Inclusion is the daughter of openness and acceptance, the sister of diversity, the mother of dialogue and collaboration. She is a remedy for extreme competition who cannot get along with discrimination or segregation. You know her when people with different abilities feel, listen, and help each other with a common or a personal challenge, yet it is difficult to tell who helps and who is being helped.
As parents we are members of an inclusion based unit – the family. So it is not surprising we want our children to be able to communicate effectively, connect with others, see through differences, find common ground, ask and receive help as well as willingly help others.
Today, typically developing children grow in environments that are ever more competitive, where they are instilled with knowledge and are driven to achieve, but not without a cost. Many do not connect well to others – their “competitors”. Their peers have similar mindset and challenges, which leads to narrow notions of aspirations, challenges, and solutions as well as a limited code of self expression. Being helped is often equated with weakness or worse, with failure.
In an inclusion based program, on the other hand, children of different abilities as well as different ages interact together. Usually, typically developing children participate together with children with special needs. For example, a child on autism spectrum or a child on a wheel chair: They play, learn, eat, explore, quarrel, sing, and make friends as usually occurs in every class. I have repeatedly observed that most typically developing children who participated in an inclusion program connected better with one another (regardless of needs). The diversity in an inclusion program allowed each child to be unique without feeling like an outsider, and through this many gained self confidence. Children slowly discovered that everyone has his/her own special needs, special perspectives, and special strengths and abilities. Many children felt proud and satisfied when they came into a meaningful contact or were helpful to others. The children discovered difficult challenges, found creative solutions to various problems, and new ways to bridge communication gaps with each other. Many typically developing children learned how to face and deal with frustrations. I am convinced that typically developing children who are lucky enough to participate in inclusion programs carry with them more open mind, greater empathy, and ability to connect and communicate. Successful inclusion enriches the intellectual, emotional, and social development of all who partake in it. So, it is ‘a win-win’ situation.
Successful inclusion depends on the teacher’s dedication to the vision of inclusion and his experience. It is easier to implement inclusion with younger children partly because they are still free from prejudice and their curriculum is more flexible. In a heavily academic classroom the teacher has little time to address the student social life, so inclusion is not even considered. After school programs based on inclusion can be also important, emphasizing social and emotional sides of life, and so permeating every aspect of the child development. As children get older, the ratio of special needs children to typically developing children becomes immportant and inclusion is easier where more than one child has special needs.
Inclusion does not stop or start in mixing together children with different abilities. Our greatest disability is our difficulty to connect with others. Inclusion grows from the vision that we all fit in because every person has something essential to contribute to others. Each of us thrives on being connected, being warmly accepted and appreciated, while also accepting others. We all thrive in such a community. Inclusion works.
Related links & sources for more reading:
-www.tats.ucf.edu/eupdates/Inclusion-2.pdf
- http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~fx/pages/inclusion.htm
- http://www.uni.edu/inclusion/benefits_of_inclusion.htm
Monday, February 8, 2010
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