Maybe I’ll compare the various laws, and implementation therof, on inclusion in education with special regards to both gifted kids and kids with disabilities or something, to straddle disciplines. I hear that Canada does great on inclusive models!
OK, had to bite, but figured this was so off topic - even after just plowing through three pages of billing incentives for doctors
- that a new thread might be in order.
Tigerle - I'd love to hear your impressions of the inclusion model in Canada, looking at it from outside the country, and with your obvious awareness of what's happening in many other places.
We spend so much time screaming about it here that it's undoubtedly instructive every now and then to stop and think about what we might actually be doing right. On the good side, a lot of groups of parents have fought extensively and successfully over the years to get their kids fully included in the regular classroom.
On the challenge side, I have found that we have a major split across spec ed in Canada. The groups who have led the fight for inclusion represent families whose goal is to provide their child with an education experience as close as possible to being exactly the same as everyone else, and who will learn best this way (i.e. kids with physical and intellectual exceptionalities). It is assumed that all spec ed advocates share this goal. However, we also have two groups who want the opposite: a different curriculum and teaching to meet the needs of kids who learn differently (i.e. LD and gifted) - and who won't learn nearly as well if given the same content, teaching, pace, etc as everyone else.
After enormous advocacy efforts over decades to achieve inclusion, the voices who lead in setting spec ed policy cannot believe that anyone would choose "exclusion", still seen as synonymous with "dump the kid in a corner to rot". The idea that I might want my dyslexic child in a room full of similar learners where the teacher can spend 100% of her time addressing those atypical learning needs - from reading remediation to appropriate content and output expectations - is simply baffling. Anathema. Whereas I see it as simple logistics: do I want my child in a class where she is uniquely "incapable", and the teacher can spend at best 1/25th of her time teaching what my DD's needs?
So what does doing great inclusion look like? What do you see in Canada that you think is working? Are there countries/ regions that are successfully implementing it, for real and not just in theory?
