An inclusive classroom in today’s schools benefits all students. It helps all students be successful. Inclusion in the classroom leads to equality by providing the same academic opportunities. Students learn material side by side. It helps students with disabilities develop social and emotional skills alongside their able-bodied peers.
In the past, students with disabilities were excluded from their peers in schools. Today, special education educators play an important role in adapting lesson plans to meet the unique learning styles of students with disabilities.
Benefit of the Inclusive Classroom
With inclusion, teaching strategies improve, and lessons are tailored to students’ needs. Students develop skills, and attendance improves. Behavioral disruptions are reduced. The downside may be a lack of resources and support staff.
In a diverse, inclusive classroom, students discover commonalities with peers regardless of disabilities. Students show strengths in helping each other. Also, the resources of aides, special education teachers, therapists, and reading and math specialists become available to the whole classroom. They provide information and suggestions that help with lessons. With the additional help of professional resources, students can break into small group instruction.
Disadvantages of Inclusion
An inclusive classroom may not benefit all students. Blind, deaf, and students diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder may hinder all students in the classroom. A large classroom may contain students with severe behavioral disabilities and a teacher with no training and no help because of a lack of funds. These teachers are mostly left on their own in helping disabled students fit into the regular classroom. They struggle to keep other students on track in core subjects. Parents fear that with shrinking school budgets, services to help students in regular classrooms will be nonexistent.
Inclusion Classrooms May Not Help
Many studies about inclusion do not prove positive or negative effects on students’ academic achievement. Studies show that students best learn when they actively and positively engage with content and others. Students must also grow socially and emotionally.
Social-emotional learning helps students learn to cope with their feelings, make decisions, and empathize with others. Friendships for students with disabilities play a key role in their development. Many parents/guardians feel that skills such as respect, cooperation, perseverance, and empathy need to be the focus of schools. However, this is not part of the curriculum.
In an inclusive classroom, empathy plays a crucial role for students with special needs. They need to feel welcome, accepted, and valued. Empathy-based interventions improve social interactions.
Inclusive classrooms give all students the right to the same education. A student’s disabilities need to be regarded as part of diversity, not as a problem. It gives all students the same opportunities.
