Mrs Anju Sexena
“Inclusion is a philosophy that brings diverse students, families,
educators, and community members together to create schools and other social
institutions based on acceptance, belonging and community.”
In any classroom you look into today you
will see a variety of children, but you may not be able to notice the
differences among them from just looking at them. In almost every classroom there has been in
the very least 1 child that received special services that were not given in
the classroom. When a child has ADD, and
they are placed in a regular education classroom, that classroom becomes an
inclusive classroom by the nature that, that one child needs to receive
medication at some point in the day so he/she will be able to stay on task with
the other children. So for someone to
say there should not be inclusive classrooms is just ignorance. “Inclusion recognizes that all students are
learners who benefit from a meaningful, challenging, and appropriate
curriculum, and differentiated instruction techniques that address their unique
strengths and needs.”
In the past children with special needs
were first educated in a separate special education classroom then they were
mainstreamed into a regular education classroom, but only after they had met
certain criteria that would place them in a typically developing classroom with
typically developing children. But
simply placing a child into an inclusive classroom is not enough. Careful planning of the child’s entrance into
the classroom must be carried out to ensure a successful experience.
There are 7 steps you can follow to ensure success.
1. Interactions between the disabled children
and the children who are not disabled to promote good social relationships.
2. The teacher needs to realize the strengths
and weaknesses of each child and build on the strengths.
3. The teachers are appropriately trained to
work with the special needs and developmentally disabled children to ensure
good guidance.
4. The teachers and parents have open lines
of communication and have agreed on what other needs the child needs.
5. All children are accepted all of the time
and are included in the classroom all of the time.
6. The children with special needs are given
the chance to take the fullest advantage of all the school has to offer
7. Every child’s individual needs are considered
and addressed in the classroom and made to fit into the curriculum of the
classroom.
Inclusion not only benefits those
children who are disabled but also the children without disabilities because it
is an opportunity for them to learn about disabilities and learns to accept the
differences that everyone has. While
inclusion may not be for every child out there, the benefits greatly outweigh
the negatives, thus why an inclusive classroom has been more and more pushed as
the way to go for education of younger children. “Inclusion programs provide all students with
access to a challenging, engaging and flexible curriculum that helps them to be
successful in society.”
When a child enters into an
inclusive classroom the support materials that are necessary for the child to
learn best are brought to the child, rather that the child going from room to
room throughout the day. This way the
child and teaching team are taking advantage of every minute they have together
during the day. When the resources were
not brought to the child and the child had to go to the resources that child
had to spend their day going from room to room and wasting several precious
minutes.
For most children a regular education
classroom is the least restrictive environment (LRE) for them to be educated
in. A LRE is the location where a child
with a disability learns best and they are not limited to what resources are
available to them. “Children with
disabilities need the same things in their environment as other children. They need an environment that is safe,
secure, and predictable and one that provides a balance of the familiar and
novel, so that there are materials and activities that provide for their
development.”
There are 10 different levels that are a LRE for a disabled child:
1. General education classroom placement with few or no supportive
services.
2. General education classroom
placement with collaborative teacher assistance.
3. General education classroom
placement with itinerant specialist assistance.
4. General education classroom
placement with resource room placement.
5. Special education classroom
with part time in a general ed. classroom.
6. Fill-time special education
classroom.
7. Special school day.
8. Residential school.
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