I am now
teaching in my special education placement and I absolutely love it! The
students are wonderful and I am learning so much from my cooperating teacher.
My special education placement is as an inclusion teacher. However, the inclusion is for two different
classrooms. My cooperating teacher and I are in the classrooms for reading and
math. We spend half the morning in one class for reading then spend the other
half of the morning in the second class
for reading. The afternoon is split in the same manner, but in the afternoon we
are the inclusion teachers for math.
This is the school’s set up for inclusion, so all the inclusion classrooms are
set up so that the special education teacher is switching between two classrooms.
Personally,
I do not like this set up. I believe that the special education teacher should
be assigned to one classroom. I feel this way because with this structure we do
not see how our inclusion students are doing in other academic areas: writing, social studies, science, and any
other lessons the general education teacher teaches when we are not there. I
also do not like this “roving structure” because one of our students is
autistic and there are times when this student needs our support and we are not
available. We are in the other classroom.
I feel
that the inclusion students would truly benefit by having the special education
teacher in the class all day every day.
I have noticed that by having the special education teachers switch between
classrooms, the students are not always getting the extra support that is
necessary. There are aides in these two
classrooms, however, I feel that it is important for the special education
teacher to be there as well. I feel that in order to know how the student is
progressing, overall, we need to be there and observe them in all areas, not
just reading and math. I personally believe that the inclusion students are not
getting the most out of an inclusion setting or the support it provides when the
special education teacher is switching between classrooms.
Have you
taught in or observed in an inclusion class? How are the inclusion classrooms
that you have seen set up? Do you feel that the special education teacher
should only be assigned to one classroom or do you think that switching between
multiple classrooms is a good inclusion structure?
