A Negative Experience with Inclusion

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I usually have a positive attitude towards inclusion and think it’s a good thing.

I was somewhat bothered by what I observed when I was subbing as a special ed teacher the other day, though. I was working with special needs students in both their regular classrooms and in a separate space to work briefly one-on-one, following the absent teacher’s instructions.

One little boy who is obviously bright but has some serious learning disabilities (I’m not given any diagnostic information or a copy of IEPs) saw that we were going to be working on math next. His face went very white, he looked sick, and he said that his stomach hurt. His regular teacher said: “He’s fine. He doesn’t need to go to the nurse.”

This kid is in 2nd grade, and it quickly became clear that he does not understand addition from a logical standpoint. He can’t figure out 6+1, 5+5, 2+3, or even 2+1. The problem is that he has to do math sheets that the regular teacher assigns which include subtraction and problems like _+3=9. This is causing everything to get jumbled up in his head, and he is currently worse off than if he had done nothing but counting and addition for the past 3 years. If I was this little boy and had been setup for daily failure, I would have a stomachache, too.

I worked with him by using manipulatives although the special ed. teacher didn’t let me know her current method of choice, and we also did some counting exercises after it was time for me to take him to another room. For problems like 2+3, I gave him 2 markers, told him to take 3 more, and then he counted to see how much we had altogether. He still wasn’t getting it logically, but I wasn’t likely to teach him something in a half hour that the school hasn’t done in 3 years.

He thinks he’s stupid because he’s continually hit with more and more information he’s not currently capable of. This sort of thing kills me.

When I was in elementary school, there were three different math levels per grade: below average, average, and above average. While this system wasn’t without its obvious problems, I think it’s certainly better from an educational standpoint than what my district is currently doing.

Poor kid!

I definitely feel for this kid. Especially the part about getting a bad stomach ache. I get the sense that the other teachers in this scenario believe that he is faking, which he could be, however stress and anxiety can lead to physical pains and feeling sick. Maths anxiety is an issue which I believe is deeply under-addressed. Why is it that such dread in students is accepted as normal? All too often difficulties in maths are just brushed off as the student being unmotivated and lazy. I could easily rant about every time I've been labelled as lazy and unteachable.

When I was in Primary school, I didn't qualify for any extra time or help with exams despite the fact that I was clearly lagging behind. They made each student take a series of tests on logical ability. I scored above average on these tests. As a result, my issues went ignored on the basis of well, it must just be laziness then.

However, in fairness they did try to help on several occasions. I also had difficulties processing how small numbers added or subtracted lead to the new value, my maths was always rather mechanical without true understanding. This made me feel embarrassed and ashamed. I stuck to old, ineffective methods because I was intimidated by the newer ones. My teachers gave me these flash cards with dots on so my parents could go over how many dots equated to what number, and what happens when you add two of these cards together and so on. Unfortunately, I have a rather poor number sense so I have difficulty with grouping items together. I was slow to memorise the number bonds to ten.

Learning how to read time was nightmare (something I still mess up on these days with an analogue clock, especially if it has roman numerals or lacks numbers). I wrote maths equations backwards by accident regularly. Yet despite obviously struggling with maths, most of the time my teachers were more concerned about the fact that I didn't have perfect penmanship. I was eventually allowed to write by mostly printing my letters because the cursive was slowing me down considerably (my school had very specific rules for cursive writing, so specific in fact that a secondary school teacher knew which primary I had come from by how I wrote certain letters). My parents brought up their concern with my maths development multiple times, but were dismissed.

I've felt ill due to anxiety caused by maths before. Sometimes I've even broken down in tears due to frustration. The anxiety can negatively impact concentration on questions. It can cause your mind to draw blanks because you're too stressed to think clearly. Which is why I really wish people would stop dismissing it as kids just disliking maths and not putting effort in.

Simply put, the system is failing children who struggle with maths. We learn to feel ashamed about our lack of ability, and personally I learnt more ways to hide my problems than how to address them (which becomes harder as you get older). Maths became something to fear instead of just another subject. The importance of maths was always stressed so much that it appeared as this big intimidating thing. Unfortunately, the longer these things go unaddressed the harder it becomes. Take it from someone who has failed maths three times. I've always been dismissed in the past due to doing well in other topics/areas.