A smart comment by Dave Reid, a math teacher in California, about meeting the diverse needs of students in an overcrowded, under-resourced classroom:
| Hi JJ. This is a reply to your July 20, 2012 at 12:41 am comment where you stated: “…any good teacher or administrator knows that placing these [sped] kids in inclusion or mainstream setting is meaningless unless you do provide them meaningful instruction. Accommodate. Differentiate, engage them. It’s not as easy as just placing them into the class, but many still don’t realize that.”
I believe we are fooling ourselves to think that most / many teachers can effectively differentiate for the diversity of needs in secondary classrooms today. “Meaningful instruction” is nigh impossible unless a student is ready and willing to engage at some level, taking into account any limitations of his/her disability. If an aide, or two, is available to assist and support the teacher, and adequate space and resources are available, the likelihood for meaningful instruction increases considerably. Realistically, teachers with 150 students a day are faced with a near impossible mission to intuit changing student-specific interests that map appropriately to the myriad of standards per subject. I get the intent. It is honorable and a laudable goal. I wish it happened daily in classrooms throughout America. But it does not since it is a “bridge too far” expectation. In my opinion, the education field causes more harm than good when it gives the impression that student-specific differentiation is achievable by any except the most talented of experienced teachers, and even in those cases I believe they need to be in a school culture that nurtures students and supports teachers in manners that enable their mutual success. In other words, it is in rare instances that the many factors that impact student learning align sufficiently for an individual teacher with 30-40 students per period, with five different periods per day, to accommodate ELD, RSP, GATE, or other special needs such as 504 plans. Unless, and until, a realistic deployment of resources commensurate with the task besetting a teacher are readily available, we are fooling ourselves that meaningful instruction is possible, much less within reach. I wish it were otherwise. Regardless, I will continue to do everything in my power to make it so. Its just that with a quarter of a century experience facing difficult challenges with resources, I have a pretty good sense for what is realistic, and what is wishful thinking. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It appears, from my experience, that it is more important to have ALL sped in the mainstream as much as possible, rather than looking at how best to educate the student.
Almost everything is sacrificed for time with non disabled peers. That takes prededence over designing a program to educate the child.
It is pointless to sit in an 8th grade algebra class and the student cannot add, subtract, make change for a dollar, tell time and other primary skills. Even if this student works 1:1 with a para while all the other kids do grade level work, that is NOT inclusion. The work and engagement is not meaningful. Students are being denied an education just so the hours looks good and they breathe the same air. We are also told to be sure to present the same material at the same time, use the same assessments, the same grading disbursement, etc. But, don’t forget to differentiate and individualize. How is that possible? The students become dependent on the aides for everything because they are not receiving specialized instruction in their area of deficit, so why have an IEP and be classified sped. Modifications such as extended time or preferred seating alone are not examples of specialized instruction….that alone doesn’t help a student become a better writer or reader. We just keep pushing them along with bandaids here and there and hope they are going to learn by osmosis.
The purpose of a PPT and the designing of an IEP is to plan a program to educate the child. The team is supposed to determine that, but my experience is it is decided ahead of time and you agree or shut up. The least restrictive environment, which many assume to be the reg. Ed. classroom full time, can be the most restrictive for low performing students. There are ways to integrate the student into the mainstream and have it be meaningful but it should not be all or nothing. Many sped. students get further and further behind each year and we are not doing then any favors. Having aides passing pencils to you, copying notes for you, changing answers on an assessment for you just makes the kids more dependent upon the adults, which is not the purpose of special education.
Those are my experiences and I have dual certification. I have seen the quality of instruction and progress for sped. students decrease significantly while they push for full mainstreaming for all despite each sped. students’ individual needs.
You stated: “Many sped. students get further and further behind each year and we are not doing then any favors.”
By that did you mean they get further behind in relation to what they might be able to learn in relation to their disabilities or in relation to “grade level expectations/course expectations”? I assume you meant the former and not the latter.
There is an unspoken consequence of having special needs students in with the rest of the school population, interacting on a daily and hourly basis. And that is that the non-special needs students can better learn the “humanity” (and that may not the best of terms but right now I can’t think of anything else) of special needs students.
Our school has a program that pairs up “regular” students (again may not be the best of terms) with the special needs students so that in the morning before classes, during lunch, during assemblies and sometimes for extra-curriculum activities, the special needs students are sitting with and interacting with their peers. The program helps run the special olympics every year and our school, district and community takes pride in it.
The fact is is that even those students who aren’t involved in the program interact more and “better” with the special needs students and who are then not seen so much as “others”. I believe that helps the community in the long run. Do we have “data” to prove that? No, just some common sense.
Of course they should be included as much as possible, but not so
they risk making any progress. It needs to be balanced. Their disability and deficits are not being addressed, so they start out behind to begin with and as the years go by and others advance, they fall further behind.
There are many ways to be included in the school community, but reaching their full potential academically should not to be pushed aside to meet some state goal of time with non disabled
peers/mainstreaming.
I don’t see the purpose of a sped. Classification and an IEP if the only service one receives is a myriad of aides who make sure you have your belongings and you get enough assignments completed to at least earn a D. Hand holding just encourages life long dependency.
Well said, Linda. All of my students on IEPs are in the regular classroom for most of their day, but most students receive pullout services in our Learning Resource Center. This arrangement is necessary for them to make progress.
Full inclusion, to me, is what we do when we don’t have the resources to do the right thing. We see it at the high school and middle school level, and some schools (incredibly) use it in elementary.
When a teacher comes to our Student Services Team about a child, she is not saying, “This student can be successful in my room with a few accommodations.” She is saying, “This kid may have a disability that requires more than what I’m able to give him.” Those who advocate for full inclusion do so at the risk of insulting the teacher’s professional judgment. And, they are not willing to provide the staff necessary to be in every room during the day to provide needed services.
Linda, you speak the truth–Everything is sacrificed for logged in time with non-disabled peers, further crippling children who learn differently. Those who learn differently are aware of the short-comings AND BLAME THEMSELVES because they don’t get what is going on. Not only do they become more dependent on adult aides, which is not the purpose of SPECIAL OR REGULAR EDUCATION! They become disruptive, causing teachers and administrators to further BLAME these kids for not taking advantage of everything they are being given, i.e., aides, extra help, counseling, walks around the building when the classroom becomes too stressful, etc.. Everyday kids who learn differently are demeaned, blamed, cast aside, and the kids who don’t need things differentiated nearly as much fail to get their due, as well. Nobody gets ahead when mainstreaming is seen as a panacea for all problems in education…which is really one problem, the lack of will to provide our kids with an education that will serve their needs to become fully functioning citizens, each to the fullest extent possible, even if they are what my eighty-two year old mom and I have resigned ourselves to being–People Watchers, just because somebody ought to do it…
Linda, You are “Spot On”! I think that total day mainstreaming of kids with IEP’s is a money saving ploy.
In one school I taught in,”Inclusion” classes were 14 regular kids, and 14 kids placed by the COSE ( Committe on Special Ed.) with an aide for them. If some of the special needs students needed a personal aide, then there were more in the room. Quite a bit to “juggle” for that teacher.
In the 70’s and 80’s special needs kids had very small classes and specially trained teachers and aides. The “need to save money” changed most of that. Too bad for the little ones who need special services.
I think that Public Schools pay for all the non-medical services a handicapped child receiives until reaching age 21. That is probably why Public Schools have higher “per-pupil” costs than private and charter schools do, among other things.
In our state if the percent of sped is 50% or more you cannot count
that as time with non disabled peers, but they do it anyway. If the state audits it is just a matter of fudged paperwork. It is not like they show up and walk into your room and count heads and then ask who is sped? So it doesn’t really matter. I don’t care how they want to slice and dice it, they are NOT receiving an education and they are lying to the parents. The key players can talk a good game at a PPT but it is all a charade. They promise the moon and sky and deliver nada!
When I started teaching in the early 70s, I was in a private school that handled students that the public schools did not. I had a hodge podge of students, all boys, with various levels of cognitive delay, autism, ADHD, learning disabilities and emotional disorders. It was a step forward that someone was providing “services.” I was totally unqualified for the job. Up until about ten years ago, we seemed to be making advances in the way we provided services to special needs children at least in the wealthier districts. There were still inequities; I had to scrounge for textbooks for my middle school classes and plead with general ed teachers for teacher and student editions of texts for my resource students. It was a battle to get some teachers to give me an answer key to their tests, so I could modify them more easily. When I switched to high school in a low economic community I was dumped in a classroom (actually two classrooms) and told to teach English (9,12) and reading (9-12) to “non-categorical” special ed students. Until I began teaching a reading program half way through my first year, I had no curriculum or textbooks. I’m not sure who learned more, but we all got an education, just not the one they deserved.
You sound like a really “COOL” teacher! Good Job!
Peg 🙂