Special Education Becoming Less Special?

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Recommended: Positive effects of special education

Imagine a classroom in a typical high school; a teacher is explaining a lesson in Algebra. All of a sudden, there is an ear-splitting screech from the back of the classroom and a book goes hurling towards the chalkboard. One’s first instinct would be to whip around and see what the commotion was about; however, it is just Toby, the special needs child. This class encounters outbursts like this from Toby nearly everyday. The mainstreaming of special education students is the main reason behind these disruptions. Some of these pupils spend up to 80 percent of their day in a standard classroom setting. Inclusion of disabled students into a customary classroom has become a growing trend in many public schools throughout America in the past few decades. Because of this, mainstreaming is affecting the students, their peers, and their educators. (“Special Education”).

Vast majorities of people believe that the inclusion of disabled children is one of the most effective ways to improve the social and educational skill of these special needs students. However, this is not an ideal situation for the majority of these children to be dealing with on a daily basis. Placing a special needs child into a standard classroom actually causes them to learn less. For example, they do not obtain the attention needed, and lessons may be gone over to hurriedly for them. Due to this, the lesson being demonstrated would not be able to be comprehended by the pupil. In other words, a teacher would have to recreate and reshape lesson plans around one or two individual learners. The normal classroom setting merely allows these children to slip through the hands of teachers, becoming passed from educator-to-educator attempting to get out of the system as ...

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...r rather have them succeed in a specialized classroom setting? Well, the choice is up to you parents; now tell me, what would you decide? (“Special Education”).

Works Cited

Reynolds, Tammy, and Dombeck, Mark. “The Choice of Educational Settings: The Pros

and Cons of Mainstreaming Children With Intellectual Disabilities.” Seven

Counties Services, Inc. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.

http://www.2facts.com/icof_story.aspx?PIN=i1200490%term=mainstreaming.

Np. “Special Education.” Issues and Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues &

Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 7 Sept. 2007. Web. 23 Feb 2012.

http://www.2facts.com/article/i1200490.

“Teachers Under Fire.” American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 9: 1980-

1989. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Print. 5 Mar. 2012.

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