What Is Inclusive Education - Essay Example

Introduction Inclusive education, also known as general education implies that every student in a school or any other learning institution, in spite of their weaknesses and strengths in any field are supposed to be included in the school community. They are incorporated in the sense of being part of teachers, support staff and other students. The basis of comprehensive education is that all learners have the right to obtain quality education that meets fundamental learning requirements and enriches the future lives of the learners. The crucial objective of inclusive excellent education is to bring to an end any form of bias among students and to promote social solidity. In inclusion students with disabilities or special educational requirements tend to spend all or most of their time with the ordinary and non disabled students. Therefore this mixing allows all students equal and comfortable around one another and this tends to give them a sense of belonging. Inclusion involves the rights of students to participate in school activities and the duty of the school accepting the students. It also discourages using special schools and or separate classrooms to divide the disabled students from non disabled students. This allows the disabled students to fully participate in school activities and ensures that their educational, civil and social rights are respected. Inclusive schools do not differentiate between special education and general education programs but instead they are simplified to ensure that all students learn jointly (Conrad & Whitaker 1999). Exclusive education Excusive education means that students with disabilities or special needs are taught in separate classrooms from the non disabled students. The students are placed in special education classes also called resource room or self contained classrooms which are of value to the disabled students. The students are able to co-ordinate with their special education teachers who address all the special needs. On contrast research has shown that teaching non disabled students together with the disabled fellows promotes tolerance and understanding and prepares the students with different abilities able to work together in the outside world after completing school. Exclusive education is an indication of a wider trend of social discrimination and promotes options for handling disabled students. The opinions must be on the basis of stronger participation of the community and acknowledge that the feeling of being excluded always lead to the disabled students behaving in a weird manner. Therefore any school is supposed to adopt the inclusion system so that each school possesses a sense of belonging in the school community (Meyer & Poon 2001). Benefits of inclusive education The institutions allows all students to maximize participation in the school community of their preference, builds more meaningful learning and relevant for every student especially learners who are most prone to discrimination pressure, to restructure and rethink policies, cultures, practices and curricula in schools and learning settings so that various learning needs are met regardless of their origin and their type. The institutions lays down the rules that ensures that: Schools acclimatize to special and general needs of students, other than being concerned more on school needs. All students are able to gain education and benefit from it. Personal differences among students bring diversity and richness but are not problems. The rate of development and several needs of students are addressed via flexible and broad series of responses as long as these responses are not inclusive of practices that will tend to eliminate disabled students from the classroom of general education. Inclusive education is therefore, a process that removes obstacles and enables all students with inclusive of those groups previously excluded, to gain education and effectively participate in various school systems. Resources used in inclusive education Although it is a means of increasing achievement while lowering cost, full inclusion do not save cash, improve academic results, minimize students needs but in most cases it simply removes the particular education professionals from their personal classrooms into a place in the regular classroom. To avoid degrading the academic education of disabled students a packed panoply of resources and services be required to and they include: provision of adequate services and supports for the special students, designing of programs that meet individual needs of the disabled, teachers spending more time to plan, create, meet, and assess students together. Teachers are also trained so that they are able to meet the special needs of disabled students in a regular education classroom. The classrooms are supposed to have manageable number of students depending on the extent of the needs of the students. Teachers, parents and administration are supposed to collaborate so as to enable smooth learning of the disabled students (Meyer & Poon 2001). Factors that determine the accomplishment of inclusive classrooms School family partnerships should exist so that the special needs of students are well understood by the teachers. There is coordinated communication and planning between the special and general staff so that they can easily cooperate in delivering the special services. Well constructed strategies that recognize precise modifications accommodations and individual students’ goal are laid down. The services are integrated in the special and general staff who deliver them in the general classroom. Classes of inclusive education Inclusive education is dived into two classes which are full inclusion and partial inclusion also recalled regular inclusion. In full inclusion environment, students who have requirements needsare taught together with the general students for almost all day or more than half day. When necessary, the special students are given special instructions or additional help within the general classroom. The more specialized needs are offered outside the regular classroom especially if these needs involve special equipments or may disrupt the rest of students, any example being speech therapy. The students leave the general classroom and attend the intensive sessions in the resource room. In full inclusion students with special needs are completely integrated into classroom of general education. Schools that use full inclusion do not have special classrooms for special students but this inclusion of all students in spite of their special needs is a divisive practice and is therefore not widely used. It is common that educational agencies provide several settings ranging from unique classrooms to mainstreaming inclusion and allocate students to a scheme that is liable to assist students meet their individual educational targets. When students with disabilities fail to be included, it looks as if they are typically mainstreamed or segregated. The main streamed students attend the less through general classes for less than half day. For instance a student with considerable rational disabilities may be mainstreamed to art classes, bodily education classes or story book reading but attend mathematics and reading classes with the other students with similar disabilities. Main streaming In education context, mainstreaming is a term referring to practice of teaching students with special needs together with regular students in regular classrooms during specific periods of time on the basis of their skills. This implies that special education classes are combined with regular education classes. Schools that apply mainstreaming consider that special needs students who are not able to work in the regular classroom to a given level then is placed in the special education setting. The alternatives of mainstreaming are inclusion, separation or exclusion of the disabled students from school. Generally, the individual need of the students is the main driving force that leads to mainstreaming or adoption of a certain educational style. Mainstreaming does not engage putting the student in a special school or placing a student full time regular classroom. A student spending the whole day in a regular class room with the non disabled students is considered to be fully included. Students who are mildly disabled with conditions like attention deficit disorder, dyslexia or non congentive disorders like diabetes are fully included. Mainstreaming does not engage teaching the student outside the school because a student who is taught inside an institution like a hospital or at home while recuperating from a severe sickness is considered excluded. Therefore a student who has been excluded from school is not viewed as being expelled from the school. Advantages of mainstreaming a) There is high academic achievement. Mainstreaming has proved to be highly academically effective compared to exclusion education. The use of resource room to give direct instructions has displayed to effect the increase in academic skills of the students and thus increases the abilities used by general students within the general education environment. Compared to placing the special students in full time special school or special education school, both full time and part time placement in the regular classes has lead to improved academic achievement in students with disabilities and also in long term improvement of behavior. b) It leads to superior social skills. All practices of inclusion together with mainstreaming gives a chance to the disabled students to learn group skills by observation, gain a more understanding of the surrounding world, and are incorporated into the regular community. Mainstreaming benefits students with autism since by interacting with their age mates they are able to relate socially outside the classroom. Because autistic students have self restricted interestsand abnormalities in social contact and communication, the improved interaction with characteristic students benefits them and enables them to socially relate with their peers. c) It increases the sense of self esteem. By being part of the regular education setting, disabled students develop more confidence and show qualities of increased self efficacy. Disabled students feel that they are equal with their peers and therefore must be treated differently d) Mainstreaming also benefits all students because it opens communication lines between the disabled students with their peers. When they are included into all classroom activities, all students turn to be more responsive to the reality that they might need additional assistance. Disadvantages of mainstreaming Although it provides benefits in education, mainstreaming has some disadvantages to the education institution. a) The disabled students require more attention from teachers than the non disabled students in a general class. Attention and time is taken away from the rest of the class to meet special needs of a single student and this may lead to lowered academic performance. The outcome of a mainstreamed student on the rest of the class s strongly depends on the specific disabilities and the availability of the supportive resources (Jorgensen & Schuh 2005). b) It causes harm to academic education: Parents and guardians feel that general education teachers lack the skills and training to meet the special needs of disabled students in a general education classroom environment. Therefore, supportive services and professional training must be given to teachers to enable them meet the special needs. Research has shown that regular teachers who attend to disabled students and are not fully informed about the needs of the students may tend to neglect these students in class. This may lead to weakening of the disabled students and the general reduced classroom productivity. c) Social negligence: Compared to disabled students who are fully included in the general classroom, the mainstreamed students who are included only in particular classes or particular time may feel socially rejected or noticeable. This may expose them to becoming targets for harassment. Mainstreamed students tend to feel uncomfortable because of the extra services given to them inside the regular classroom. Some disabled students might feel more contented when in a setting where majority of students work at similar level or using similar supports. d) Mainstreaming leads to schools using extra finances: Schools are supposed to give special education services without the inclusion of extra finances in the fees. . In most instances the disabled students require supportive resources in the classroom so as to help the student and this leads to the school using more money in proving these supports. Common practices in inclusion Students who have been included in a classroom are usually located with their sequential age mates in spite of whether they are performing below or above the usual academic level designed for their age. Inorder to promote a sense of belonging, the importance of friendship is emphasized. The teachers cherish a link between students with special needs and of the same age with students who do not have special education need. Students with special needs are assigned companions who accompany them at every time. This shows the students that a community is made up of a diverse group of people and no one is better than the other and this helps to eliminate an obstacle that may occur when a student is vulnerable by the other students. These practices diminish the possibility of selectiveness among the students in afterward grades and promote collaboration among groups of students. Teachers use various methods to help in reinforcing of inclusive classrooms such as use of songs and books that educate community, dealing with individual differences openly through holding discussions, allowing the students to participate in games that are designed to build the school community, assignment of classroom tasks that strengthens the student community, use of physical therapy tools like standing frames that enable the students who generally use wheelchairs stand up when other standing and also become actively participate in various activities. The teachers also teaches students on searching for means of helping each other and spotlights on the weak and strong areas of a student who have special needs (Thomas 2004). How students with special needs are selected for inclusion Education specialists usually articulate that a number of student with special needs are poor candidates for inclusion. Many learning institutions anticipate a fully incorporated student must be performing at or close to the grade level although additional basic necessities exist. Foremost, being incorporated means that the student must be able to be present at school. Students who are totally excluded from school for instance as a result of prolonged admission at hospital or are receiving education exterior of schools a result of enrollment in a detached education program do not qualify to be included. In addition, a few students possessing special needs are unfortunate candidates of inclusion because of their effect on the other students. For instance, students who have severe behavioral disorders and represent a severe physical risk to other students are unfortunate candidates for inclusion because they increase the work of the school of providing secure surrounding to staff and all students. Some students are poor candidates of inclusion since the usual activities inside a general education classroom will hinder them from concentrating. For example, a student having extreme attention problems or severe sensory dispensation disorders is likely to be distracted or troubled by the existence of regular students solving the same problem and working on the same desks. Inclusion desires to be suitable to meet the unique needs of the student. Majority of students amid special needs do not plunge in to these acute groups as most of them are able to attend school, do not possess extreme sensory coordination processing problems and are not aggressive on their fellow students. The students who are most likely to be included are those who have physical disabilities and have little or on effect upon their academic effort. Students with epilepsy, food allergies, paralysis and diabetes mellitus are placed in a class of mild disabilities and are easily included because they need comparatively little specialized services. Researchers argue that partial inclusion but not complete integration is a sensible move towards a considerable best part of special needy students. For a number of students particularly individuals with mental retardation or extreme autism spectrum disorder along the deaf or have numerous disabilities, inclusion of these students into regular classroom may not give them appropriate education (Thomas 2004). Criticisms on inclusion Teachers, parents and administrators criticize both partial and complete inclusion. Partial and full inclusion practices fail to recognize the fact that most of the students with major special needs necessitate individualized tuition and increasingly controlled sorroundings.Therefore, a general education teacher are regulary teaching a set of courses while the special education counterpart is always teaching and at the same remediating instructions. Likewise a student with extreme inattention disorder might not be able to hub in a classroom that has more active and normal students. While there is an increase in incidence of disabilities among student population this fact means that teachers have to contend with, and the must not be a direct effect of inclusion. Complete inclusion cold be a way that schools use to appease the general public and the parents and is used gather notice by educating students with special needs in the geneneral education surrounding (Doyle 2000) Conclusion Inclusion education is seen as the best system to be applied in a learning environment. The inclusion of disabled students in the regular education classroom enables all students to freely interact and mix and interact giving them a sense of belonging. The disabled students are to learn and adopt social behaviors from their non disabled counterparts. The provision of special needs to the disabled students within the regular education makes the students to be a less susceptible group. In contrast, the special needs of the disabled students may not be fully met since teacher must also attend to the regular students. Exclusive education may meet the special needs of the disabled students but the students tend to feel separated or discriminated from the entire school community. Bibliography Thomas E., 2004, The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Doyle, M., 2000, The Paraprofessional's Guide to the Inclusive Classroom. London, SAGE Publishers Conrad, M., & Whitaker T., 1999, Inclusion and the law: A principal’s proactive approach. The Clearing House. New York. Jorgensen, C. & Schuh, M., 2005, The inclusion facilitator's guide. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., Baltimore. Meyer, B. & Poon, L.W., 2001, Effects of structure strategy training and signaling on recall of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(1). 140-160. NA Madden, R., 1983, Review of Educational Research, Vol. 53, No. 4, 519-569 Block, M. E., 1999, Are children with disabilities receiving appropriate physical education?. Teaching Exceptional Children, 31(3) 18-23. James, A., & Ludwa, N. 2004, The impact of inclusion in general physical education for all students. Journal of Physical Education, 75(5), 37-55. Griffey, D. 1985, The contact theory of racial integration: The case of sport. Sociology of Sport Journal, 2(4), 323-333. Read More

To avoid degrading the academic education of disabled students a packed panoply of resources and services be required to and they include: provision of adequate services and supports for the special students, designing of programs that meet individual needs of the disabled, teachers spending more time to plan, create, meet, and assess students together. Teachers are also trained so that they are able to meet the special needs of disabled students in a regular education classroom. The classrooms are supposed to have manageable number of students depending on the extent of the needs of the students.

Teachers, parents and administration are supposed to collaborate so as to enable smooth learning of the disabled students (Meyer & Poon 2001). Factors that determine the accomplishment of inclusive classrooms School family partnerships should exist so that the special needs of students are well understood by the teachers. There is coordinated communication and planning between the special and general staff so that they can easily cooperate in delivering the special services. Well constructed strategies that recognize precise modifications accommodations and individual students’ goal are laid down.

The services are integrated in the special and general staff who deliver them in the general classroom. Classes of inclusive education Inclusive education is dived into two classes which are full inclusion and partial inclusion also recalled regular inclusion. In full inclusion environment, students who have requirements needsare taught together with the general students for almost all day or more than half day. When necessary, the special students are given special instructions or additional help within the general classroom.

The more specialized needs are offered outside the regular classroom especially if these needs involve special equipments or may disrupt the rest of students, any example being speech therapy. The students leave the general classroom and attend the intensive sessions in the resource room. In full inclusion students with special needs are completely integrated into classroom of general education. Schools that use full inclusion do not have special classrooms for special students but this inclusion of all students in spite of their special needs is a divisive practice and is therefore not widely used.

It is common that educational agencies provide several settings ranging from unique classrooms to mainstreaming inclusion and allocate students to a scheme that is liable to assist students meet their individual educational targets. When students with disabilities fail to be included, it looks as if they are typically mainstreamed or segregated. The main streamed students attend the less through general classes for less than half day. For instance a student with considerable rational disabilities may be mainstreamed to art classes, bodily education classes or story book reading but attend mathematics and reading classes with the other students with similar disabilities.

Main streaming In education context, mainstreaming is a term referring to practice of teaching students with special needs together with regular students in regular classrooms during specific periods of time on the basis of their skills. This implies that special education classes are combined with regular education classes. Schools that apply mainstreaming consider that special needs students who are not able to work in the regular classroom to a given level then is placed in the special education setting.

The alternatives of mainstreaming are inclusion, separation or exclusion of the disabled students from school. Generally, the individual need of the students is the main driving force that leads to mainstreaming or adoption of a certain educational style. Mainstreaming does not engage putting the student in a special school or placing a student full time regular classroom. A student spending the whole day in a regular class room with the non disabled students is considered to be fully included.

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