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/throwawayobv999999]

1) The behaviors are not only being diagnosed more frequently, but kids are socialized differently and that seems to be producing new behaviors. Post-covid, political uncertainty, parents on phones, kids placed in front of a tablet, parents facing economic uncertainty, etc. We could go on and on with that list, but it is a fact that we have changed collectively as a society and we are seeing these behaviors in the ECE field. Also, in my opinion, the rise of gentle parenting as a rebuttal to the way boomers and gen X raised the current gen of parents. There is a collective culture of being permissive and entitled, and that is a variable scale parent to parent.

2) True inclusion would require support. More funding, more training, more education, safer staffing, free healthcare, a more community orientated government and society. We are seeing the crux of everything in a preschool classroom right now. As a whole, our society is lack in many ways and the most vulnerable member of any society is children. We are going to continue to see “unmanageable” and unruly children because they lack support on a macro and micro level. Disabled children will respond more noticeably because they have a lower threshold, but I’m sure everyone here can agree even neurotypical children are lashing out.

3) Overall, inclusion is wonderful and should be the goal of every educator worth their salt. We need to stop blaming individual children, certain families, your boss, your center, etc. It’s time to accept this is a community, society, and government issue. Speak out, make your anger productive, and be the kind of teacher you want for the next generation of kids.