Inclusion

I think this thread on inclusion is really interesting. I see education as going from one extreme (self-containing all) to the other (inclusion at the sacrifice of individualized services).

Here's our situation:

Emily started grade school in a self-contained non-cat classroom. The kids were speech/language, mild MR, LD, ADHD, etc. Emily was the youngest in the class and "overall" the highest functioning in a school setting, but other kids had various social and language skills that were stronger than hers.

Emily isn't and wasn't considered to be on the spectrum but she had/has serious delays nonetheless. The class was 10 students with 3 teachers. I think this class gave her the skills to be able to mainstream part-day as the year went on, and now mainstream full time with a little help here and there. From the beginning, the kids were mainstreamed for specials, etc., so that was at least a couple of hours a day.

My friend's district didn't have such a program. They were ahead of the curve on mainstreaming, and self-containment was saved for very severely retarded kids, etc. A special ed teacher was in the room much of the day. Now she is in 2nd grade and she is having trouble keeping up. Now the district is making more self-contained classroom for the kids that can't keep up.

Believe me, our school needs work and you have to fight for everything. But I prefer the way I did it - we used the self-contained to build a foundation, then mainstreamed. If along the way we find she can't learn something in the classroom, we can pull her out for those things.

There's a fine balance between the need for social modeling and the need for one-on-one teaching, and those needs change at different times. What I find is that schools go one way or another, instead of the optimal way. Our school is now on this "neighborhood school" kick, where a non-cat is being added to each school. So instead of going to a school with a program geared toward your child, you have a catch-all "non-cat" or you mainstream. And believe me, the non-cats vary a lot. There are some that would have been a disaster for Emily.

Anyone want to talk about their path and why they chose it (and whether they had a choice)?