What is inclusive education?

Summary

This video explains the concept of inclusive education by contrasting it with segregation, integration, and exclusion within schools. The speaker outlines nine key features of inclusive education, including strong leadership, natural proportions, and collaboration. Emphasis is placed on providing students with disabilities access to general education, ensuring they are valued and included socially and academically. Strategies like cooperative learning, portable services, and co-teaching are highlighted as essential for fostering an inclusive environment where all students can thrive.

Takeaways

• 📚 Inclusive education involves placing all students, regardless of their abilities, in general education classes in their local neighborhoods.
• 🚫 Segregation in education removes students with disabilities from regular classes and places them in special schools or units.
• 🔄 Integration often means placing students with disabilities in schools without changing the learning environment or school culture, which is not the same as inclusion.
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Inclusive education fosters social connections, ensuring students with disabilities are valued and welcomed in the classroom.
• 📝 Strong leadership is essential for promoting inclusive education and ensuring students with disabilities thrive.
• 👫 Natural proportions in classrooms help avoid clustering students with disabilities, ensuring balanced representation in society.
• 💡 Teaching assistants should support all students, not just focus on one-to-one support, which can hinder interaction with teachers.
• ⏰ Planning time for teachers and assistants is crucial to ensure students with disabilities receive appropriate support and guidance.
• 🚪 Portable services should be brought to the student in the classroom rather than pulling the student out for special instruction.
• 👩‍🏫 Specialist teachers play a supportive role in helping general education teachers accommodate students with disabilities effectively.

Q & A

What is inclusive education?

Inclusive education is when all students, regardless of ability, are placed in age-appropriate general education classes in their neighborhood schools. They receive high-quality instruction, interventions, and support to succeed alongside their peers without disabilities.

How does segregation differ from inclusive education?

Segregation involves removing students with disabilities from regular education and placing them in separate environments such as special schools or classes. In contrast, inclusive education integrates all students in regular classrooms, ensuring they interact and learn together.

What is the main difference between integration and inclusion?

Integration places students with disabilities in general education settings but doesn't change the environment, teaching methods, or culture to support their needs. Inclusion, on the other hand, involves modifying the school culture and environment to fully accommodate all students.

Why is the school culture important in inclusive education?

The school culture is crucial because it reflects the values, language, and behaviors of the community. For inclusive education to work, the culture must embrace social justice, ensuring all students are valued, welcomed, and supported regardless of their abilities.

What are natural proportions in inclusive education?

Natural proportions refer to distributing students with disabilities across classrooms in a way that reflects the general population. This prevents clustering large numbers of students with high needs into specific classrooms, which can hinder their social and academic integration.

Why should teachers avoid one-to-one support from assistants in inclusive classrooms?

One-to-one support can lead to dependency, where students with disabilities interact less with the teacher and peers, limiting their learning and social opportunities. Instead, assistants should support the entire class while ensuring students with disabilities are not isolated.

What role do teaching assistants play in inclusive education?

Teaching assistants play a vital role in supporting all students in the classroom. However, their role should be guided by teachers, with clear communication and planning, to ensure they provide assistance without replacing the teacher’s direct interaction with students with disabilities.

What does ‘presuming competence’ mean in inclusive education?

Presuming competence means assuming that all students, regardless of their disabilities or ability levels, can learn and benefit from an inclusive education. There are no prerequisites for being included in general education, and students are not judged by psychological assessments before participation.

What is the significance of collaboration in inclusive education?

Collaboration is key in inclusive education, involving students, families, teachers, and specialists working together in a respectful and trusting partnership. This ensures that all stakeholders contribute to the student’s success and create an inclusive, supportive learning environment.

Why are friendships important in inclusive education?

Friendships are essential because they foster social connections, which help students with disabilities integrate into the school community. Building friendships in the classroom helps break down social barriers and supports the development of positive, equal-status relationships between students with and without disabilities.

Outlines

00:00

🎓 Introduction to Inclusive Education and its Misconceptions

The video begins with an introduction to inclusive education, explaining that it’s essential to understand what inclusive education is and what it is not. Leanne, from Inclusive Education Planning, highlights four structures within education, focusing on inclusive education and explaining common misconceptions. The distinction between inclusive education and segregation, where students with disabilities are separated into special environments, is emphasized. Visual aids illustrate the separation of disabled and non-disabled students in educational settings.

05:01

🔄 Integration vs. Inclusion in Education

This section discusses how integration is often confused with inclusion. Integration involves placing students with disabilities in schools without making necessary accommodations or changes to the school's culture or pedagogy. Inclusive education, by contrast, requires a school culture based on social justice, where students with disabilities are actively involved, valued, and welcomed. The video underscores the importance of social connections and critiques how integration often leads to students being physically present but socially excluded.

10:01

🚫 Exclusion from Education and its Impact

Exclusion, where students are denied access to education, is addressed next. Leanne mentions that many families in Adelaide resort to homeschooling their children with disabilities due to a lack of accommodations in schools. The concept of inclusive education is then revisited, highlighting that students, regardless of their disabilities, should be included in age-appropriate classes in neighborhood schools, where they receive quality instruction and support.

15:02

📊 Key Features of Inclusive Education: Leadership and Natural Proportions

This section introduces the key features of inclusive education. Strong leadership is the first essential feature, where disability is seen as a natural part of human diversity. Another important feature is maintaining natural proportions of students with disabilities in classrooms, avoiding clustering and instead distributing them evenly. By adhering to these natural proportions, inclusive education fosters genuine friendships and social connections.

👥 Support Roles and Effective Collaboration in Inclusive Education

Teaching assistants play a crucial role in inclusive education, but they should not take on the primary teaching role. Leanne explains the importance of spreading assistants throughout the classroom, rather than assigning one-to-one support unless medically necessary. Additionally, planning time for teachers and assistants to collaborate is vital for inclusive education to be successful, ensuring all students receive adequate support.

📦 Portable Services and the Role of Specialist Teachers

Leanne discusses how services for students with disabilities should be portable, meaning they should be provided within the general education classroom rather than pulling students out. Specialist teachers are also crucial, providing additional support and strategies to general education teachers, helping them better accommodate students with disabilities.

🌟 Presuming Competence and the Right to Inclusive Education

In this section, the concept of presuming competence is introduced. Every student, regardless of their ability or disability, has the right to inclusive education. There are no prerequisites for receiving an inclusive education, and teachers must assume that all students can learn, fostering an inclusive classroom environment for everyone.

🤝 Collaboration and Friendship in Inclusive Education

Collaboration among teachers, students, families, and guardians is critical for inclusive education. Students should be empowered to have a voice in their own education. Friendships play a key role in an inclusive classroom, and social connections should be encouraged through structured group work, avoiding micro-exclusions. Equal-status relationships are necessary to avoid stigmatizing students with disabilities.

💡 Strength-Based Learning and Equal Participation

The final section emphasizes the importance of using a strength-based approach to learning, where students with disabilities can showcase their knowledge and skills. Equal participation in group work and other activities helps break down stigmas and ensures that all students, regardless of ability, are valued and respected within the classroom environment.

Keywords

💡Inclusive Education

Inclusive education is a system where students of all abilities, including those with disabilities, are placed in general education classes in their neighborhood schools. The goal is to provide equal access to high-quality education and ensure students are integrated socially and academically. This term is central to the video, as it promotes the idea that inclusive education is a human right and emphasizes the need for a welcoming, diverse, and supportive environment.

💡Segregation

Segregation refers to the practice of separating students with disabilities from those without by placing them in special schools, classrooms, or units. The video highlights segregation as a common approach in Australian education, which isolates students with disabilities and prevents them from interacting with their peers, thus limiting their social and academic growth.

💡Integration

Integration involves placing students with disabilities in regular schools but without making significant changes to accommodate their needs. The physical and instructional environment remains unchanged, which limits full participation and inclusion. The video contrasts integration with inclusion, emphasizing that integration is not a step towards true inclusion.

💡School Culture

School culture refers to the behaviors, language, and knowledge that define the values of a school community. In the context of inclusive education, a school culture should be based on social justice, welcoming diversity, and valuing all students. The video argues that without a shift in school culture, real inclusion cannot happen, even if students with disabilities are physically present.

💡Natural Proportions

Natural proportions refer to the idea that students with disabilities should be distributed in classrooms in proportions that reflect society, rather than clustering them together. This helps foster natural social interactions and friendships. The video stresses that grouping students with disabilities together undermines inclusion and hinders their development of relationships with peers.

💡Presumed Competence

Presumed competence means assuming that all students, regardless of their disabilities, have the ability to learn and succeed in an inclusive educational environment. The video advocates for this principle, arguing that students should not be denied inclusive education based on psychological assessments or perceived abilities.

💡Teaching Assistants

Teaching assistants provide support to students with disabilities in classrooms. However, the video warns against relying on assistants for direct teaching, as this can limit students' interaction with their teacher and make them overly dependent. Instead, assistants should be spread across the classroom, helping all students while the teacher leads the instruction.

💡Collaboration

Collaboration involves cooperation between teachers, students, families, and support staff to ensure that students with disabilities receive appropriate support. The video highlights that successful inclusion requires a partnership based on trust and mutual respect, with students at the center of decision-making processes.

💡Portable Services

Portable services are specialized supports, such as speech therapy or literacy instruction, that should be delivered within the general classroom rather than removing students with disabilities for separate instruction. The video emphasizes that making services portable helps ensure that students remain integrated in the classroom community, promoting their inclusion.

💡Friendships

Friendships are crucial for fostering social inclusion in classrooms. The video explains that inclusive education encourages relationships between students with and without disabilities, promoting equal-status interactions. These friendships help avoid social isolation, which can happen when students with disabilities are segregated or grouped separately from their peers.

Highlights

Inclusive education involves welcoming all students, regardless of their ability, into age-appropriate general education classes in their own neighborhoods.

Segregation refers to separating students with disabilities into special schools, special classes, or disability units, which often results in them not being educated with their same-age peers.

Integration is often mistaken for inclusion but still keeps students with disabilities separate within the classroom, limiting their participation and social connections.

Exclusion occurs when students are directly or indirectly denied access to education, leading some families to homeschool children with disabilities due to lack of accommodations.

A key feature of inclusive education is that the school culture must embrace social justice, ensuring that all students are valued, welcomed, and celebrated for their diversity.

Inclusive education is considered a human right, emphasizing that students with disabilities should receive high-quality instruction and support to be successful in the classroom.

Strong leadership in schools ensures that students with disabilities are valued and that their needs are supported within the general education environment.

Students with disabilities should be distributed across classrooms in natural proportions, reflecting society's makeup, rather than being clustered together in specific settings.

The research indicates that students with disabilities can become dependent on teaching assistants, and one-on-one support should only be used when absolutely necessary.

Planning time between regular teachers, special educators, and teaching assistants is critical for ensuring that students with disabilities receive appropriate support.

Portable services, such as speech therapy or special education support, should be brought into the general classroom setting rather than removing students from the classroom.

Specialist teachers should support general educators by offering strategies and accommodations to better support students with disabilities.

Presuming competence is crucial in inclusive education, meaning that all students, regardless of ability, should be presumed capable of learning and participating without prerequisites.

Collaboration between students, families, teachers, and other stakeholders is essential in creating a successful inclusive education environment.

Friendships are critical for students' success in inclusive settings, and teachers should activate students as learning resources for one another, fostering equal-status relationships.

Transcripts

[Music]

[Music]

in this video

i'm going to tell you what inclusive

education is

and what it is not i'm also going to

share with you

nine key features of inclusive education

so welcome to this video my name is

leanne and i'm from

inclusive education planning so in

inclusive education planning

i work with schools and with teachers

and with parents

to support the inclusion of students

with disability

i'm going to share with you four

structures within

education one of these is inclusive

education

but to understand what inclusive

education is

you need to understand what it is not

and after that i will share with you

nine

key features of inclusive education

so segregation so segregation is very

common

within australian education and so

that's where students with disabilities

are removed from regular education and

they're placed in

separate environments so special schools

special classes

disability units behaviour units

we can also class schools and classes

for gifted students of segregated

education

and esl classes as well

and so you can see in the diagram where

we have

the non-disabled students are the

students within

the green circle and they are colored

blue

and so they are grouped together within

regular education

but students with disabilities or

other students are segregated so they

are in the black circle

and they are away from regular

education and often when students with

disability

are segregated they are often not

educated

with their same age peers

so integration integration is often

confused with

inclusion so

for the most part within australia we

have students with disabilities who are

integrated rather than

included so that is where students with

disabilities are placed

in schools with their similar hp's but

things

have not changed there are no limited

accommodations for them so the physical

environment may not change

the pedagogy remains unchanged

and the most important feature of

inclusive education is the school

culture

so the school culture refers to the

language the behaviours

the knowledge that um

that a certain group adheres to and the

school culture

for an inclusive setting needs to be

based on social justice but if that

school culture remains unchanged

it cannot be classed as inclusive

education

so integration limits a student's

ability to fully access or participate

in learning and it's not a step towards

inclusion

and you can see in the diagram here we

have the non-disabled students

in blue and students with disabilities

are

the colored circles and they're within

the regular classroom but they're still

kept separate they're in their own

little circle there so they're not being

involved they're not being welcomed

they're not being valued

they're not making those social

connections and that's really important

for them to have those social

connections

the next one is exclusion so exclusion

is where students are directly or

indirectly prevented from or denied

access to education

in any form and where i live in adelaide

in south australia there are a large

number of families

who homeschool children with

disabilities because

they feel that their child does not fit

into school

very well and they are not receiving the

accommodations that they need or the

supports that they need

so inclusive education and that is when

all students

regardless of their ability regardless

of whether they have

a severe intellectual disability or

severe multiple disabilities

so regardless of their ability they're

placed in age-appropriate general

education classes

in schools in their own neighborhoods so

they're welcome

to enroll in their school in their own

neighborhood so they're not

catching a bus for an hour to go to a

special school or a segregated setting

so they can enroll in their own

neighborhood and they receive

high quality instruction interventions

and supports

that enable them to be successful in the

classroom and you can see here the

students with disabilities

the orange pink and gray they are just

within

um in the classroom mixing socializing

in with the students without disability

and it's very important

and inclusive education is a human right

and one of the cultural aspects of

inclusive education is where

disability and diversity is celebrated

and welcomed so the features

of inclusive education what does it all

mean

because it's one of the most contested

terms within education there are great

debates about what

inclusive education is so

here are some features strong leadership

so it starts at the top doesn't it so

students with disabilities thrive in

schools where the leadership ensures

they are valued

and disability is viewed as a natural

part of human diversity

so just like some people have brown hair

some people have blonde hair some people

have black hair

some people have disabilities and some

people don't

natural proportions and this is a key

factor so students with disabilities

should be spread out in

natural proportions rather than

clustered together

so natural proportions as in society

so if we look at the proportion of

people in society with a disability that

should be replicated within

classrooms so that we don't place large

numbers of students with very high needs

in the one class

so just because you have a whole lot of

teachers and one happens to have a

degree in special education

who's working in in regular education

doesn't mean that they should have

10 children with severe multiple

disabilities in their class

in fact we need to look at natural

proportions and reduce that right back

so that the children with

high needs there is only one maybe two

at the most

in each classroom so that all those

natural processes of friendships and

connections

can grow and build in the classroom

so under the idea of natural proportions

we avoid grouping by the category of

disability and that means where

educators

remove children who have an intellectual

disability from the class

and group them in some way for literacy

or for numeracy

and and that can even be within the

class if we round up the children

and take them away from all the other

children and teach them in a corner of

the classroom

separately that is still

segregated education so we need to avoid

grouping by the category of disability

and use

pedagogical strategies like cooperative

learning

is a highly structured form of group

work that is quite effective

in inclusive classrooms

assistance so number three teaching

assistants

so support for students with

disabilities need to come from teachers

rather than assistants we need to move

away from one-to-one support

the research is very clear that students

with disabilities

can become dependent on their assistance

and that when we place an assistant

beside a student with a disability

in the classroom that they can actually

regress

and the assistant can avoid um

the student having interaction with the

teacher

and it's not very effective when we've

got the student with the highest needs

in the classroom having the least amount

of contact with the teacher

so assistant should be spread throughout

the classroom assistants will play a

very very important role so i'm not

minimising their role at all

they play a very important role but this

needs to come from the top

where leadership look at the research

regarding assistance

and how to achieve the best outcomes

for students with a disability

and that means not relying on

assistance to do the teaching because

that's only

a recent phenomenon that we have

assistance

doing direct teaching and i've heard

stories of teacher

assistants developing their own lesson

plans

and writing their own program without

any oversight from teachers which i find

quite alarming so that shouldn't be

occurring at all

it should be teachers developing the

program leading the program

and directing assistants who should be

spread throughout the classroom helping

everyone

the only time we would have one-to-one

support for a student

is if they have high medical needs such

as something like epilepsy

where it's quite severe and they need to

be watched at all times

or behavioral issues that are so extreme

that other people could be hurt and so

therefore the student needs one-to-one

so one-to-one support is is

we only use it if it is absolutely

necessary

otherwise spread that support throughout

the classroom

so other things planning time number

four is planning time

all teachers should have ample

co-planning time

to ensure students with disabilities

have adequate and appropriate

support so that might be regular

classroom teachers

having planning time with special

educators or inclusive educators

and to develop some co-teaching plans

it might also be with the assistant so

the assistant knows what's happening so

they're kept in the loop

because often assistants don't find out

until they actually turn up

for the day at work so there's very

little planning time for assistance

so wherever possible building that

planning time

so that teaching can be as effective as

possible

number five portable services so

services for students with disabilities

should be portable

and delivered in the context of the

general education classroom

so services should be taken to the

student

rather than the student removed and

taken to

you know for literacy instruction or

mathematical instruction

or speech pathology as far as possible

that should be delivered in the context

of the general education classroom

and most of those services are portable

there are very few services that are not

portable

unless a student is using large

equipment

um you know possibly a standing frame

but even standing frames can be

incorporated into a general education

classroom as long as there's enough

space

things like hydrotherapy obviously are

the sort of things that

students would be withdrawn from and

have to go to the pool because you

cannot put a pool

in a classroom as nice as it would be

the student would have to go to the pool

but for everything else and the majority

i would say

99 of things are portable

and can be taken to the classroom

where the student is so that they are

seen as being part of the classroom

that's really important so students that

are withdrawn all the time

are not considered to be a member of the

classroom

so membership and being a valued member

is very very important number six

specialist teachers so specialist

teachers in special inclusive education

should be supporting teachers in general

education whilst all teachers are

qualified

to teach or children teachers in general

education haven't

had that extra postgraduate degree in

special education

so whilst they are qualified to teach

students with disabilities

they may just need some extra support

and some ideas

around strategies to support students

with disabilities and their

the accommodations that they need number

seven presume

competence and that is a key part of

inclusive education so

receiving an inclusive education and

being placed

in an inclusive education classroom

does not rely on a psychological

assessment so there are no

pre-requisites

for inclusive education every child

every student with a disability has the

human right to have

inclusive education regardless of their

level of ability

regardless of whether they have a severe

intellectual disability

so presuming competence we assume that

every student can learn

without requiring evidence of their

capacity

there are no prerequisite skills at all

for

inclusive education number eight

collaboration so collaboration is really

important

we should have a partnership based on

mutual commitment trust and respect

with a student so the student should be

the center at all of this and the

students should have a voice

in this whole process and with the

family

and guardians so it should be a

partnership with all the key

stakeholders

involved with the student and their

education friendships number nine

friendships are really important so we

need to activate students as learning

resources for one another

to foster friendships and connections

and avoid micro

exclusions in the classroom

so activating students as learning

resources for one another is really

important

so students learn from the social

environment

in the classroom and that's really

important what that does not mean

is placing a student without a

disability with a student with a

disability

and the student without a disability

taking the lead

and telling the student with a

disability what to do

and being the instructor wherever

possible try to have

equal status relationships that's really

important because disability is easily

stigmatized

so it's really important that there are

equal status relationships within the

classroom

and in doing group work it's really

important to structure

um into the lesson plans ways that

students with disabilities can show

their knowledge

show their skills and and their their

expertise

and that's really important and that can

be by by carefully examining

a student using a strength based lens

and building into the curriculum things

that they

enjoy things that they are good at and

allowing them to shine

in that area

[Music]

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