Inclusion-Only Education in Canada?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT0n5uTSjyY
So I had to watch the above video as a part of my graduate studies, and I found this to be really interesting. It's a little unclear if this is the case across Canada, or only in British Colombia, but they say that since the 2000s they have not had any public special education schools and have been moved to an all-inclusive model. From what we see in the video this seems to be a great thing, students of all stripes seem to be benefiting from this despite initial push back from all parties involved.
Personally, I work in a "segregated" special education school in the U.S., and I think what my school does is fantastic. There are no neurotypical students at my school, so it is the literal opposite of inclusion. However, I think my students really benefit from being around similar peers, and even moreso from the concentration of service we can provide. We have therapists like OT, PT, SLPs, and BCBAs on-staff at the school that can provide services frequently and are almost always available for us as teachers to consult with if needed, or they can be called in to the classroom to help observe if we are stumped by what the student is needing help with. I think this really benefits our students, and we are known in our district for having a much higher quality program than self-contained classrooms in general education schools.
I am really curious if anyone here teaches in Canada, or specifically B.C. and can comment on how your schools operate? Do you have a similar level of support? I think in the U.S. many teachers are resistant to inclusion because they lack the resources and support for this to be effective. In a perfect world, I do think that having everyone together in probably the best for everyone, because our students with special needs do deserve to be a part of our community and make our lives much richer. However, it is hard to imagine how this can be done without big changes. The way inclusion works now, it seems to put a greater burden on teachers that already feel like they have too much on their plate. But how do these schools work in B.C.? Do you have special education teachers working as co-teachers in the classroom? Are they on staff at the school to come assist as needed and as part of a schedule, like therapists at my school are? How do you handle students with very different educational levels? For example, my students are not on the regular state standards, they have different expectations, so I imagine if you had that all in the same classroom it would be really difficult to not only differentiate instruction, but content as well. Are classes in these school organized by educational level?