education of children with special needs

Recently I have been thinking a lot about how children with special needs are treated and educated. In mainstream schools, the staff aren't always trained on how to work with children with special needs. Some people have stereotypes of how children with disabilities or certain syndromes should act or how they learn. That is frustrating and it can be very difficult on the parents. There seams to be this permeating view in some places that in order to be in a mainstream school, the children have to be able to make progress on the curriculum as it is. If they were able to do that, they wouldn't have a cognitive impairment and need my support, now would they? Other mainstream schools want to learn how to work with children with learning difficulties.

I think part of the issue is that integration is tricky and a relatively new phenomenon. It takes a lot to be successful. There have been numerous studies in the U.S. and one conference that I went to a few years ago cited research that children need to be in a class at least 50% of the time in order to be considered part of the class. That can be tricky in places where children have spend part of their day in two different classrooms. In order for education to work, I think there has to be an overall acceptance of differences on the part of all of the staff and the children. Children are curious and want to know why others are different. Children will ask why Johnny has trouble talking, why Suzie is in a wheelchair. I think if the adults in their lives are open and accepting, the children are more likely to be as well.

Another integral part of education of children with special needs is the acknowledgment that education is not just book learning (and this goes for typically developing children as well). Education is learning how to be a friend, how to be a citizen, how to be a good member of the community. It involves work ethic and helping each other out. It is realizing that people have different strengths and that is alright. It is good in fact. By educating people with special needs along with their typically developing peers, everyone learns. I understand that it isn't that simple. Really, I do. There are a lot of issues. There is a lack of funding. There is a lack of training. There are biases of adults. But it can work.