Discover the Difference Between 'Inclusive' and 'Special' Education
- The inclusive* teacher
- Mar 23, 2020
- 3 min read
These two words (inclusive and special) seem to both imply that students are getting a ‘good’ education. If we’re including them, then that’s good. If they’re getting something special, then that sounds good too. But are they really ‘good’? Are we doing what’s best for students? Could our views on education and inclusion possibly be detrimental to students?
What’s so special about special education?
Special education is ‘a categorical approach to educating students in a way that attempts to remediate their individual differences, often through withdrawal intervention or segregation’. Therefore, in special education practices children are segregated from their peers and are seen to have differences that need to be remediated and are consequently bad. In special education practices, students are taught away from other students, working on different topics than other students, with different teachers than other students. While they may be receiving something different and ‘special’, it’s not exactly good.
In…clusion?
To understand inclusion, you need to understand what it’s not.
Inclusion is NOT gatekeeping schools and telling parents that “the school down the road would suit you better”. That’s exclusion.
Inclusion is NOT having a special education unit on the grounds of a mainstream school, or withdrawing students from their class to complete intervention that’s unrelated to learning their peers are completing in class. That’s segregation.
Inclusion is NOT physically moving all students into mainstream classrooms without adjustments to the environment, teaching or learning and expecting them to conform. That’s integration.
Inclusion IS making classrooms accessible through adjustments to the environment, teaching and learning so that ALL students can easily and successfully exercise their right to quality education.
Doesn’t that sound more ‘special’ to you?
So why special education?
Special education is often seen as the best option for students with diverse needs.
“They will be safe over here, being taught special things by the people with special qualifications and won’t be teased by the other children.”
Many people also use those ‘other children’ as their reasoning for special education, saying “they won’t be disrupted, disturbed or distracted if we just take out these few students…”
BUT
This is actually not the case.
Research has found that students with a disability who are included in inclusive classrooms have better outcomes socially, and academically. *
In addition, students who do not have a disability that learn in an inclusive classroom have experienced a neutral or slightly positive impact academically, and a range of personal and social benefits as well.
These students hold less prejudice against people with a disability, are more likely to socialise with them and are generally more accepting of difference.
*This is only found in contexts where the proportions of students who have a disability or complex learning profile match those that are found in the general population.
So what do we do then?
For starters, we need to adopt flexible curriculum and pedagogy and positive attitudes.
We need to stop withdrawing students from class for ‘intervention’ or ‘targeted teaching’. Removing students from their classroom and peers to focus on an unrelated skill, with a different teacher, to then put them back in after half an hour and expect them to catch up on what they’ve missed while they were catching up on other content they don’t know is absurd! Not to mention it’s not inclusive, or special. Instead....
Let's involve specialist teachers in the learning that’s happening inside the classroom.
Let’s have students work in small groups with specialist teachers facilitating sharing and turn taking for targeted students.
Let’s have specialist teachers co-teaching alongside classroom teachers.
Let’s let speech-language pathologists work on targeted skills with students during their English or Maths lesson instead of outside the classroom, alone.
Let’s create inclusive classrooms where the needs of every student are considered equally, universal design practices are implemented, and learning is maximised for all students.
Every student will enter the same world upon leaving school. Students with a disability will not enter a ‘special’ world and they will not always have ‘special’ considerations.
It is our duty as educators to prepare ALL students to enter the world with the adequate skills, knowledges and attitudes to succeed. It is our duty to ensure that all students succeed.
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