This post was originally published in The Weeklyish on July 23, 2021.
If you’ve read my writing for any length of time, you know my thoughts on why we don’t need to continue creating special programs for students with disabilities to be removed so they can have specialized instruction. But even in the most inclusive school systems, there are times when the law permits for students to be removed from general education settings.
In another post, I wrote about what we can do about students we haven’t figured out how to include in a meaningful way. This time, I want to work through what we can do as inclusionists when families fight for a segregated classroom.
Real talk. I don’t blame families who want segregated special education classrooms because they think it would be better for their children. But (also real talk), self-contained special education classes promise things they can’t deliver.
In a 2011 research study, Julie Causton and George Theoharis (among others) compared why students with disabilities were placed in self-contained classrooms. They found there were four main reasons:
- Classroom community
- Distraction-free environments
- Specialized curriculum and instruction
- Behavior support
But although these are the reasons people want students with disabilities in segregated special education classes, most of these classes do not provide these four things. Instead, through the study, they found that the students observed were not learning in classrooms with a protective and strong community, they were in much more (not less) distracting settings, they were not accessing the general curriculum in an individualized manner, and school staff were not using thoughtful behavioral interventions but were using threats, timeouts, and restraints.
Maybe you are thinking, “Well, they didn’t observe the right classrooms!”
Speaking from the perspective of someone who spent the entirety of my time as a classroom teacher in a self-contained setting, I can’t disagree with these findings. I think I was a pretty good teacher, and every year I tried my best to deliver on all of these promises. But, when you put students who have intellectual, social, and behavioral difficulties all in one place, what do you think will happen?
Given this reality, shouldn’t we try to convince families to ditch their self-contained dreams and fight for inclusive classrooms? Not necessarily.
We interviewed Sara Jo Soldovieri and Janice Fialka on The Think Inclusive Podcast, and we talked about this very thing. And without any major spoilers, I’ll share the consensus to our conversation.
The one thing we can do when families fight for segregation is listen.
For inclusionists who don’t have children in special education and aren’t living the experience of going to Individualized Education Program meetings, it is easy to take for granted how emotionally exhausting it can be to advocate.
Families are fighting for their children and doing what they think is best. And so the best thing we can do is listen to their concerns. That’s it. That is our main job. It is never to make a family feel bad for choosing a special education classroom.
If you’re an educator in that situation, start there. Listen first.