My district is looking to have full inclusion of our high-incidence special education students at some point in the next few years. High-incidence kids are the ones with learning disabilities or behavior disorders who, with modifications that fit their 504 or IEP, could be successful in a mainstream classroom. Of course, as with many things, the news came before the details and mainstream teachers are freaking out.
Philosophically I am FOR inclusion. In fact, I began my career in a school that had full inclusion, so I had students with Asperger's Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy or Autism, right in there with their classmates. It was great. It was great because we had a skilled and organized special education team – "department" does not do them justice. My student "Will," who had autism, had a student aide meet him at his class, escort him to mine, and sit next to him assisting him, advocating for him, and acting as a liaison between the special education teachers, me, and Will's parents. So at that school, full inclusion with both low and high-incidence students worked beautifully. And I do not mind saying that it was Inglewood Junior High, and that they are still doing amazingly humane and academic work.
But I'm not longer there. I'm…here, in my current school. Many of the students at my current school who are on 504's or who have IEP's live in poverty, have under-educated parents who are struggling to get by, or live in group homes. It's a different ballgame, to say the least. Still, simple procedures like the student-aide system could be put into place at my high school, but they aren't.
The result is when my colleagues hear that "Inclusion" is coming down the pipe, some of them get so afraid they get ugly. I think of what I would want if I had a child with learning disabilities. I think of how I would want her spoken of by the teachers at her school, and I get uncomfortable. I'm the bigmouth in staff meetings who says inclusion is the right thing to do, that they aren't "those kids," they are "our kids."
But here's the thing: on the fourth day of school a boy came in, said he was new, and sat in an available seat. I welcomed him, gave him the material, got him started, then turned my attention to the other 31 students. Five minutes later I heard his iPod from across the room. His paper was scribbled with tags, he was rocking out and texting simultaneously, and he'd opened a 2-liter bottle of Coke. What happened next was not the stuff that makes me love teaching. He took 15 minutes of my attention, the other students got less than a minute apiece. He was a student with behavioral and learning disabilities who had been mainstreamed into my class because I advocated for inclusion, and it was a disaster.
Obviously, that was handled badly. I wasn't expecting him, he wasn't expecting me, the special education department dropped the ball. Well, actually, they dropped their student. It doesn't have to be like that. But even if I'd memorized his IEP, consulted weekly with his parents, doctor, and special education supervisor, that child would get more of me than any other student in my class, and most of them are not reading and writing at grade level standards. Is inclusion the best thing for that child? I don't know. Is it the best thing for the students reading at the 4th grade level in my 10th grade Language Arts class? I don't think so.
So again, as with most things, I feel both ways about the issue. Inclusion can work smoothly, or it can be a nightmare. I know other districts have grappled with this. I know there are parents out there with kids who need a specialized education because of learning gaps or medical issues. What are your stories?
Mark, I can’t tell you how valuable that structure is to me as my school tries to put things in place to make inclusion work effectively for the students. Thank you.
For me, that relationship wit my paras was good because they took the time to explore the curriculum and figure out my expectations, and I took the time to keep them informed about what was going on in class. Above even that, we were frank and honest with each other about our kids’ strengths and shortcomings. We didn’t pretend that they were capable of more than what was realistic, so we’d problem-solve together to find ways to get kids what they needed. And that became the routine, it was habitual, not even intentional…which is a sign of a well-functioning team.
A huge advantage, also, was that my para partner also saw most if not all of the special needs students during a resource class outside of my regular class. There, they assumed the role of teacher to help students with the work for my class. This, of course, demanded that they know the processes, learning goals, and expectations (which they did). In that sense, then, they were not the homework police, but were teaching…yet another reason why (as we all seem to agree) good parapros are priceless, underappreciated and undercompensated.
I don’t know this for a fact, but their skill at working with our students suggested it, but I seem to recall that they also had been provided training about learning disabilities, adapting curriculum, etc. That would be huge, of course. I know that in many districts, there is not explicit training for special education paras in teaching strategies. In our district, the classified staff assignments are not necessarily consistent from year to year, so sometimes it happens that a well-trained/experienced para gets “bumped” (as did happen this past year) by a classified staff member with more seniority but no experience working with special needs students. The more senior classified para who is new to special education is trying hard to learn the ropes, but the para who was replaced had experience in the position on her side.
Evin, you’re so right that it’s often the students we resist most – usually because of increased work load – that we end up enjoying the most. And I agree with you that the scaffolding we end up using to ensure success for our special needs students also benefits the “regular” students. Thank you for sharing that story and its happy outcome.
Bob, thank you for the clarification and reminder to count. I will try it today.
It’s not always easy to coordinate with another adult in the room. Mark and Evin, I’m wondering if you have any tips or strategies to help that relationship be as effective as possible for the students.
Yes, Kristin, you get it. Here’s the mental prompt I use: tell them what they’ll learn to do in this lesson; tell them how to do it during the lesson; and tell them what they learned to do before they leave the lesson. And, count something; it’s almost magical what that simple exercise does for tightening the lesson in ways that increase measured student learning rates. And yes, you’ll find your personality shining!
Mark, good work! As a gentle reminder, you have the (legal?) right as a classroom teacher to request an IEP that fits your class content. That’s an obligation of each student’s IEP writing team, not of the para to provide. As inclusive teacher, you also have the right to request adjustments in that plan, so the student can learn from your instruction. Go for it.
Evin, you’re fortunate to have para’s. I never had fewer than 35 students in an elementary school classroom, including 4 or 5 students who would have been in special ed programs because of autism, behavior disorders, intellectual deficites, …, but I ased for them to remain with me. They too progressed successfully through the regular courses. Later, one of my doctoral students told me she had been in special ed, but not one of my classes, while in elementary school. That’s consistent with data indicating that most sped students wind up so assigned because of inadequate instruction before referral.
Best wishes, Teachers, as you show sped students that they can learn the same academic material as other students.
I remember the day when I found out that I was going to get 15 students from the Special Education department transferred INTO my Social Studies class. MY social studies. I taught standard students — NOT below standard students. And then, to top it all off, they were simply placed into my class without me knowing. Their reason: I taught Pacific Northwest History and students need it to graduate. My reason: They just hated me.
Well, needless to say, I Facebooked my outrage immediately. And lo and behold, one of my great friends from summer camp told me that she was a student in Special Ed herself. I would have never known. But she told me to give them a chance…
I did. And it paid off. Sure, my Special Education students needed scaffolding. So did my “other” students. Absolutely, they needed more time to process and complete assignments. So did my “other” students. Yes, they drove me crazy. So did my “other” students. All in all, it was a great experience. In fact, one of my SpEd student became the star dog in a play the students wrote!
A couple of structures were in place to enable the students to be successful. Each of my SpEd-heavy classes included a para. The para was SOLELY responsible for taking care of the SpEd students. I’d handle discipline and the non-SpEd kiddos. Also, in their “SpEd class”, the teacher worked with them on anything the students had difficulty with. My students were reading a historical novel at the time, so the teacher read through each chapter again and ultimately, that class became a learning lab for each of them to complete work.
Bob and Mark, I like what you’re both saying. Both of you are giving me reasons to think this could work in my current school, where the mainstream teachers are going to need every strategy at our disposal as well as every reason to approach exceptional students with a positive attitude.
Bob, thank you for the compliment. Teachers so rarely get a boost that it means a lot. If I read your strategy right, it’s pretty much 1) identify the key learning target 2) repeat repeat repeat so that kids have a concrete understanding of what the day’s goal is and 3) eliminate extraneous “static” so that students and teacher stay focused on the target. Is that right? I think that’s a strategy I could put into place even without the luxury of a parapro or student aide, and I think if I do it with style, I can maintain my personality as a teacher.
Mark, Parapros are amazing and under-acknowledged engines of public education. You know what I think their true strength is? That they know the kids they work with. Right now I’m fantasizing about a looping scenario. I’m focused on learning objectives, I am working with a parapro for the second (or third!) year in a row, I’m looping with my students and know what makes them tick and suddenly, full inclusion seems to work even without an amazing special education department or student aides.
I think the mix has to be right for those great results. The times I’ve taught inclusion classes, I’ve been blessed with talented paraeducators who were there daily to support the students (and me) to make sure they were getting what the needed….that’s the element of the mix which is key. As funding has been cut, we’ve seen losses in that department…and a few of our very best paras remain but are stretched so thin that it is amazing they can manage to balance all that is on their plates. I think the right teacher (not saying that’s always me, but some teachers work better than others with modifications and accomodations) and the right para in the right environment (not 22 served students and 4 mainstream students, for example) can combine to foster tremendous success.
A good para as a teaching partner is beyond priceless. I can name several that I’ve worked with over the years that I credit for any success “I” had with inclusion students in my classroom.
There is one reason why I don’t mind inclusion in particular, and I don’t mean this in a crass or disrespectful way: at least I get some paperwork (if done well) which helps me figure out how to work with that student. I’ve had far more students in my room over the years who did not have documented special needs than who did. For those kids, figuring out how to help them was often trial and error…at least with some well crafted IEPs, 504s, or Passports, I get a sense of where to start to better serve those students.
Great points by an obviously informed person. Your students are lucky to be in your room.
Yes, to the inference that “inclusion” may sort out some teachers from some schools. And yes, wider ranges of student academic performance patterns in a classroom don’t necessarily mean more of the same teaching practices that “have worked.” As we all know, Washington schools are at least 3 decades behind the curve in implementing “mainstreaming” of “exceptional” students. During that time, others have developed instructional protocols, so all students and teachers may perform in ways that meet regular academic expectations.
Here’s a sample of instructional principles from protocols I used with 5th grade students and have seen others use in PreK-12 classes successfully, including in high school science classes with students and teacher supports as you describe for your current school: Forget the labels of disabilities assigned to students; count something (words you say, seconds for each example, syllables per sentence, …) every class; begin each class with >- two minutes of choral responses of the academic principle/learning criterion for the lesson; adjust instruction and assignments by reducing the number of filler words and motions that distract from the learning criterion for the lesson; reduce “lessons” to a collection of stepped learning criteria using reduntant cues, etc. to emphasize the learning criterion; … It’s fun! What a fantastic opening for teachers to demonstrate that they qualify under the new definition of “good”.
Teachers and policy makers know these things. Learning analysts identify when they’re used during instruction. Test makers measure the extent of their use by student academic performance scores in standardized measures.
The result: students increase their rates and quality of learning. Go for it!