As I was preparing my new article organizing information about inclusion, and I realized I was getting more and more anxious. It struck me that my own experience in a full inclusion co-teaching classroom still haunts me.
I interviewed for the position I accepted at an inner city Philadelphia school in a Hispanic community. The young man who was going to be my partner accepted a charter school job and his replacement chose the job off a list at the district office. She had been teaching Social Studies at a middle school. She was also in the middle of a divorce. Boy was she angry. Boy did that carry over to everything else that happened. For some reason she focused on homework. She was always yelling at the kids with IEP's about their homework. She polarized the class: the "special ed kids" were "your kids."
Of course, the kids with IEP's responded negatively to the general education teacher, which became MY problem. Forget the fact the general ed teacher set them off, abdicated any responsibility for classroom management other than yelling. The principal, in an effort to not take sides, wanted us to work it out, but my partner refused to commit any extra time--she worked part time as a beautician and couldn't give up her work nights, and her two children at home were obviously much more important than mine. It was a nightmare.
I really believe that inclusion can work. I also believe it takes a special kind of general education teacher to make it work. We special education teachers are used to dealing with various challenges and adapting teaching methods. Too many general education teachers I have worked with do the same thing year after year. They don't want to leave 3rd grade because they would have to develop new materials or new methods. As much as a I fear connecting evaluation to student performance, part of me wishes those "stuck in a rut" teacher won't ever see another raise. After all, nothing has changed in their teaching method!
The bottom line is that principals and school districts need to make some real investments in co-teaching inclusion classrooms. They need to provide extra planning time. They need to provide intensive training and out of school, paid, partnership building training with professionals who know what it takes (try your local college or university.) Anybody who thinks you can walk in and immediately negotiate all the classroom management, instructional, assessment and space issues is delusional.
Comments
Let’s not forget, it takes a special person on both ends. Honestly, i’m not sure that I am the kind of personalty that can handle co-teaching with a regular ed teacher.
I do not share AND I run with scissors! LOL
As a special ed teacher with nearly 9 years of experience I’ve been in good and bad coteaching situations; when it’s good, it’s great for everyone. When it’s bad, it’s really bad.
Coteaching is like a marriage. Partners should pick each other, have similar beliefs about education, and enjoy each other’s company most of the time. When 2 individuals are thrown together and given no choice resentments pop up. There are some teachers not suited for coteaching and they shouldn’t be forced.
To entice more teachers to coteach and include sped students in their class there needs to be training (on what coteaching is and isn’t) and incentives (like the extra planning time – it is a lot of work for both parties).
I’ve had some of my best and worst teaching experiences in co taught classes.
Whether you are a Special Education Teacher or General Education Teacher, it doesn’t matter! What matters is the kids being taught. When I hear what ‘this’ teacher likes and what ‘that’ teacher likes, I just want to scream—TEACHERS, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU, IT’S ABOUT THE STUDENTS! I feel that teachers need to educate themselves on Inclusion and invest in PD (Personal Development). Too much negative stuff is being said to students.
I have been teaching high school special education for 22 years.
In my first five years of teaching my first experience with co-teaching was in English. I had a such a positive experience in one classroom that it inspired me to teach summer school that year in English 2 and I did it. The other experience was negative, I was not wanted in that classroom. I was very uncomfortable.
I am a strong believer that inclusion can work. When you meet your co-teacher for the first time explain what you are capapble of doing and what knowlege you have of the subject. Talking with your teacher is key.
Join the regular education teams, participate in their meetings. Attend regular education inservice in your subject area. Get to know the department head in your subject area, they can be supportive in getting things you may need or at least access to materials.
I have done this to teach the regular curriculum in my resource classes and when I go to those regular teachers many of them already know who I am and what I have to offer. I am looking forward to a great year!
This is a very interesting topic. I never thought that I was onboard with the whole inclusion idea. However, after I had a wonderful experience coteaching in an 8th grade math class, my mind was changed. I agree that you should pick your teacher that you coteach with. You should be coteaching with someone that has a similar philosophy of teaching and mission. It is important for them to be on the same page with the students. If the students see that the teachers are not on the same track then they are not going to be very cooperative (especially the special education students).
Currently, our sped teachers are being relocated from their resource rooms to carts. We will be fashionably rolling around from room to room in order to service our students with IEPs. I believe that we can will have to build relationships with our gen ed teachers in order to have any teaching impact in that class. Otherwise, they will be the one teaching and we will be acting as an aide for our students. We are not aides, we are teachers and teach is what we want to do.
Amen, Mary. Too often the principal puts someone in place without giving either partner an opportunity to opt in or opt out. I agree, but even if you think you have similar philosophies, be sure you keep talking and talking and talking about the things that bug you and things that you need to feel you’re doing what you need to do to feel that you’re working to your full potential!
Inclusion could be a good experience for everyone involved included the students. However, when there are different teaching styles converging together, different classroom behavior management emerging at the same time….. frictions come up immediately in my experience. I believe that the best way to avoid all or some of these”bad instructional moments” (without mentioning that in most of the cases the administration stay out of that) is trying to talk clearly about what both teachers expect from each other in order to work in a “decent” atmosphere.