LoveNotHate wrote:
One-sided article, they didn't speak with those that promote segregated schools. They did not provide all the reasons why segregation may be better.
I'll provide a reason why segregation may be better since my daughter now goes to a segregated school.
There are a lot less kids.
My daughter started public school in an inclusion program. The school system had all sorts of supports in place. There were accomodations. There was a tight reign on the NT kids to nip bullying in the bud. There was a culture of inclusion. That worked well for a lot of the special needs kids and they thrived- but not my daughter. There was one thing the school could do nothing about. That one thing is the fact that a public school must educate hundreds of kids per building which also mandates 20-30 kids per classroom. This was a dealbreaker for my daughter. She simply could not handle the physical presence of that many other kids.
That's one thing that inclusion can't fix because it's what inclusion is trying to promote- the inclusion of the autistic child in the far larger group of NT kids. If "far larger group" is not something that the autistic kid can cope with, no matter how welcoming that group is, then the autistic kid will slowly, or perhaps quickly and loudly, fray apart.
Now she goes to a special school. There are only a few dozen other kids in the school rather than hundreds and hundreds. There are 4-8 kids per class instead of 20-30. This is something that only a special school can provide or a private school so tiny that the tuition is catastrophically high to make up for how few students are paying into it.
Neither inclusion nor special schools are a one-size-fits all solution. There is no one best solution because there is no one environment that is best for all students. It is case-by-case.
03 Jun 2014, 9:19 am
