A little boy steps off the bus, confused by his unexpected surroundings. This year—the year he starts kindergarten—the bus stops at the backdoor of a new school, instead of the front entrance of his neighborhood school, after a much longer bus ride. Maybe he knows he’s being ushered into this new school through the backdoor, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he even knows the classroom he enters is segregated from his peers. We assume he doesn’t know, because he doesn’t talk about it, because he can’t talk about it. You see, this little boy is my own son, and he is autistic. We assume he’s unaware that he’s being treated differently (not equally), but we can’t be sure. Of one thing I am sure: If he’s not aware of it now, he will be aware of it when he’s older, just like the many autistic adults speaking in favor of neurodiversity.
Unlike past forms of segregation, my son doesn’t spend his entire day in the special education room. He visits the regular classroom and his peers are told that, even though he doesn’t stay in their room, he is part of their class. He comes in with an aide who helps him participate. Then, when it’s all too much, she takes him away. The school system recognizes his educational needs differ from those of his peers and claims those needs cannot be met in a regular classroom. I know my son’s needs are not met in a regular classroom, but does that really mean they cannot be? I grew up learning that “different but equal” is not equal at all. Sadly, that doesn’t apply to my children or others like them, because our society fails to recognize people with atypical neurological development as equals at all.
Some refer to this forced inequality as disabilism and see it manifested in pervasive ways throughout our society. Disablism refers to the societal tendency to single out, exclude or mistreat people with impairments, because of those impairments. Segregated classrooms for the cognitively disabled are only one example of disablism. Disabilism is institutionalized into the public education system, in part, by the behavior of teachers, service providers, and administrators that Dr. Thomas Armstrong, an educator and author out of California, calls the disability discourse, which he described as “an institutionalized discourse consisting of specific words such as ‘disability’ ‘disorder’ ‘deficit’ and ‘dysfunction’ to describe the lives of these children.” These societal behaviors shape the environment in which all of our children learn and grow. Telling children a segregated child is part of their class, while well-intentioned, still fails to integrate that child into their class.
Unfortunately, the regular classroom is not only designed to exclude specific students from the learning environment it fails to include any child in the learning environment. The public school system is designed to teach standardized curricula. It is not designed to teach the individual students expected to learn that curricula. Individual teachers can transform that environment into something special, but this ability is not a requirement for employment and often the resources to do so must be found outside the public school system. This fundamental flaw is not the fault of individual teachers, principals, or school boards, but is built into the educational system itself.
Our children are unique with individual needs that can only be met when they are treated as people, instead of a homogenized group. Our children do not come standardized. Yet, our educational goals and the learning environment we create to meet those goals are standardized. Our children get pushed through the system regardless of what they learn. Unless, of course, their needs stand out so much that the system rejects them. The child who does not and cannot fit the standardized mold is diverted into the special education system. There, they face the unfortunate reality that they are not deemed equal in our society. They are different, but not equal; and disabilism and the disability discourse shape their futures.
Neurodiversity is a two-fold concept that can change the public educational system for all children. Neurodiversity refers to a civil rights movement crafted by autistics that seeks true equality for people with cognitive disorders and mental illnesses—founded on the belief that neurological differences are natural human variations and deserve the rights, accommodations, and acceptance any other human difference deserves. Neurodiversity also recognizes that neurological development is not standardized. Everyone develop unique neurological processes that should be recognized, respected, and facilitated.
Everyone is neurologically diverse. Everyone has unique educational needs our education system fails to meet. Instead of designing an education system that meets the individual needs of our children, we have designed an education system that meets societal needs for measurements, cost-control, and resource allocation. Changes to IEP legislation that require recording strengths as well as needs, separating a grade into groups that study different levels of mathematics or reading, using inclusive language, and telling students that those segregated in the special education system are part of their class address surface issues. But the problem goes much, much deeper. Our education system is fundamentally flawed. It does not meet, nor is it designed to meet, the needs of the students we wish to educate.
Our children deserve an education system designed to meet their individual learning needs. Our children deserve a learning environment that teaches children, not curricula. Our children deserve teachers that are trained and qualified to teach them as individuals, recognizing and meeting their individual education needs. An Individual Education Plan shouldn’t be a privilege reserved for students with special needs, but should be provided to all students. Our school systems need holistic change. We need to re-think how we teach, what we teach, and who we are teaching. We need to rethink the qualifications our educators need and we need to rethink the needs our schools should be required to meet.
Change comes slowly and painfully. Holistic change may be easy to envision, but it is very difficult to achieve. It won’t happen this year or next year. But it can happen. Change requires a lot of work, a lot of planning, and often a new allocation of resources. An individualized education provided by well-trained, highly-qualified, and fully-resourced staff doesn’t come cheap. But our children are our future and they are worth the work and they are worth the money. The real question is: Will we afford our children the respect and consideration they deserve?
You either are great at propaganda or have no clue what you’re talking about.
Lurker, this is the kind of comment I was talking about. You’re adding nothing but your own, unexplained skepticism expressed through a personal attack.
So, let’s try something a bit more specific. Do you disagree with my personal take on the utility and applicability of the concept of neurodiversity? Do you disagree with my description of the U.S. public school system? Or, do you disagree with something else entirely?
1. Ignore Lurker. Don’t feed trolls, etc. etc. etc.
2. I have mixed feelings about complete integration. Namely, I interned in a self-contained room for years, and may be returning there this winter. It was a wonderful environment, and I remember wishing that I had been educated in one when I was younger. I found it was much easier for the kids to receive the very individualized education they needed in such a setting. That said, there was also great value and emphasis placed on joining their classes regularly, with varying levels of support, and that was just as important for the other kids in the classroom as it was for them. I’m just saying that full inclusion isn’t always desirable. It did me more harm than good, I think.
3. Have you considered what the effect of an IEP for every kid would be? Everyone is neurologically diverse, and yes our classrooms need to do a better job adjusting for that, but I’m not convinced that added paperwork is the solution. Most kids fit within a certain spectrum of abilities, needs, and learning styles. They *can* be taught as a group. It is only a very few who need the extra attention and accommodations an IEP provides.
I’m at college now, and receiving academic accommodations for the first time in my life. My chemistry professor, while giving me an oral exam, remarked that she was glad that this worked so well for me and didn’t mind doing it, but if she had to do this for everyone she’d never get anything else done! The problem is the same at the lower levels of education.
Just some thoughts.
Almandite,
“1. Ignore Lurker. Don’t feed trolls…”
If Lurker is willing to engage in discussion, I’m willing to oblige. However, discussion is needed or else I will ignore the comment. But, “don’t feed trolls” is too much along the lines of dismissing people who disagree for my personal tastes. It’s a personal choice.
“Namely, I interned in a self-contained room for years, and may be returning there this winter. It was a wonderful environment…”
The environment of a self-contained room depends a great deal on the principal, the teacher(s), and the aides. Like any other classroom, the staff can rise above the minimum requirements to create something special. However, the willingness and ability to do so is not a requirement. Furthermore, if a child follows the traditional pattern, a bad teacher is generally out of the child’s life after a year. In a segregated classroom, the child could be subjected to that teacher for years. Too much hinges on the quality of staff and the quality of staff is subject to too much variablity to the “wonderful environment” argument to sway me too much.
Early Childhood, for example, is a self-contained environment. It could be considered segregated, because children with special needs are receiving a service not available to all students. This is not exactly true, because (at least around here) typically-developing peers are included in the environment as models; so it’s selective, but not segregated. In this environment, my children have had some really great teachers and have been included in some “wonderful environments.” Luckily, this was the first experience we had with such an environment. We moved, and the next school was not wonderful. We were able to move again to get back to the wonderful environment. The quality of staff really does make a huge difference.
After Early Childhood, segregated classrooms are much more problematic. The school my younger children attend tries very hard, and for the most part they do a good job (three different teachers in three years, so we’ve already seen quite a bit of variability). But… My children still aren’t treated as equals. They are segregated, and that has both short-term and long-term effectives on their development.
“I’m just saying that full inclusion isn’t always desirable. It did me more harm than good, I think.”
If you’re in college and receiving academic accommodations for the first time, you weren’t in a fully inclusive environment. Full inclusion programs are different than mainstreaming kids on the borderline. Full inclusion would have provided you with necessary supports. It would also have provided your peers with necessary supports for accepting and including you.
“3. Have you considered what the effect of an IEP for every kid would be? Everyone is neurologically diverse, and yes our classrooms need to do a better job adjusting for that, but I’m not convinced that added paperwork is the solution.”
If we were to merely add all kids to the current, bureaucratic system of individualize education, the system would be overrun. But that’s not what I’m suggesting. The system itself does not work. If it did, we wouldn’t have so many kids dropping out, we wouldn’t have so many students graduating without being able to read or do basic mathematics, and we wouldn’t see a need for so many charter schools and similar alternative programs to try to educate kids. Tweaking the system won’t work. My suggestion has nothing to do with adding more paperwork, and everything to do with actually thinking about the specific needs of individual students.
The system needs to be re-designed–everything should be subject to question, nothing of what we’re doing should be kept unless it can be proven that it is effective and valuable. It’s a big, huge dream that I probably won’t see in my lifetime, and may never come to pass. I realize that. But, it absolutely disgusts me that, in the U.S., we spend more educating consumers (by billions of dollars) than we do educating our kids. Our priorities are wrong.
“Most kids fit within a certain spectrum of abilities, needs, and learning styles. They *can* be taught as a group.”
To some extent, they can be, and teaching students in this manner is efficient. But it is not the most effective way to teach them. Many students fall behind without having needs exceptional enough to boot them out of the system. Very few students are taught in a manner that lives up to their potential to learn. Even fewer of those students do so without receiving exceptional assistance that comes from either getting extra time with the teacher (I, myself, benefitted from a lot of that) or having parents that can afford educational opportunities outside the school system.
The U.S. doesn’t prioritize teaching our children effectively, we prioritize teaching our children efficiently. Learning effectiveness is sacrificed in favor of the efficiency of standardization.
Stephanie,
It’s absolutely your choice what to do with Lurker. I’ve watched his behavior dissolve on several blogs, and I hate seeing people get attacked. That’s all.
I see your point on the trickiness of segregated classes. It’s an important one. But I would argue that inclusive classes can be just as variable. I really do believe that some children benefit from a more structured, adapted, and private classroom for at least part of the day than can be practically provided in a mainstream class.
I apologize for getting my terminology wrong.
As for education reform…it’s such a big challenge that I don’t even know where to begin! A lot needs to change, that’s for sure!
At least the consumer lessons are ones that we can hopefully use.
But if we were properly educated as kids, we probably wouldn’t need to use them in the first place, because we would fill the holes that would normally be filled by consuming.
Segregated environments would probably include Montessori (which may have been on this blog before) or Steiner/Waldorf. Both of those have the teacher for more than one year.
Almandite,
“I’ve watched his behavior dissolve on several blogs, and I hate seeing people get attacked. That’s all.”
I certainly appreciate that. I’ve observed his(?) behavior on other blogs as well. Sometimes he(?) actually brings up relevant points.
“But I would argue that inclusive classes can be just as variable.”
I do, too, but I also believe adequate training, proper support (for teachers & students), and proper funding would go a long way to alleviate that. Of course, that starts with create changes at the college level and recruiting more students so schools can be adequately staffed with trained personnel. Like I said, it’s a big dream.
“I really do believe that some children benefit from a more structured, adapted, and private classroom for at least part of the day than can be practically provided in a mainstream class.”
I agree, and there are ways to adapt programs for that need. Willy is included in the mainstream environment, but gets one-on-one support as needed. He has a visual schedule, he can take sensory breaks, and he’s pulled out from the classroom for testing and some other purposes. He’s also truly part of the class.
The difference, of course, is that Willy’s language skills are almost on par with his peers, so despite the modifications, he’s covering the same material at the same speed. Alex and Ben are not so educated. Their lesson plans are entirely different, which means (unfortunately) that they will never get the depth and breadth of formal education that Willy gets, because they will always be behind. Full inclusion wouldn’t change that aspect of it, at least not without significant changes in how we teach non-verbal children.
When it was determined in Alex’s IEP (years ago) that Alex would be shipped off to a different school, we went round and round. In the end, it came down to a logistics problem: Nobody at our homeschool was adequately trained to provide the educational support and lesson plans that Alex would need. Every other reason for segregation had a way around it. This was the clincher.
“I apologize for getting my terminology wrong.”
Not a problem. I’m not sure how established the distinction I make is. A lot of people, especially those in education, use them interchangeably. Personally, I think the distinction of support is very important.
“As for education reform…it’s such a big challenge that I don’t even know where to begin! A lot needs to change, that’s for sure!”
I agree. That’s why I’d like to see the whole system re-evaluated. Perhaps, if such an evaluation were to occur, they would come up with an entirely different solution that I cannot imagine. But, the problems are so pervasive that piece-meal fixes aren’t really going to correct the problem. We’ve been doing that for centuries, and it really doesn’t seem to be working.
Adelaide,
“At least the consumer lessons are ones that we can hopefully use.”
By educating consumers, I was referring to advertisements and other forms of marketing communications. How many advertisements do you find useful? (That tidbit came out of an advertising textbook — oddly, it was something the authors seemed proud of.)
“But if we were properly educated as kids, we probably wouldn’t need to use them in the first place, because we would fill the holes that would normally be filled by consuming.”
I suspect, at the very least, if our education system was more effective we’d have more discerning consumers. A basic understanding of critical thinking goes a long way to remaining skeptical about marketing messages.
“Segregated environments would probably include Montessori (which may have been on this blog before) or Steiner/Waldorf. Both of those have the teacher for more than one year.”
In the environment Alex & Ben are in, they have the same special education teacher throughout grade school. At least, they would if the teacher stuck around. So far one retired and one had a baby and decided to stay home afterwards, so it’s not like people are leaving because of the school. But, aside from staff changes, they’ll have the same special education teacher throughout their grade school years. I’m not sure about middle or high school.
At this school, they also have a rotating schedule. Two years in a row with the same regular education teacher.