I remember 20 years ago when I was getting a bachelor's degree in private education and a friend of mine told me about getting a degree in elementary education that his father, the school principal, said I probably would not waste my time getting a master's degree in special education. Private education would eventually vanish from public education. I was about to finish with my masters at this stage, so I figured I would have to take advantage of my chance in that, along with any other option I have anyway at this stage?

I got a special education job and studied for 10 years. There was a lot of ups and downs during those ten years, and finally I decided I wanted a change so I got a certificate and turned into high school history. At this point in my career, I remembered what my friend said a decade ago and asked if you were ahead of the curve on schools that no longer needed private education teachers, even though they were 10 years later. I wondered if my job was safe now in my new home in the History Department.

Well, I loved to teach history, but life has its funny ways that do not fit with us and what we want, so after a decade of teaching history, I personally got a first class education on budget cuts and my job was canceled. Thank God, I landed on my feet again in private education, believe it or not.

It has been more than two decades since my colleague at the graduate school told me that the need for special education teachers was disappearing. During the past two decades, my friend from the graduate school went to a primary school teacher to the assistant principal, just like his father did. I had moved from a graduate school to a special education teacher to a history teacher to return to a special education teacher, like anyone else I did not know he had done. Believe it or not, there is still a range of private education opportunities available when you landed there for the second time. In fact, there were already many jobs there because there was a shortage of special education teachers in 49 of our 50 states. Imagine it ... Two decades after I was told that your education would go away, I find that it still seems that they can not get enough special education teachers.

Fast Forward A few more years to the day, there is a new and interesting development affects your education called full integration. Now integration is nothing new to our schools. As a matter of fact, the inclusion of a long history in our schools.

Six decades ago there was a Supreme Court case in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1954 the new land law became integrated schools for all races. Four decades ago, the Education for Persons with Disabilities Act (IDEA) came into effect and helps to ensure that more than 6 million students with disabilities receive free and appropriate education, which means that they will also be included in the public education community.

To help this happen, the schools create a Planning and Placement Team (PPT) that meets and discusses the IEP and then places the student in the appropriate learning environment based on the student's needs and the law. The position must also have a less restrictive environment (LRE). I still remember my university professor, who describes the least restrictive environment in a short story, that he would not bring an automatic rifle to take care of a fly. Alternatively, one can only bring a flyer from a fly to take care of the fly. In other words, if a child's disability can be dealt with in the neighborhood school, the child should not be sent through the city or even to a private school in another city.

Today, many schools are trying to improve this inclusion model and the least restrictive environment by moving from a partial model to a comprehensive model. Schools in the Los Angeles area of schools have moved the vast majority of their students from their private education centers in the last three years to neighborhood schools where they have been fully integrated into optional classes such as physical education, gardening and cooking. They are also incorporated into regular regular academic classes, but they are usually not the same as electives.

Michigan schools say they want to break the walls between public education and private education, creating a system where students get more help when they need it, and that does not require a separate classroom for education.

Some school districts in Portland, Oregon are a little further than the Los Angeles schools that bring special education students back from private schools and schools in Michigan that have just begun trying to fully integrate their students and eliminate most of their special education classes.

Being a little further in the process of Portland makes an interesting case study. Many parents who initially supported the idea of integrating special education students into regular Portland classrooms are now concerned about how the public school system in Portland is doing so. Portland aims to fully integrate by 2020. However, some Portland teachers say: "It is clear that special education students will fail and act because we do not meet their needs ... if there is no proper support there, it is unacceptable, not just for the child , But for the general education teacher as well. "

One of Portland's parents said, "I'd rather have a daughter than a college." "I want my children to be good, good human beings that make the world a better place, I do not think they necessarily need to go to college to do it, I think children are individuals. When we stop treating them as individuals, there's a problem." Unfortunately, many parents and teachers have left the Portland area for schools, and many of them fear this because they feel that the full integration model does not work there how they picture it.

How many schools should integrate students' education is a burning question for the hour. In my personal experience, some integration is not only possible, but necessary. With some support, many students can have special education in formal education classes.

A few years ago, I even had a paraplegic child in a wheelchair who was on a respirator while sitting in my class of social studies for normal education. Every day, his school and his nurse came in and sat down with him. He was always smiling at the tales I told her about Alexander the Great through 11,000 miles of land and conquering much of the world known at the time. By the way, Alexander the Great also practiced his own model of integration by encouraging kindness to his invasion and encouraging his soldiers to marry the women of the region who were captured in order to create lasting peace.

Another important factor to consider in the inclusion of special education is the need for necessary socialization and the provision of money integration offers. Children learn from other children and money can be spent not spending on private education on public education, right? they ...

If you notice, I said earlier that many students can be incorporated into your education, but I did not say everything or even more should be incorporated. There are some students who will take a lot of teacher time and interest from other students, such as students with severe behavioral problems. When we put severe behavioral problems in formal education classes, this is an outright injustice to all the other children who are there. Similar situations can be made for other acute disabilities that require a lot of time and individual attention to the mainstream teacher.

Hey, I never say to try a child with severe disability in the general education environment. But what I am saying is that schools need a better system to monitor these placements and be able to remove students who are not working quickly, and they take valuable learning time away from other students. In addition, schools need to do so without neglecting the teacher because the teacher complains that the student was not fully appropriate and impeded the learning process of other students. Leaving a child in an inappropriate place is not good for any of the parties involved. interval.

Over the past two decades, I have worked with more private education students than I remember as a special education teacher and a regular education teacher to teach integration classes and Interest synonym. I learned to become more flexible and patient, so I had some of the most difficult and needy children in my classes. I have done miracles with these children over the years and I know that I am not the only teacher who does so. There are so many more like me. But what worries me is that because teachers are very dedicated and come out of the daily miracles in the classroom, the provinces and community and political leaders may forcefully press the full integration model that teachers only think outside. Preparing teachers and students for failure is not a good idea.