Inclusive Intentions....

Hello fellow procrasties! (affectionate term for 'procrastinators' I'm trying out...).....

Today I have been thinking a lot about the inclusive education movement. As most of you may have guessed that's largely because I've recently started working at the Vincent Early Childhood Development Program as a relief teacher aide. Essentially it's the early childhood facility for really young children with special needs. Although if there is a need for a teacher aide at the Vincent Primary School they will also call me in. Vincent Primary School, as I learnt today, is a fully inclusive school, which means that they mainstream students who would otherwise be placed in special schools. Today I was working with a grade 4/5 class, which was a new thing for me as I've only ever worked in early childhood settings. There were about 20-22 kids in my class, and even though they were under a fantastic teacher, I really didn't envy her job. There were 10 kids in this class with special needs, including hearing, intellectual, physical, behavioural issues and autism. There were a handful of Indigenous kids and a handful of ESL kids. I couldn't help but wonder how a teacher would cater for SO many diverse needs in her class... so I asked her. This teacher told me that she doesn't have any access to a special needs teacher and therefore needs to write individualised programs to meet the needs of each student. Some students are operating at a grade one level, and others at a grade five level. Anyone reading this who is doing education will no doubt be cringing at the thought of teaching such a range in abilities within the one class. To compensate for the lack of special needs teachers, this class will often have 2/3 teacher aides... which is where I come in. The fact that I am actually being hired as a teacher aide is a great testament to how desperately teacher aides are needed at the moment (especially within special needs education). I have no qualifications other than being almost halfway through my ECE degree.... And all that really means is that I have managed to pass a tonne of namby-pamby humanistic subjects that are of very little practical value. I've had very little experience... other than working at 5 different schools/kindies through various placements. Really the only things that I bring to the job are a willingness to be thrown in the deep end and a love of working with children. Some people would argue that love and eagerness are really all that you need.... ha, those people are nuts. Particularly when it comes to caring for children with special needs, some knowledge of the needs that you are dealing with would certainly be helpful. So all of this got me thinking about the value of inclusive education. Don't worry.... I won't bore you by listing the pro's and con's of inclusive education, although there are certainly convincing arguments for both. And if I had to pick a side, I'd most likely be pro-inclusivity. But despite this, there are definitely some downfalls. An obvious one is the incredible amount of stress that this places on teachers, many of whom have very limited knowledge of special needs. The teacher that I worked with today would love nothing more than some help with the ridiculous amount of programming that she needs to complete for her students. Instead she got a 19 year old ECE student who is keen to learn yet readily admits that she knows nothing at all. Trying to meet the needs of students who differ in every conceivable way is such a huge expectation to place on teachers if it is not met with adequate support. Another obvious downfall is the reality of bullying. We all know that kids can be cruel. Despite how hard teachers work to foster safe and supportive learning environments, gang mentalities are far too common in classrooms. This is highlighted in inclusive classrooms, as ridiculous as that may sound. In this particular class, the Indigenous students would group together, the children with hearing difficulties would group together, the children with autism would group together and there would be a few stragglers with intellectual and physical difficulties who were isolated from the group.... and each little section of the class would fight the others. I spent a good part of today trying to convince the students that giving each other upper-cuts was a bad idea...and nearly got one myself for being so bold. Watching students who are constantly targeted for every kind of bullying simply because they are 'different' is a heartbreaking yet often unavoidable reality of inclusive education. You can't help but wonder what kind of long lasting damage is being done to children who are subjected to this treatment each and every day.
I understand the push for mainstreaming, and agree with various parts of it... but if we are going to care for children with diverse needs, teachers need to be educated and supported. Special needs education is limited at Uni, unless you specialise as a special needs teacher. Particularly with ECE, special needs education should be embedded in every subject that we do, because it's the reality of our job as educators. Teachers need to be given support both in the classroom and with regards to programming... to help with their personal anxiety levels and to ensure that no children are left behind (as Bush would put it).
Well that's my ramble done for tonight... back to the namby-pamby subjects....