Inclusion model
Every child is entitled to have access to high quality education, whether disabled or not disabled. That is the reason as to why the inclusion system, suggests the least restrictive environment for students with disabilities of any other form. The inclusion system suggests the integration of students in the same learning environment with the other students, and this system should be supported by the members of staff of different schools and the general society. Inclusion model Inclusion is part of the requirements of the federal law of No Child Left Behind.
Considering the idea of inclusion with that of mainstreaming, mainstreaming involves the students spending most of their learning time in regular classroom setting, and then they are taken for medical attention and other special services for the rest of the remaining time. For full inclusion, students with special education needs are allowed to spend all their time in the general classrooms with the students who are not disabled. In situations of full inclusion the professionals can offer special assistance to the students in the classrooms without the students being set aside from the rest (Valeo 2008).
Various people, who support the idea of inclusion, suggest that students with special educations needs, need to be included with others in the regular learning classroom. This is because they believe that the special education needs can be met more effectively in a regular classroom setting that in special classrooms, that separates them from the other students in the education institutions. Though they support the idea of inclusion in special education, the advocates of inclusion do not support the idea of full inclusion, as there are severe disabilities whose needs cannot all be met in a regular classroom.
To address these severe cases, there is need to provide special education services, that is provided in special education classrooms (Yuen et al 2008). These advocates propose further, that for full inclusion to be considered as a way of meeting the special education needs, the present education structures will need to be improved. This will include taking into consideration the special needs of various students in schools so as to address those specific needs. This is in appreciating the fact that, students with special needs need to get customized instructions.
This can be the only way in which the inclusion method can be a reality, in addressing the special needs of students with disabilities, in the general classroom situations (Cavkaytar et al 2008). Models in inclusion For any inclusion system (Schmidt and Cargan 2008) to be successive at achieving the major goals and objectives, of the laws that seek to achieve equality of performance standards of all students several ideas or models have to be used within this system. Some of these models include the use of case by case model.
In the case by case model, programs are designed for students with different special needs to an extent that each program is able to address the needs of the students in that group. The students are first of all assessed, to determine their specific needs so as to design quality programs. The model is very useful in cases where, the students to be taken for the inclusion program are encouraged to adapt to the new system quickly, and developing a positive attitude of teachers towards inclusion system.
The negative side of the model is that, in some cases the educational institutions may not be supporting the inclusion ideas, which may make them to withdraw all the support that is needed to carry out such programs. Model also does not involve other important parties, like the parents of the students who can support the programs to achieve the required success (Valeo 2008). The pilot programs are part of the models, which can be used in inclusion. They enable the teachers to test out, if the inclusion programs could work while considering different factors in the environment.
This will enable the teachers to identify the necessary requirements, which can encourage successful inclusion programs (Mundia 2006). The disadvantage with this model is that people are likely to take the inclusion program as another special program, instead of the program that is intended for all the students in a school. In other occasions, the pilot programs tend to cause an additional burden to the schools, that will undertaken them as they would be required to provide the needed funds to run the program as part of the inclusion strategy (Ali et al 2006).
The phase-in model is also used to make the inclusion programs, be part of the educational programs in the education system. The model advocates for using the subjects that are taught in schools, as a basis for integrating the inclusion programs to the education system (Ali et al 2006). The important side of doing this is to ensure that students get comfortable with the others before going to the full inclusion system. On the other side, if the students are not informed well about the program, they are likely to oppose it, which will affect the success of the implementation of the inclusion programs (Katz and Mirenda 2002).
After a number of planning and implementation programs have been carried out, a full inclusion model can be used to make the inclusion programs part of the education programs of the school. At this stage the schools will experience many changes as they try to make a stable general learning environment for all its students (Katz and Mirenda 2002). For the inclusion system to work out well so as to bring the required performance results, some structures are necessary to carry out the requirements of the program.
There is need to have interactive teaching sessions within the classrooms, whereby the parties involved in the learning process, combine their efforts to teach the students as they present different subject concepts. Teachers should be able to handle the students in small groups so as to make it easy to pass on the different concepts to the students in an effective manner. In that manner the teacher should be able to give the same type of information to all the groups of students so as to avoid confusions that can arise in different message contents (Yuen et al 2008).
Such kind of structures (Katz and Mirenda 2002) will be able to work well when the different stakeholders for the education programs support the inclusion idea. The management of the schools should encompass people from all the fields of the education system so as to be able to structure the school curriculums to include issues that affect the students in the learning environments. The members of staff should also be organized in a manner, which will enable them to collaborate in their educational activities.
The organization of members of staff should include their continuous training, which will enable them to meet the needs of the students in the educational institutions. The parents should also be involved in the inclusion programs, whereby they are encouraged to take part in the various activities of their children while at home and at school. This is a way in which the schools will create partnerships in the general society where students come from (Waddington and Reed 2006). Students and inclusion
There are many researches that have been carried out in the area of inclusion, to assess how the students feel about being integrated in the school systems. Different researchers have been able to come up with results, which show that the students in such settings will develop different concepts about themselves especially in academics and physically appearance among other characteristics. The disabled students that are involved in the inclusion settings, tend to perceive themselves in a less positive way, when they compare themselves with their counterparts who are not disabled (Yuen et al 2008).
The self concept of students (Waddington and Reed 2006) encompasses how the students perceive themselves as individuals. This is in terms of what the student is, his or her goals and objectives, and his or her self esteem. How a student will be able to perceive him or her self is contributed by various factors in the external environment of learning. Such factors are contributed by the teachers, students and their parents in the way they will interact with the student (Yuen et al 2008).
When the students with disabilities are shown acceptance in the society in which they live, they will be able to develop positive attitudes of themselves by showing more respect and reducing hostile behaviors towards others. The significance of self concept is emphasized by (Yuen et al 2008), that illustrate self efficacy can influence the needs and expectations of a student with disability. When high self efficacy is met, the student will respond in a positive way to others. This will translate to positive results in the personal relationships with the other students, and teachers and high performance standards (Ali et al 2006).
Following the above analysis on the self concept of students, the issue of self concept should be addressed in inclusion. This is because the idea of self concept is a key area, which needs to be looked at so as to ensure that inclusion programs result in the success, that they are intended to give to the all students especially the handicapped. This is because the development of students does not only depend on making the students relate with the others well in the same classroom setting but it also depends on how the students are able to accept their potential in academics, social environment and their appearance (Waddington and Reed 2006).
Attitudes towards the inclusive model According to the researches that have been carried out in the area of special education, there are several attitudes that people tend to have towards special education programs like inclusive education. Basically the inclusive system has posed many challenges to countries that have are trying to use this ideas (Ali et al 2006). Most of the people especially the teachers tend to have a negative attitude, towards the inclusion systems. This is because they feel that inclusion is not a real situation, in any education environment, which would like to promote high education standards for all students.
As most of the educational institutions have not been structured in manner, that is able to encourage the integration of students with different needs, the inclusion systems are illusions to many people that are involved in the educational programs. The illusions are likely to exist because as of now, most educational institutions do not have enough teaching experiences in inclusion and there are little opportunities to gain such an experience in most countries (Ali et al 2006).
The attitudes of different individuals towards the inclusion system, is influenced by factors that most people like teachers and other educationists feel affect the success of this programs. For example different students are faced with different levels of disabilities, and inclusion can not be the best strategy to handle all the disabilities. For students with physical disability, the inclusion system can work well than for those with intellectual disabilities (Ali et al 2006).
The teachers who have worked for a long time under the special education departments do not support the ideas, as compared to the new teachers because the do not have enough experience on the kind of problems that an inclusion program will have to the students. To improve on the attitudes of people towards the inclusion system, there is need to train the teachers on how they should handle the students with disabilities. This is because developing a positive is a necessary ingredient towards a successive inclusion system (Ali et al 2006).
The other factors that influence the attitudes of teachers’ towards the inclusive programs are those, which are related towards the schools that undertake the inclusion programs. In schools where the teachers are empowered to take new ways of teaching their students, and structuring lessons for their students, the attitudes of teachers are positive. Such empowerment should be accompanied by conducive working environments, financial support, and improving their professionalism in carrying out their teaching jobs. As discussed in (Ali et al 2006) female teachers tend to have positive attitudes as compared to their male counterparts.
The reason for this that female teachers tend to have that motherly care, that mothers feel for their children that motivates them to dedicate their time to serving the students with special needs. In addition to that, teachers that are teaching in higher levels of education are more positive to the inclusion system as compared to those in the low levels. this is because they train students who have already been trained from the low levels as such they do not understand the commitment that is needed to train the special education classes as their counterparts in the lower levels (Ali et al 2006).
Conclusion The general conclusion is that the teachers feel that inclusive ideas can be very successful if the classrooms are made conducive to the all the students because they are able to influence the positive development of the students. So as to facilitate quick compliance to the law on equality education rights to all the children, the inclusion model will need to be structured in such a way that the schools can find it easy to carry out most of the recommendations that have been made by the in the united states of America. Word count 2235 References
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