Running head: INCLUSIVE SCHOOLING
Inclusive Schooling: Successfully Promoting Inclusion in Secondary Schools
Rebecca Young
Seattle Pacific University
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INCLUSIVE SCHOOLING
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Inclusive Schooling: Successfully Promoting Inclusion in Secondary Schools
Modern schools today are faced with ever growing challenges and concerns especially
within the field of special education. With new laws and regulations, general education teachers
and administrators are poised with the task of how to implement these new changes, practically
inclusion. General educators in the secondary setting are expected to know their content area,
teach it effectively to their students, and also prepare for modifying their curriculums and
teaching strategies to include students with special learning needs. Inclusion presents many
problems for general education teachers, but there are successful new strategies and methods that
are in use in today’s high schools. Taking a look at new methods and ideas should help us better
understand how to successfully promote inclusion in the secondary setting.
Current federal laws such as the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
establishes the: “right to free, appropriate, public education for all children regardless of the
nature or severity of their disabilities” (Laprairie, Johnson, Rice, Adams, & Higgins, 2010, p.
25). With this in affect the term inclusion comes into play. Inclusion is used to describe when
students with disabilities are taught in the general education classroom with non-disabled peers
for partial or the majority of the school day, this also includes the participation of students with
disabilities in extracurricular or non-academic activities (Laprairie et al., 2010, p. 28). With
inclusion, students with or without disabilities are given the same education and opportunity to
participate in the same clubs, events, and sports. Students with disabilities are given an
Individualized Education Plan (IEP) formulated with specific goals and objectives for a student’s
academic year (Laprairie et al., 2010, p. 27). The IEP is used by general education teachers to
figure out a course of action on how to teacher and include students with disabilities in their
classrooms. This presents the greatest challenge for most secondary teachers.
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Creating a classroom or school that successfully promotes inclusion is a tough challenge.
Teachers in secondary schools are faced with the challenge of providing content area knowledge
while also modifying their curriculum to fit the IEP needs of students with disabilities in their
classrooms. Some key factors play into contributing to successful inclusion: meaningful
adaptation to instruction and curriculum designed for individualized instruction for students with
disabilities, positive teacher and school beliefs and attitudes towards inclusion, and contextual
support for general education teachers (Van Hover & Yeager, 2003, p.36). According to
Carpenter & Dyal (2007), “successful inclusion requires collaborative and supportive
partnerships between faculty, staff, administration, parents, and the community” (p. 345).
Collaboration is one of the key ingredients for a successful inclusive school, but it is not the only
ingredient needed. Teachers must also have adaptable teaching strategies that allow for
accessibility for students with special needs. Alongside a strong support system and adaptable
teaching methods, new and current general education teachers need better preparation programs
that effectively prepare them for teaching students with disabilities. New teachers need more
pedagogical training than ever before if they are to successfully educate all students (Grskovic &
Trzcinka, 2011, p. 105).
How does a school become an effective inclusive school? The first, step is to provide
an overall school setting that supports inclusion. This goes beyond the classroom and requires
that every member of the staff, administration, and community make it their goal to promote
inclusion. High-performing inclusive schools have shown to have a strong teacher professional
community that is characterized by shared responsibility for all students’ learning (Brigharm,
Morocco, Clay, & Zigmond, 2006, p.186). Creating an environment that allows for open support
of its staff and students is a great first step to creating an inclusive school. Successful inclusive
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schools emit a feeling that the school is a community working toward common goals, where
positivity and openness is encouraged among staff and students (Carpenter & Dyal, 2007, p.
346). One way to promote inclusion in secondary schools as a school wide policy is the
consultative method.
The consultative method by definition is an interactive process that enables people with
diverse expertise to generate creative solutions to mutually defined problems (Eisenman, Pleet,
Wandry, & McGinley, 2011, p. 92). Here special educators are placed in the role of consultative
teacher and provides services to students with disabilities within the general education classroom
(Carpenter & Dyal, 2007, p. 345). They are tasked with working with a general education teacher
who has the responsibility for providing direct service to a student; this places the consultative
teacher in an indirect relationship with the student (Eisenman et al., 2011, p. 92). This allows for
the general education teacher to remain the main support for students with disabilities and overall
encourages a least restrictive environment. Studies have shown that the consultative method is
more effective for students in the elementary level than resource rooms, but in the secondary
level collaborative consultation is only as effective if administrators engage in monitoring and
promoting the process (Eisenman et al., 2011, p. 92). According to Carpenter & Dyal (2007),
“the consultative teaching approach in the secondary classroom requires shared planning time so
that the content area specialist and the special education consultative teacher can have
meaningful time to plan for the individual needs of all students” (p. 349). With a strong support
system, the consultative method can provide a successful inclusive environment within
secondary schools. The consultative method shares the ownership of students and creates
instructionally focused collaboration among general educators and special educators which
ultimately benefits the students (Eisenman et al., 2011, p. 102). The consultative method helps to
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promote an overall feeling of inclusion in the school, but there are methods that teachers can
apply to promote inclusion in their individual general education classrooms.
General education teachers are poised with the toughest task of how to educate students
with disabilities alongside students without. A critical element to a successful inclusive
classroom is for both general and special education teachers to be flexible and quickly adapt to
alternative forms of instruction, assessment, and expectations for needs in a diverse classroom
(Eisenman et al., 2011, p. 102). In most secondary classrooms, content area knowledge is a must
and teachers fear that students with disabilities lack the knowledge necessary for effective
learning, but this is not the case when teachers adapt their curriculums to meet the needs of
certain students. Success with students with disabilities requires several things of the teacher:
differentiate curriculum, provide framework for learning, present information in multiple ways,
allow students to demonstrate learning in various ways, practice self-monitoring, provide
opportunities for extra practice and application, and adjust work load and/or time requirements
(Van Hover & Yeager, 2003, p.38). Differentiating the curriculum involves planning for the
success of all students in a class, taking into account the abilities of each student and establishing
goals reflecting what all students will learn (Van Hover & Yeager, 2003, p. 38). It is important
that curriculum materials emphasize meaningful and concrete applications of content; practical
applications of content may help curb below-average skills that some students with disabilities
may display (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2001, p. 266).
Alongside modifications to curriculum, general educators should utilize the help of peer
tutoring and co-teaching when working with inclusive classrooms. According to Mastropieri &
Scruggs (2001), “highly successful inclusive classrooms make effective use of peers” (p. 266).
Peer tutoring is a great way to reinforce learning among students with disabilities. It helps
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increase opportunities for response, provides effective learning models, and offers additional
explanations and discourse which can be extremely helpful in secondary settings where higher
level learning is necessary (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2001, p. 266). This can also help facilitate
inclusion by allowing students with different learning abilities to work alongside one another
promoting diversity and acceptance. Another method for promotion of inclusion in the classroom
is co-teaching. Co-teaching includes general education teachers and special education teachers,
or professional support services, working collaboratively to teach students (Carpenter & Dyal,
2007, p. 347). Together with the consultative method, co-teaching promotes collaboration of
staff and allows teachers and special educators to use their own personal strengths to create
successful learning environments and provide support for students with disabilities (Carpenter &
Dyal, 2007, p. 347). Both peer tutoring and co-teaching require a positive classroom
environment to be truly successful as both methods require just as much social activity as
academic.
Creating a classroom and a school that promotes inclusion is a hard task for
administrators and educators to do and this is ultimately due to the fact that general education
teachers and staff continually feel inadequate to teach students with disabilities. New teachers,
and current teachers, need additional instruction on classroom management strategies, alternative
assessment techniques, and the complete IEP process to effectively teach students with
disabilities in their classrooms (Grskovic & Trzcinka, 2011, p. 97). Novice teachers are in
desperate need of extra preparation and knowledge on how to effectively teach in an inclusive
classroom as the number of students with special needs continues to rise (Laprairie et al., 2010, p
30). Continual work and research is needed on whether or not new and current teachers are
receiving the proper education on how to teach students with disabilities. With the majority of
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students with disabilities participating in the general education classroom it is ultimately the
responsibility of the general education teacher to teach them. How do we expect our teachers to
perform with confidence if they are not given the skills necessary to do what is requested of
them?
Ultimately, inclusion is the way our secondary schools are being handled today. Students
with and without disabilities are being taught in the same classrooms and are participating in the
same school environment. It is our responsibility, as educators and as a community, to promote
inclusion on both an academic and social level. Creating a positive environment where students
are viewed as having disabilities instead of being disabled is important to developing young
minds around ideas of acceptance and celebration of diversity. There is still much more room for
perfecting inclusive schooling, but we are well on our way to creating schools that continue to
promote students’ individuality and our acceptance of it.
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References
Brigham, N., Morocco, C., Clay, K., & Zigmond, N. (2006). What Makes a High School a Good
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Carpenter, L., & Dyal, A. (2007). Secondary Inclusion: Strategies for Implementing the
Consultative Teacher Model. Education, 127(3), 344-350.
Eisenman, L. T., Pleet, A. M., Wandry, D., & McGinley, V. (2011). Voices of Special Education
Teachers in an Inclusive High School: Redefining Responsibilities. Remedial & Special
Education, 32(2), 91-104.
Grskovic, J. A., & Trzcinka, S. M. (2011). Essential standards for preparing secondary content
teachers to effectively teach students with mild disabilities in includes settings. American
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Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (2001). Promoting Inclusion in Secondary Classrooms.
Learning Disability Quarterly, 24(4), 265-274.
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