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Inclusive education presents “models”
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Posted on Mar 09 1999
Inclusive education from kindergarten to high school presents “models” who will help children with special needs keep pace with learning.
“If you are in a setting with other children who do not communicate very well, you only don’t have the models which are really important but you also don’t have the confident communicators,” said Jill England, inclusive education specialist from Wayne State University, who led a series of workshops over the weekend.
As defined, inclusive education refers to students with disabilities are educated in age-appropriate general education classroom and community settings with their non-disabled peers and support from special education.
In an interview, England said that a confident communicator can facilitate verbal attempts made by the student with disability and peers can support the learning process.
Co-teaching is also encouraged where the special educator and the regular classroom teacher will work following a coordinated schedule to jointly teach the heterogeneous group of students in an integrated setting.
According to England, one of the challenges in inclusive education presents the disability as a hindrance to meet performance standards set for a particular grade level.
“People often think that students can’t meet their needs in Math if they are reading in the first grade level and they are already in the fifth grade class,” she said.
“Labeling” the students has no room in an inclusive class and instead teachers and adults should focus on the child and not with disability. Teachers often use the acronym of the disability in referring to a student with special need.
“I believe children are children first, never an IEP (individual educational program),” she told participants.
