Under What Circumstances? (Pulling Special Ed Kids Out)
I answered a question for myself this week. It was a longstanding, nagging question that cut to the core of what I do as a special ed teacher. I can’t remember exactly how it was phrased, but in my own words it was something like this:
Under what circumstances is it justified to remove a special education student from inclusion in the general education classroom?
One of the teachers at my school has a daughter who is majoring in education in college. The daughter volunteers at our school occasionally. The kids love her; she loves the kids. One day last week she asked me if I’d answer some questions for her for a class. And question number four (I think) out of six was this question.
Out of the mouth of babes…, I thought.
The question is a controversial one. There are plenty of patronizing people around who think that most children with disabilities are better off, socially and educationally, in a separate room. Someplace where they can get more attention. Someplace where they can be with other kids “like themselves.” Someplace where the risk of failure and frustration isn’t so great.
There are also people out there who advocate for the rights of those who aren’t disabled in some way. They say that special education children can be a distraction to the class. Their needs, their immaturity (or developmental delays) can be disruptive, they say. Some go so far as to say that exposing “normal” children to kids with disabilities can be traumatic for the normal children. Normal kids should learn about Down Syndrome in their early 20’s from a doctor who’s caring for them or their spouse during a pregnancy, not by having a Down Syndrome child in their kindergarten or first grade class.
So there I sat, shuffling through my brain in the back of a classroom where a student with a profound disability is well accepted by peers and achieving academically better than some of the “normal” kids in the room, trying to come up with a good answer for a 20ish year old college student with a servant’s heart and a few freckles.
I started my career as a special education teacher sincerely believing that kids who where mentally impaired or had learning disabilities were better off outside the general education setting. They were mine. I understood their needs. But now I have a few years’ experience…
Kids in America have a right to a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment possible. – whether they have a disability or not. “Normal” kids don’t have a right to be sheltered from real life.
My answer: It’s justified to remove a child with a disability from the general education classroom (from “inclusion”) when the general education environment itself becomes an impediment to meeting the child’s needs. Students with disabilities have a legal right to be in the general education classroom.
And if someone asked me. “What about the rights of the ‘normal’ kids?” Well, they have a right to be there, too…


