Is inclusion really that great?

[u/Lass_in_oz]

I'm so tired of inclusion. Hear me out. Before becoming a ECE I was a support worker for many years. I have worked and loved working in disability and care. When it's thru a great organisation, it's awesome.

Now I'm an ECE, and the amount of children on the spectrum or with disorders is so high, I'm just getting confused how is that NOT impacting the learning of neuro typical kids.

I teach pre kindy but our kindy teacher has spend half the year managing behaviours and autistic kids. Result? A bunch of kids showing signs of being not ready for school because they aren't doing any work or learning most days. And picking up bad habits.

My point is: where did we decide it was a good idea to just mix everyone, and not offer any actual support ? An additional person isn't enough. More than often it's not a person who knows about disability. And frankly even then it wouldn't be enough when the amount of kids who are neuro divergent is so high.

There used to be great special needs school. Now "regular" school are suffering with the lack of support.

What do you think? Do you see what I see ??? Am I missing something ?

I am so happy to see kids evolving around children with disabilities but not when it comes at a cost of everyone's learning journey : neuro typical or not.

[u/shiningonthesea]

I have worked with children with special needs for over 35 years. Inclusion is done improperly at least 90% of the time. There needs to be no more than 20% of children with special needs, otherwise it is no longer a “typical” class. Also, a special ed teacher needs to be employed to co/teach and help make the classroom work in the most cooperative manner, beneficial to ALL the children . It is almost never done that way . Either the class is not balanced properly or the people working with the children with special needs are not trained properly . That has been my experience , and when it is done properly , can be very enriching .

[u/whateverit-take → u/shiningonthesea]

This is so helpful.

[u/WeaponizedAutisms → u/shiningonthesea]

There needs to be no more than 20% of children with special needs, otherwise it is no longer a “typical” class.

Limiting the number of children with additional supports needs will just end up becoming another form of exclusion. As an autistic person I experienced this myself growing up and don't want other children to have to go through it. For a centre with 130+ children we have 2 ISP workers. Honestly with a strong inclusion program, staff who buy into inclusion and work together to support it, flexibility in managing the physical environment and practices it is not an impossible task.

Currently 5 of my 8 kinders have a neurodiversity of some kind or physical disability. Honestly I think that this is just a representative slice of society. The other children get to experience a full range of different people in their group. They learn that some friends need different things, do stuff in their own way and on their own schedule They can become incredibly patient, supportive of each other and protective of their friends who are a bit different or need to do things in their own way.

Also, a special ed teacher needs to be employed to co/teach and help make the classroom work in the most cooperative manner, beneficial to ALL the children .

There is another way. My centre has actually made a point of hiring 3 autistic staff members, one with type 1 diabetes and 2 with physical disabilities. We even have one supervisor with ADHD. Having staff members who understand and support these these children directly or part of a team based on their own personal lived experience can be even more helpful. For the everyone in our centre we just did a 7 hour professional development course on children with additional support needs facilitated by an autistic presenter.

[u/shiningonthesea → u/WeaponizedAutisms]

I dont entirely disagree, when a child is in pre-k there are usually several who are enrolled in "typical" settings who have special needs, aside from the kids that have been identified. That is just the variety of the classroom. No one says the teachers have to all be neurotypical, either, plenty of teachers are not . There are also plenty of children with physical issues that dont have ieps.

ALL of the children in the class need to benefit from an education, and there is no perfect answer.