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Re: Inclusion research
Posted:
Feb 13, 1997 6:21 AM
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Mainstreaming children with disabilities does cause
> >some problems to arise, such as maintaining order. As a teacher, it is
> >your responsibility to work these difficulties out and provide that
> >child with the education he/she deserves. If you can not do this you
> >should reevaluate your skills as a teacher.
This is an extremely judgemental statement to make and a rather blatant
attempt at playing the guilt game. I teach because I want to give students
the opportunity to explore the life of the mind. I want to spend my
classroom time teaching and/or providing an environment for exploring
mental landscapes. I spend a great deal of time outside of the classroom
preparing to teach. Why is it that my reluctance to take time from the
classroom opportunities of 197 "regular" students (some of whom actually
hunger for intellectual conversation) for 3 mainstreamed students should
cause me to reevaluate my skills as a teacher?
It is not every teachers' responsibility to provide every child with an
education. You miss the point. In their push for inclusion, parents and
advocates of mainstreaming are not saying that their child is entitled to
the same opportunities as "regular" children. They are saying that their
children are entitled to more - a lot more - in terms of money, equipment,
emotional energy and teaching time. The realities of teaching a caseload
of 200 students a day are that no one gets a lot of individual attention.
If you want your child to get more individual attention, they they should
be in classroom which has a lower population - and that is not my class.
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