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627816 tn?1349238116

Inclusion, Right For Some Part II

I have no quarrel with inclusionists if they are content to insist upon inclusion for their children, or for children of other parents who feel that it is optimum for their children. But, when they try to force me and other unwilling parents to dance to their tune, I find it highly objectionable and quite intolerable. Parents need options.

If there are no objective data showing that full inclusion works better than giving people several options, why is it being promoted so avidly? Douglas Billen attempts to answer that question solely on ideological grounds. In his book, Achieving the Complete School, he says of mainstreaming, "To ask, Does it work? is to ask the wrong question." He believes that full inclusion and mainstreaming should be the only choice available to us because it is the right choice, the right thing to do. He makes an analogy with slavery. Slavery, he says, was abolished because it was morally wrong, not because it didn't work. He also asserts that objective scientific data are irrelevant, because the issue is a moral one.

I disagree strongly with Biklen on both counts. Biklen has the slavery analogy exactly backward: making full inclusion the only option does not resemble the abolition of slavery, but instead the imposition of slavery. Like slavery, full inclusion rejects the idea that people should be free to choose for themselves the options they desire, and compels them to accede to the wishes of others. And as for Biklen's rejection of scientific data, I want my children educated in ways that will assure the best outcome, as learned from scientific studies, not in ways that accord with someone's theory, or ideology, or the educational fad of the year.

Special education consultant Laurence Lieberman is one of the very few educators with the courage to speak out and tell the wrong. Recently the National Association of State Boards of Education endorsed the principle of full inclusion of students with disabilities. Lieberman's insightful response, published as a letter to the editor in EducationWeek for December 16, 1992, is a classic, and is reprinted here in part:

"People involved in education cannot agree on school choice, on promotion policies, on achievement testing, on curricula, teaching approaches, or the distribution of condoms. But all the state boards of education can agree on full inclusion for all disabled students?

"This is obviously a money issue, pure and simple. The key may be found in the paragraph in your story that says a new report from NASBE proposes that funds be provided on the basis of instructional need, not head counts. That need seems to have been already predetermined by the organization; full inclusion in regular classrooms for all disabled students.

"The article-and quite possibly the report-refuses to deal with the real nature of some children, which might require that they not be in a regular classroom.

"Some educators would place the issue of full inclusion solely in the realm of morality. Anything separate is evil. There may be a higher immorality than separateness: lack of progress, lack of achievement, lack of skills, and splintered learning of meaningless academic trivia.

"There is the issue that special education hasn't been effective. Where, and for whom and why? Because it has been too separate? Unlikely. There regular classroom is not separate by definition. Has it worked? Sometimes, but not all of the time. Placing severely disabled students in regular classrooms presupposes a level of individualization that does not exist.

"Some educators believe that disabled children will be much more accepted, and society as a whole will show much greater compassion for the disabled, if all children are in regular classrooms. Knowledge does not necessarily lead to compassion.

"There is a common belief that when disabled children are in physical proximity to normal children they will tend to adopt more normal behavior patterns. This is obviously not the case with many autistic children, who generally begin life surrounded by normal families.

"Full inclusion is not the right thing to do. It is one right thing to do, sometimes.

"Any organization...that endorses full inclusion is taking an extremist position that has no place in an educational system and a society that prides itself on its choices and multiple ways to achieve a desired quality of life."
I agree with Lieberman. If special education for autism is destroyed, it will be lost for at least one generation, and perhaps several.


3 Responses
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627816 tn?1349238116
I completely agree.  That is why I posted this.  My son is 15 years old and inclusion has not benefitted him at all.  He still has no social skills.  He is stressed just trying to cope in the "normal" classes.  He is intelligent, but he does not do well in the regular classroom.  
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470168 tn?1237471245
Thanks for the info.  I am sure alot of people, like me, read but don't post comments.  But it is extremely relevant to what I am thinking about at the moment and it gives me ammunition when everyone around me seems to be saying that inclusion is the best way.  I am not against inclusion, and my son is included.  But there is no proof that being mainstreamed will in some way 'rub off' on our children.  As this rightly states, many children are bought up in typical families and our behaviours and understanding of communication and social interaction does not rub off on our autistic children.  I wish it did!
I am happy for any child to be mainstreamed if they can cope with that and if they are supported throughout the day including breaktimes and dinnertimes.  If not, then inclusion will not work it will be tandamount to torture for them to try and cope in an environment that is alien and hostile to them.
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Avatar universal
THANK YOU!!!  Bottom line is that the key to educating any special needs child is flexibility.  We need to have the room to choose the path that makes the most sense for children at the time.  It is an INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION PLAN!!
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