Ashton Sanderson
English 1102
Julie Cook
Feb 28 2013
Special Education and the Practice of Inclusion
Special Education. It can be hard to talk about. It is even harder to teach. Methods and
practices change all the time and each student’s needs are different. So how do you know what to
try and what will be successful? A teacher’s goal is to provide an environment in which all her
students can grow and succeed. In most cases that environment is the regular classroom, even for
students with special needs. Mainstreaming students, or inclusion, is a beneficial and rewarding
practice for teachers. Inclusion is controversial and isn’t perfectly executed, but it creates a
positive learning experience.
While inclusion itself is a contemporary idea, its roots began in the 1970s when the Least
Restrictive Environment and Continuum of Services were dominant. In basic terms, inclusion is
a regular classroom setting that contains students with disabilities and without disabilities and all
the students receives the same education with special service to assist the students with
disabilities. The principle of inclusion is that the general classroom should be the first place
every student goes and only if their educational needs can’t be met in that setting should they be
put in an alternate space. According to many inclusion advocates “the practical interpretation of
the LRE in schools was to immediately remove students to alternative placements to meet their
educational needs with little or no consideration of the general education classroom as a possible
learning environment” ( ).
During the 1980s-1990s the mainstreaming movement sprung up. At that time people
were arguing that special education in a separate environment caused segregation and “lowered
academic expectations for children with disabilities” (
). A decade later the “radical” ideology
of inclusion was introduced. The No Child Left Behind Act of the early 2000s put the
responsibility on public schools to educate children with disabilities. Inclusion beliefs differ
from the traditionalist beliefs and this can become difficult for strong, well-executed inclusion to
take place. Where a traditionalist would see diversity as “problematic”, the inclusive belief is that
diversity is “expected and valued. Individual and group diversity contributes positively to
classroom climate, learning outcomes, and community quality.”
In an attempt to answer the question “what should be accomplished by Special
Education?” Hehir states that its role is “…to minimize the impact of disability and maximize the
opportunities for children with disabilities to participate in general education in their natural
community” ( ). Many inclusion activists agree with this thought. While the research on
inclusion is difficult, several studies have proved that the educational and social practices of
students with disabilities have been positively affected by inclusion.
There are two main views on inclusion and different factors contribute to each field of
thought. One of the big reasons that people are wary of inclusion is that they have seen it fail due
to lack of support for the general education teacher. A student with special needs can be put into
a regular classroom but if there have been no steps made to give them special education
assistance in that environment, the student will not succeed. This can happen for a variety of
reasons and is sometimes a case of the student’s needs not being looked at closely enough when
general policies for a classroom are made. While this could be a deterrent for some teachers and
their willingness to try inclusion, unsuccessful incidents due to inferior implementation are not
strong arguments against the principle of inclusion as a whole. Research, however, suggests that
“children with disabilities can be successful in regular classrooms when they are given genuine
opportunities to have membership in the classroom and the instructional supports they require,
whether they are special learning accommodations, special materials, or the direct support of a
highly trained special education teacher. For inclusion to work accommodations have to be made
to meet the academic needs of a student with disabilities and there need to be expectations of
what the student can achieve in school.
The other side of inclusion has a strong backing. Chris O’Brien, who taught middle
school in Special Education, discusses why he values and supports inclusive education. He
begins his argument by saying that “I was a Special Education teacher. My role was as a grade
level ‘learning and inclusion specialist.’ For students deemed worthy, we used an approach
called ‘supported inclusion.’ This meant that students in special education had one course with
me each day called ‘Learning Strategies for Success in Middle School.’ Each day the students
would read highly engaging grade-level books for pleasure while learning reading
comprehension strategies. Also, I taught my students strategies for learning new vocabulary
words in their general classes, strategies for note-taking, organization, writing, studying, and
test-taking. The rest of the day I co-taught their core courses, typically English and math, seeking
to ensure that students used their new effective learning strategies in those classes. I also
advocated for their learning modifications to ensure they experienced the same curriculum as
their peers, while providing some additional supports and eliminating barriers-preferential
seating for note-taking, shortened examinations, extended time to take tests and complete
homework, etc. My students typically did very well in their courses despite considerable
limitations in academic skills. At least 90% of my students passed most if not all of their courses.
Grade retention was almost never an issue for my students. I spent a considerable amount of my
time proving effective instruction to these students to augment the remainder of their courses,
advocating for them with their teachers, teaching the students to believe in themselves and work
diligently, and communicating with parents. None of these services would have been provided
without special education in public schools. They simply would have ‘floated’ through school
with little or no support. The fact that ‘my students’ experienced so much more success than
anyone expected they could is why I value special education. The fact that students in the
separate special education program experience a consistently non-academic school day, which
undermined their ability to become fully developed, educated members of society, is why I value
inclusive education” ( O’Brien). By putting forth the effort and feeding a student’s drive,
inclusion can help a student achieve far beyond what they think they will. Similarly to the way a
student who is blind would need Braille to help them succeed in a classroom, a student with
special needs benefits from specialized instruction and can reach the general classroom
expectations with that.
It has been suggested that inclusion is most successful when “proactive principals
establish models of effective co-teaching and recognize the need for manageable class sizes” ( ).
Some things that should be looked at before beginning inclusion are “the qualifications and
strengths of the teachers, the role of the special educator related to the content instruction, the
professional development experiences teachers have had in understanding and applying inclusive
special education models, and the time available for planning and consultation’ (
other factors to consider for decision making are:
). Some
“1. Educational decision-making must begin with the presumption that the general education
classroom (the standard schooling experience) is the first placement consideration for all children
with disabilities.
2. Placement considerations for children with disabilities should only emphasize separate settings
when critical goals of the individualized education program cannot be achieved in general
education classes.
3. Separate settings should not be justified be a school’s refusal to provide services of
accommodations in general education settings.
4. There is value in social inclusion for children with disabilities.
5. Inclusion should be purposeful.” (2006). Inclusion isn’t the end result but steps for success.
The goal of education is to provide an environment conducive to academic achievement and to
meet the needs of all students. Inclusion becomes the best option when it causes a student to
thrive in an educational environment in which many would assume they could only fail in.