Bill Wagenborg
Science Education 545
MISEP Cohort 2
April 2007
Literature Research
My Experiences With Inclusion
Introduction
In May 2005, Dr. Eleanor Walls, Principal of D.N. Fell Elementary School in South Philadelphia, announced that starting in September the school was going to an inclusion model for our special education students. She proposed that during the first year, all of the special ed. students in each grade would be placed in one class. These classes would have reduced numbers and be assigned a resource teacher to assist especially in the areas of reading and math.
I was just finishing my first year at Fell teaching sixth grade, after six years at W.T. Tilden Middle School in Southwest Philadelphia. A month earlier Dr. Walls had asked me about moving up to the eighth grade. We were still a full self -contained school at the time and I was a little apprehensive about the switch. It was a grade I had never taught before, so I had to learn a new curriculum for four subjects, and the group of students that would be going to eighth grade was a hand full. Now on top of all of this, I discovered that I was going to be the eighth grade inclusion room teacher.
The No Child Left Behind law is the driving force behind this new wave of inclusion. It spells out that all children are general education students and it stresses accountability. This allows special education students to be placed in general education classes and be evaluated for evidence of academic and social outcomes. The majority of evidence so far has pointed to interrelated education as more beneficial than segregated models. (Sailor and Roger, 2005)
Purpose
When given this research assignment I decided to investigate educational literature on the topic of inclusion and compare it to my experiences over the last two years. I have heard stories from other members of the cohort on this issue and realized that in some ways I had a different situation. Through this research I hope to look at such things as attitudes, trends, and relationships across the educational landscape in order to get a better sense of where my situation fits in. Along with the literature and my own experiences, I enlisted the help of my resource teacher during these two years, Ms. Shawna Lake, to get her perspectives on the issue.
Pre-Attitudes
I have always had a respect for special education students. This no doubt has to do with my experiences of working at an Easter Seals Day Camp for five summers in high school and college, having one of my best friends be physically handicapped and having a relative that is learning disabled. I believe that they should be treated fairly and have the same opportunity of a quality education. That being said I did not know if I would be able to handle this new teaching “challenge.”
I would have six special education and fifteen regular education students. Of the six, four had never been in a regular classroom setting, three were on a second grade level, two had emotional problems on top of their learning disability and one student’s parents had previously brought a lawsuit against the school because they believed the IEP was not being followed. In the past, I would have one or two children with IEPs who may have been deficient in one area. These children would be pulled out an hour a day to get their needs met. Now I would have these kinds of students and those that were never in a regular classroom all day. How was I going to accommodate all of these students and keep the other students on point? Inclusion seemed like a good idea until I was the one that was involved.
My attitude at the time is not different than those in education, When inclusion was first being implemented many years ago, teachers had feelings of inadequacy. (Ringlaben and Price, 1981) Many general education teachers are use to uniformly moving students through the curriculum. Students with disabilities are viewed as students who should not be in this type of environment because they cannot keep up and ultimately slow down the pace of the lessons. (Sailor and Roger, 2005) Larrivee and Cook (1979) reported that teacher’s negative attitudes involved three factors: academic concerns, administrative concerns and pedagogical concerns. Scruggs and Mastropieri (1996) surveyed 10,000 teachers and found that many supported the idea of inclusion, but did not want special ed. students in their own classroom. They were concerned that they would not receive the proper support to truly fulfill their responsibilities. (Kavale, 2002) This would have been my opinion at the time; fear of the unknown.
I was being thrown into this new classroom set-up with no training, strategies or advice. No one in our school had ever taught an inclusion class, so I could not turn to anyone. According to research done by Robert F. Dedrick, Kofi Marfo and Deborah M. Harris, teachers who did not receive training prior to their inclusion experience were more likely to report a negative attitude towards inclusion than those that received training. There was no link between attitudes and gender, years teaching or building seniority, only training. In an interview of 116 teachers who expressed a desire to teach in an inclusion model Heiman (2002) reported that this desire hindered on receiving proper training and resources. (Kniviston, 2004)
Another problem was working with the resource teacher. She had been teaching for only six months and I really never had a conversation with her the whole time she was at Fell. Would we be able to work together on this new endeavor? If I looked at research, I would have felt more uncomfortable. Klingner and Vaughn (2002) state that the role of a special ed. inclusion teacher needs to be filled by a teacher with “expert knowledge of the learning disabled is informed about general ed. curriculum and various teaching styles.” The general ed. teacher in an inclusion model needs to be “ an expert in general ed. curriculum and various teaching styles and have a preservice instruction on the learning disabled.” She was not an expert yet on the disabled nor informed of the general ed. curriculum and I was learning a new curriculum and had no training, except for one class in college, on the disabled.
Then there was the IEP issue. Previously I had left a student’s IEP up to the pullout resource teacher. This is because they were pulling them for their deficiency listed in their IEP. Now I needed to be fully aware of the goals and history of each special ed. child.
Most teaching programs in schools and training programs for professionals state that general ed. teachers give full responsibility of the special ed. students to the resource teacher. (Sailor and Roger,2005) I believed that this was going to be the case for me as well. In fact our principal had let it be known that this is how it was going to be when she announced the move to inclusion. This left me confused because I was still going to be the one providing the bulk of the education. One positive though was that Shawna had been the self contained special ed. teacher for four of the students, which meant that she would be able to give me some background on them that their files would not. Shawna seemed to be positive about her students, but was very honest in her descriptions. This allowed me to know what to expect, and it did nothing to boost my outlook.
Shawna always had positive feelings about inclusion while a self-contained special ed. teacher. She felt that many self-contained special ed. students were isolated from the general ed. students and that it could only be beneficial for them to be exposed to grade level curriculum. They have the opportunity to feel normal rather than an outcast. She was excited to take on new responsibilities but she had concerns. She was worried about how her students would function in a classroom with a new routine, new responsibilities and with a teacher who had little to no experience with special ed. students. We each had different concerns, yet we never allowed them to interfere with our attitudes.
The Classroom (The First Year)
During the first month of school, I did not feel my teaching was any different. The special ed. students seemed to keep up with their classmates, worked hard, and displayed no visible problems. I believed that they were happy to be in a regular ed. setting and did not want to appear different than their peers. Shawna and I had also made the decision to have her in the classroom to assist, rather than pull out the students. She felt that it was more beneficial for them educationally and socially to be part of my classroom lessons.
The problem was that they were not comfortable communicating with me When I asked them if they had any questions or problems, they never did. Finally, Shawna approached me to discuss the progress of the students. This would be the first of many conversations that we would have over two years. She told me that they felt the pace of the class was too fast, they were afraid to ask for help, but overall they felt they were learning.
Armstrong (2005) states that children with special needs have a “unique knowledge of their educational needs and circumstances” that in their mind allows them to determine what help they should get and how they should get it. He feels that they should be involved in the discussions about their IEPs and learning environment. Armstrong warns though that there is a difference between giving them a voice and giving them the burden of decision making in which they lack the knowledge or experience to make such judgments.
The growing pains of inclusion began to show in October. Algebra was becoming a main ingredient in the math curriculum, they had problems reading the textbooks and the science topics were not being grasped. To make matters worse, the emotional problems of some were now being displayed more often. Some would put their heads down, be off task or cause disruptions with other students. They were also having issues with the other students. Some felt that they were being picked on and were becoming uncomfortable with the regular classroom setting. My fear was that I was going to not only lose this group but that the regular ed. students would not be on pace and that their achievement would suffer. It was only the second month of school and I had doubts that inclusion was working.
Research shows that I was (am) not alone in this worry. In England they have set up a national data base to track pupil achievement. This database can measure someone’s academic progression over time and compare it to the environment of the student’s education by looking at the background of all the students involved. This creates statistics that can show how regular ed. student is impacted by the type of student they are surrounded by, i.e. a special ed. student. (Florian, 2004)
Shawna was also adjusting to her new role. She no longer was the teacher of record and had a more flexible schedule during the day. She now had to support the students on grade level curriculum and found herself supporting all students, not just those with IEPs. Then there was the matter of collaborating with teachers to modify lessons, plan and progress monitoring, as well as being a mentor to general ed. teachers to develop their understanding of disabled students. She was finding that she had many challenges as well. These included, too many students on her caseload, unclear grading procedures, a schedule that became too rigid as the year progressed, an administration that was not knowledgeable in special ed. and little time to collaborate with teachers.
In a study on a special ed. teacher becoming a resource teacher, Klingner and Vaughn (2002) found many of the same issues that Shawna had mentioned. They found that the special ed. teacher now had to co-teach and worry about different teaching styles with the general ed. teacher. The special ed. teacher had to co-plan with the general ed. teacher and now had not only address a student’s IEP but had to do so in a way where the student could fit in the routine of a regular ed. classroom. Curriculum and student ability were driving instruction more. The study found that the special ed. and general ed. teacher needed to communicate effectively, share power over assessment and instruction
and be flexible. What made the inclusion model more of challenge were some of the challenges that Shawna had. These included: loss of prep time, more paperwork, more responsibility outside the classroom, increased class size and more of an emphasis on test scores.
It was now that Shawna and I really had to work together to make this work. I began to conference individually with my special ed. students and pull them in small groups during guided reading. I needed to have them view me as their teacher as well as Shawna. Shawna also pulled individuals out of the classroom, when she felt that they were falling behind. She would review the lessons but focus on basic skills that were lacking. We wanted to accommodate them, but not single them out. I paired the students with others who would assist them and ‘talked’ with other regular ed. students who seemed to be the culprits of the verbal abuse. I needed to also incorporate more strategies in my teaching. This included more group work and hands on activities. Shawna and I also collaborated on assessments and fitting their individual achievement goals into the lessons. With these changes and Shawna continuing to assist in the classroom, things began to improve a little after Thanksgiving.
Baglieri (2004) addresses the issue of differentiated instruction as opposed to separate instruction. She claims that differentiated instruction should include teaching all students where they are at academically not where they should be. She also stresses that it should be quick and to the point. This view both supports and goes against the School District of Philadelphia’s Curriculum Frameworks. They tell a teacher exactly what they should be teaching each week, but they also make it so that you do not spend a lot of time on it. As my cohort partner Theresa Lewis King likes to say, our curriculum is “ a mile long and an inch deep.”
As the year went on we had just as many failures as success, but we remained positive. I became more comfortable with the special ed. students and had a better outlook on inclusion. As I got to know the students, I began to see what a difference it was making in their lives. They may have still scored low on monthly benchmarks in reading and math, but they making small gains and their overall attitudes were better. The one battle that I had all year was with my lowest performing student. The student had self-esteem problems, was lazy, had emotional out bursts and seemed to be a lost cause. I had to give the student a passing grade because of the IEP, which frustrated me further. By April, Shawna and I were at our wits end and I decided to let this student have it. I told the student that he was wasting our time and an opportunity to improve their life. I told him of their parent’s worrying and how he was doing nothing to make it better. Finally, I told him I would not be saying all of this if I did not believe in him. This changed the student’s attitude for the final months of school and he ended up passing on his own. Research shows that general education teachers have a lot of influence on a special education child in an inclusion classroom. (Cross, 2002) This student allowed me to experience this firsthand.
Shawna and I also worked as a team during conferences and IEP meetings. We presented a clear picture to the parents on how their child was: working in a regular ed. classroom, meeting their goals, and progressing. We had an excellent relationship with our parents, which made our jobs easier.
According to Cross (2003), When parents know that staff (teachers) have the same expectations as they do and constantly keep them informed of their child’s progress a team is formed. There is a mutual respect for each other. This involves listening to one another and accepting each other’s suggestions. The proper attitude for parents should not be of a ”fix it” variety, yet one where they build upon what the teacher does in the classroom. This allows the parents to feel connected to their child’s development. It also allows the teacher to feel directly responsible for the success of the student.
The attitudes of the regular ed. students also improved throughout the year. We became one classroom and the incidents of insults and verbal attacks also became fewer. During my principal’s formal classroom observations, she commented that it was impossible for her to tell who the special education students were in the classroom.
This assessment, along with the positive and heartfelt comments that we received from parents after graduation, strengthened my confidence in being an inclusion teacher. My fears of the regular ed. students in my class suffering academically because of inclusion were put to rest, as the class met or exceeded expectations on the PSSAs. (Pennsylvania ‘s achievement tests). We had survived our first year of inclusion, but there was a lot of room for improvement. Shawna ‘s positive attitude towards inclusion had not changed but she realized that not all students would be as successful as others. She also understood that without communication and open minds, inclusion could be difficult. The next year we would face the challenges of students with more severe disabilities and having them in classrooms filled to the capacity of thirty-three students.