Essay

Persuasive. Special Education inclusion.

The school system today is a mosaic of many different types of students with different gifts and talents.  Students in schools are diverse and unique.  When they are in one school together, it creates a diverse student body, but when they are in the same classroom, it is different. Sometimes, it is a good thing to have many different types of students together in one classroom.  However, imagine a student who is incapable of functioning in a regular classroom being put in one.  The student may feel anxious or incompetent, or may disrupt the class significantly. This is the case all too often with the movement of full inclusion of special needs children or children with learning disabilities in mainstream classrooms.  Special Education students should not have blanket inclusion.

Some special education students would not benefit from being included in the mainstream classroom.  Some students are unable to function in a mainstream classroom and would benefit from separation in the school setting.  These are students who, upon inclusion in the mainstream classroom, would regress or exhibit negative behaviors, or students who disrupt the class.  Regression is when a child (usually autistic) loses skills, such as social or speech skills, that they had developed.  Sometimes students throw tantrums or are a danger to themselves or other students.  Others will get over stimulated in rowdy mainstream classrooms.  Over stimulation can often cause negative behavior or anxiety.  Sometimes, the students are unable to communicate in an effective way.  For example, some students with special needs may not be able to verbally communicate at all, which can cause a major obstacle in the learning process.  Sometimes, if a student is included in the classroom, they will not learn anything.  There are some cases where it is obviously best to have the student separated into a special education program separate from the mainstream educational program.

Many teachers do not know how to successfully teach disabled students or are ill-equipped in the mainstream classroom. Because of their inability to teach some special needs students, some students cannot get the individualized attention and lesson plans he or she needs.  The range of abilities and learning styles is too broad for one teacher to adequately teach so all students learn the material. Because of this, the curricula must be taught in a much more structured and non-flexible way so as to pass students through via the standardized state testing.  The focus is more on rushing material through so students pass the tests, but many students with learning disabilities won’t or can’t learn the material how the teacher teaches it to them.  If these students don’t learn the material, they will not pass the  tests. However, if they were to receive special education through a separated program, the students could learn more in an environment better suited for their needs. Mainstream classrooms almost always do not provide enough individual attention or specialized learning plans for students who are learning disabled.  There are different ways of teaching for different types of students with different disabilities. For example, a student with dyslexia is not taught in the same way as a student with autism, who is not taught in the same way as a student with mental retardation. Teachers often lack the training and tools to successfully teach students with disabilities, especially while simultaneously teaching students with no disabilities or students with different disabilities.  Usually, special education teachers are specifically trained in the field of special education; regular teachers are not.  They do not always know how teach some students, who do not learn in the way other students do.

Blanket inclusion could interfere with other students’ learning. By expanding the range of ability levels in a classroom through full inclusion, teachers are required to direct most of their attention to a few students who need the individual attention, which decreases the amount of time and energy directed to the other students in the class.    Outbursts and tantrums can disrupt the classroom.  Since the way that students with special needs or learning disabilities learn is different from the way students without special needs learn, it can take longer for the special needs student to grasp the material, thus slowing down the class and hindering other students’ learning. Sometimes special needs students can be a significant distraction to others in the class, as well as to the teacher.  Because the teacher has to focus more on teaching the students with the learning disabilities the material, he or she may not be able to adequately teach the other students, thus leaving the students without learning disabilities or special needs to themselves and not getting enough attention from the teacher.

When some students are mainstreamed who would benefit from being separated in a school setting, the student will often not do well in the setting.  The teachers and the other students can suffer, as well.  Imagine a student with a special need that teachers in the mainstream classroom cannot or are ill-trained to accommodate.  The student is not learning anything and may hinder others’ learning.  Such is the case in many schools with the new movement of full inclusion and getting rid of special education classrooms.  Special education students should not have blanket inclusion in the mainstream classroom.  This causes many problems, and, while the decision to include the student with special needs or learning disabilities may seem ethical, it is sometimes ultimately only hurting the student and his or her classmates and teachers.