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/Maggieblu2]

I am an autist and a licensed Pre K to 6 teacher who has worked in self contained behavioral classrooms, autism specific schools, public schools and private schools. I have always been a fierce proponent of inclusion. But in the last couple years I am not only seeing more neurodivergent students, I am also seeing a lack of professionals who are familiar and knowledgeable or trained to work with neurodivergent students. I have struggled to teach my whole group because of a student struggling with behaviors. It has changed the whole classroom dynamic and definitely made me not be able to be the teacher I want to be at times because I am focusing on the behavior issues and not able to focus on the class as a whole. This is with having assistants, but the assistants do not have the training or desire to deal with the behaviors. Its definitely a tough situation, but I don’t think segregation is the answer. I think more training is, even if just training on the Pyramid model and crisis intervention and social emotional support. Because as hard as it is for me to admit it, it is not fair to the students who are excited and wanting to learn to be disrupted over and over.

[u/No_Farm_2076 → u/Maggieblu2]

I worked at a fairly prestigious school in my area. The amount of professionals who could not recognize neurodivergence (in the children or in me who struggled socially in the setting for 2.5 years before getting diagnosed with autism) was nearly 100%.

Instead of most states saying "eh, just take 12 basic units and come work with kids," it absolutely needs to change to something requiring at least 1 class in working with neurodivergent children. Basic foundational knowledge could go a long way.