Cause and Effects of Inclusion

Cause and Effects of Inclusion

I found the documentary Sean's Story: A Lesson in Life to be a useful tool to monitor Sean's successes and failures. I feel that Inclusion is a misguided effort to drag an entire class to the level of the slowest learner. The argument in the report states that "non-inclusion reduces the disabled students' social importance and that maintaining their social visibility is more important than their academic achievement" (Point, 1994) in my opinion is unacceptable. I feel that the effects of the decision to place Sean in Sparks school, a mainstream classroom are as follows. I do not see how placing more importance on Sean's social visibility would benefit any of the children in this classroom. To place emphasis on socialization over academics is in no way helping Sean and his classmates to prepare for success in their future. The children in this class will be affected academically as the learning curve for required academics will decrease. In most classrooms there is a 1:20 ratio of teachers to students. Most teachers already express frustration at the large classes. Sean will need individual specialized instruction in a highly controlled structured environment that will not be possible with only one teacher. The school district will be required to hire the specialized remedial teachers to work with Sean. He will need to have an IEP that maps out the schools goals for his education, due to his placement in a normal learning environment these goal will not be met. The other children in this classroom will be losing time and attention that is necessary to increase their learning curve; the results will be increased failure rate and weak test scores. The inability of Sean to focus on assignments that are required of the other children is going to create a delay in daily activity of the class curriculum and animosity with the other students. So the question remains, is this mainstream school actually helping or hindering his social visibility, when the teachers are frustrated and his peers are angry that Sean is not required to maintain the same academic performance as they are. I do believe this is hindering all aspects of Sean's education.

Sean's physical education teacher states the " I do not have any time for the other students in this class because I spend the whole class time chasing Sean" implies this teachers frustration is real and that Sean cannot handle the lack of structure that is necessary for his physical education class. I also wonder if the same is true for Sean's other classes such as art and music. I think the teacher's attitudes towards Sean would eventually become negative and that would result in them almost dreading Sean's presence in their classes, which would make Sean feel bad about him and lower his self-esteem.

I believe that the parents of the other children in Sean's classroom would also have an issue with decreased learning curves, behavioral issues,