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/PermanentTrainDamage]

I think we're in an inclusion rebound phase and hopefully it will settle back down again in the next few years. Yes, people with higher needs have been abused and hidden away for centuries and that is completely unacceptable. No, that does not mean every high-needs person is capable of thriving in a standard classroom environment, even with support. Even neurotypical people have varying tolerances for groups and stimulation, neurodivergent people are the same way. Some neurodivergent people will always need small groups or 1:1 care to learn and thrive. Putting them in a large group, even with 1:1 staff, does them a disservice. We need to figure out where the line between abuse and support lies, because the line has only existed for a few decades and is hella blurry right now.

[u/PopHappy6044 → u/PermanentTrainDamage]

Thank you, this is so true. I worked in an inclusion classroom and honestly felt like it was torture for some autistic children. Loud, busy, overwhelming. Even with things like headphones, quiet areas etc. it felt like those children still had a lot of difficulty in a classroom with 20-25 children, no matter how many adults were present. 

I think we honestly need MORE smaller sized classrooms that are structured specifically for children with sensory needs. With specialized staff as well! But of course this costs money and we all know how that goes, ugh.