
Do children with special needs belong in mainstream classrooms?
- by , on Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:28am PDT
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Comments 1-9 of 9
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Posted by Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:00pm PDT
Report AbuseThat is so true...I was a teacher myself...I quit after being burn out at school and comming home to my own "special" child who's teacher had no intentions to help in the mainstream classroom. But let me added that my child has improved in all areas of his life since he was placed in regular schools. It has taken a lot from me but what's a mother for.
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Posted by Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:12pm PDT
Report AbuseI'm a teacher and I say no. It's wastes not only the teacher's time but the special needs child's time who could benefit from an environment which chaters to their needs. I'm anti-Inclusion. One of the dumbest pieces of legislation ever.
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Posted by Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:37pm PDT
Report AbuseI am not teacher. I am in awe of what teachers do. I think its crazy that you guys are expect to do so much, with so very little. I went to school when inclusion was just starting in the mid seventies. Our class got to interact with hearing impared children for two hours a day.
Now my twins in 2005 had several special needs children in their pre kinder group. For 42 kids ther were 2 main teachers and four aides. One aid at all times had to have one boy on the hand at all times. In Kinder he wound up in my daughters class. At five he was having bowel movments on the floor. My daughter came home with a different horror story of what this kid did every day. The teacher would have him on the hand at all times. And this kids parents think he next best thing to slice bread. My daughter who should be in a gifted program asked if she could go to a different school because she did not want to be in the same class with him. You are right, classes are to crowded as is to have to accomadate one or two children. Let the kids have their own class room group. Meet up with the other kids at gym or recess.
Its not fair to them or average kids to force inclusion.
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Posted by Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:42pm PDT
Report AbuseI tend to hugely disagree with this anti-inclusion. Are children with special needs next going to live in mental institutions, as they have in the past, whether they had cognitive disabilities or not? What are you thinking? The best advice I can give you is to imagine your own precious child having special needs, and some teacher or legislator telling you they cannot be in a classroom with typical/able bodied children. And then telling you they cannot work or mingle with the 'rest' of the public. Because why? They are not good enough? Who are you to think that you are any better than a person with special needs? Think from their percpective. You or your child could be one car accident or one seizure away from having a 'special need'. Would you want to be excluded then? How would that make you feel? Do you think children with special needs have no mind? Think about what you are saying...you are teaching your children to not be tolerant of others less fortunate. May you always be more fortunate.
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Posted by Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:31pm PDT
Report AbuseI'm a student and I think that special needs children should be in classes with other special needs children. Up until the 8th grade, we only had two high level classes-english and math. Other than that, no matter what your intelligence level was, you were placed into the same class as everyone else (for classes like science or history). And let me tell you, I was never challenged in school until the 9th grade, where there are several levels for each subject. So first I must say that I am pretty smart. I remember being in groups with special needs children for projects and feeling that I had to do all of the work. I also felt awkward being there because as a child, I'm not trained to work with students with special needs. I always remember teachers pairing me up with special needs kids for one-on-one group projects simply because I was one of the smartest kids in the class and probably one of the only students who could handle working with the other child. It was unfair for both of us: me, because I was unable to challenge myself and for the special needs kid, because I'm sure he didn't like working with me as much as I liked working with him/her. The honest truth is that normal children do not treat special needs children well most of the time. When I was in 5th grade, we had a preschool for special needs kids and they had 5th graders volunteer to spend time with the preschoolers during recess, and everybody loved doing it. But when you are forced to bring yourself down intellectually multiple levels, it becomes incredibly frustrating. Even if you think that normal children are integrating well with special needs children, there is a good chance you are being fooled. Many students say things to a special needs child that sounds welcoming and inviting, but then just goes and laughs about it with his friends. What's best is for there to be different classes, as unfortunate as it seems
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Posted by Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:48am PDT
Report AbuseI am a 14-yr-old going into high school. I've had special-ed students in my classes before and I think it's not an issue at all. Should they be isolated for something that they can't control and that's not contagious?
To the people who think that inclusion is bad for the special children because they need their own time to learn things:
My friend was a teacher's assistant for the special-ed department in my school and befriended a challenged girl. My friend got invited to this little celebration that the teachers were hosting for the girl's birthday. She asked me to go with her and I got a great oppurtunity to talk to these kids. They talked to us a lot about how they felt being placed with "normal" children. They said that they liked being in the regular classes and interacting with "normal" students. We asked them if anyone was mean to them and they said no, that some girls ignored them a bit, but others were nice and said hi to them, and helped them with their classwork/homework.
So it turns out that they enjoy being in a regular school.
And to the people who think that the special students hinder the others' growth:
My friends and I really don't have a prob. with them being in our classes. Yeah, they act embarassing sometimes, but don't we as well? Only in different ways. It also makes us feel good when we talk to them. And if they're slow, we help them out. But don't they say that a lot of learning comes from teaching others?
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Posted by Wed Aug 6, 2008 4:22pm PDT
Report AbuseI'm a mother of a 12 year old boy with Asperger's Syndrome who has suffered a breakdown since his transition to Secondary School Education in the UK. This is despite the best efforts of most of the teaching staff. There can be no greater despair than that of a mother who has to witness her child suffer despair within the mainstream environment. I agree with another reader that these children unfortunately are at risk of abuse from over stretched teacher's who have not got the special skills that these children need to enable them to thrive. I don't blame the teaching staff, I blame the system that expects them to cope with children like my son who need far more patience than they are able to provide. In this situation, no party wins.
If our son was born with a physical impairment he would not be expected to fit in in an environment that didn't suit his needs. Children like Brad need to be in an environment where his mental health does not suffer as a result of being aware that he's different and not being able to cope. I'm certain that the mental health of teaching staff is also affected not to mention the disruption that he's caused to the other students.
All things should be considered when placing a child with special needs in a mainstream school and that includes the child him/herself, teaching staff and the other students.
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Posted by Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:25pm PDT
Report AbuseActually, I couldn't agree with you less. My 22 year old brother is autistic. Not until his third year in highschool did the inclusion start. Before that, he was left with the kids in the special ed room that can't even talk. now, i don't think that children like that, who unfortunately really can not function belong in inclusion. but autistic children, ADD kids and such, they have a chance at having a productive life and keeping them held back, not having to learn things [because that is what most special ed class rooms are like] does not help them at all.
my brother finally got to the inclusion thing like i said, and he BLOSSOMED. we finally got to see he was capable of actually learning things and liked it. he liked being around normal kids and even though they saw a lot of his manerisms as very strange, they still showed him kindness for the most part which made him trust society a lot more. a lot of times children with issues like that are very guarded and even confrontational with strangers.
also, my oldest sister just became a special ed inclusion teacher. when an inclusion program is run properly, the mainstream teacher is not left alone. an inclusion teacher will accompany any classes where there are inclusion kids and help those children if they start falling behind so the entire class can continue to progress while they get the help they require.
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Posted by Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:36am PDT
Report AbuseI have a special needs child with (you guessed it) Autism. Yes they are a handful. That is why we fought to have a handler placed with him when he was brought through the inclusion process. Medications are improving along with going through this is opening my child up when he was first diagnosed as so severely Autistic that he would never speak, never call me mommy and might have to be institutionalized.
Its been alot of tough years and I am sure there will be many more times in my future because these kids might be a handful but on the same note he has done things that a normal 10 year old kid dosent do...like take my parents credit card and charter a bus to disneyland. Reserve a room at the Biltmore. Try to purchase cars every time we turn our backs he gets onto the computer.
He is fascinated with Google Earth and knows the US Roadways and memorizes directions of how to get anywhere.
I frankly am amazed at how far he has come because of the wonderful people that have touched his life and if there wasn't an inclusion program or special programs then things might have gone alot differently than they currently are.
I know there are alot of injustices in the world. You do provide a service that has more value than any riches or gold. Please dont become darkened by the issues that are brought before you. Become more of an advocate since you have chosen this field and push for MORE teachers per classroom. MORE Helpers for these children. I am only trying to point out the positives and how your and every other teachers work is so very important.
Where would we be without our special people in the world. They all had wonderful teachers.
Ray Charles
Stevie Wonder
Beethoven
Tom Cruise
Lou Ferrigno
Danny Glover
Bob Hope
Mary Tyler Moore
Marylin Monroe
Thats just a few names of people who had everything from asthma, stuttering issues, Epilepsy,diabetes,hearing impared,dislexia,sight impared. I hope you keep up hope for better programs and better quality classrooms because of your ability to see changes that are needed. Take it to a positive proactive place hun.-Rachel.
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