When Inclusion Works.....it’s Elementary, Even in Middle School!


When I first started teaching, I worked as a special educator in an inner city middle school in the United States.  As the Individuals of Education with Disabilities Act (IDEA 1997) was just being passed, our school was a hybrid of an inclusive philosophy.  If students could manage in their regular classrooms with very limited support, accommodations or modifications, they could be there.  If not, they would be scheduled into a “resource room” class in a content area (Language Arts, Math, Science or Social Studies).  Those with serious emotional needs were confined to a class in the basement and the students requiring life skills had a small room off the library.  So, basically, as special educators we had to “fit” a child into one of those programs and rarely were we able to offer anything in between if the child didn’t quite fit appropriately.  Like jamming a round peg into a square hole, we had to use a hammer, metaphorically speaking, to get all the students to fit.

I was assigned to teach a 7th grade resource room math class and being a first year teacher at the time, I had really only been trained in special needs, not curriculum content belonging to middle school math.  I had a class of 12 students, all with IEPs.   Not having any resources to draw from (no Google back in those days) all I could do was consult with one of the 7th grade math teacher for ideas.  I assessed my students’ abilities in math and realized many of them, with regular practice, were pretty proficient in their math facts.  They weren’t quick at them, but I was pretty sure, being tagged as a “resource room math kid” for most of their school career, basic computation was about all that had been covered.  So I started each day with a basic practice concept but really felt that based on what the 7th grade math teacher was doing in her classroom, I could introduce the kids to those topics.  If I could teach them in a way they could understand, I was pretty sure they could get it. 

And get it they did! 

By the end of the first quarter, my students, in addition to maintaining and enhancing their computational fluency, really started to comprehend the regular 7th grade objectives!  Sure, they may have needed more hands on instruction, more manipulatives, more examples to draw from, but they were getting it!  I was so proud of them but I was also keenly aware I was providing them a mainstream education in a special needs, resource class….certainly this was not within the spirit of which this new law was being passed. 
I knew these students deserved a chance in the regular classroom.

I sat with my friend, Mrs. Jones, a 7th grade math teacher, and told her my story.  I had identified at least 5 kids who could be and should be included immediately in her class.  After a discussion with the principal, multiple changes to children’s schedules and time consuming IEP meetings, we piloted this opportunity. 

The caveat was this:  I was to co-teach with Mrs. Jones every single day during this class period.  We were to plan together, teach together and reflect together for every student every day.   We worked in an inner city school where we certainly had under achievers in the regular classrooms and Mrs. Jones could see the benefit of both of us being there.  So we added five children to her class halfway through the second quarter. 

With her content knowledge coupled with my abilities to plan lessons that targeted various learning styles, we were a hit.  ALL students were learning and achieving.  For the rest of the year all of these students, who had been “fit” into a special needs class, looked no different than the rest of their classmates.  Sure, they struggled sometimes but with an effective differentiated approach and two teachers cohesively working together, the result…well, it was magic.

We knew it was working.  We could just feel it in the class dynamics, the excitement and positive energy in the kids…and in the data.  We conducted a survey of the class at the end of the year to determine if the children liked having the co-teaching approach to their learning.  All but two kids said they preferred having two teachers…the two that didn’t were part of the original mainstream class and they stated that now they couldn’t get away with passing notes between the two of them like they used to!
 
Back then we didn’t have standards based grading and still used the “old fashioned” letter based grades….but from the first quarter to the last quarter, every single child, without exception, improved their report card scores by one whole letter grade.

From the next year on, many teachers decided to follow suit and we continued to enhance and grow the co-teaching model which, in turn, improved the learning for all the children involved.

This was in 1997….Fourteen years ago…and yet still, I feel the need to share this story to try to convince people how powerful and beneficial inclusion practices, when done right, can be.   Did it work? Are you sold?

Do you have an inclusion “story from the field” to share?  If so email me and we just may post it on our blog as a “guest story!”

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