Is RCI facilitating Inclusive Education?

The operative word in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is ‘Sarva’. This organization was created specifically to provide education to ALL. Students with special needs deserve the same access to education that typical students normally get. Why, then, is the Rehabilitation Council of India behind the curve?

          RCI has designed teacher training courses for teaching students with different disabilities. There is the Autism course, the Intellectual disabilities course, the course for teaching deaf children, blind children, and so on. This is excellent for teaching concentrated populations of students with similar disabilities in a segregated school setting. But how would any of these courses help in an inclusive mainstream school? Surely there are not going to be 30 students with autism, or 30 deaf students, etc. in a regular school. Realistically, it would be a mix of students with students with various different disabilities. How would a teacher trained in a narrow specialty be able to teach students with several different needs? Besides, doesn’t specialization come at the end of generalized study?

          I recently heard about a cognitively typical child with muscular dystrophy who couldn’t attend a mainstream math class because the classroom was on an upper floor, and he couldn’t access it in his wheelchair. Where is the justice in that? Is this the shiksha that is envisioned?

          Teaching courses have to be designed to the cognitive level of the student, not type of disability. Would Steven Hawking be in a class for orthopedically impaired children, or would he be in a class for gifted children? Teachers have to be trained to teach students with any disability who are  cognitively at the same level. Then classroom instruction can be designed for a certain level of academic need and difficulty level. So there could be a course for teachers to teach students with a mild to moderate level of cognitive impairment. Another training course would prepare teachers to teach students with severe to profound disabilities. This way, students with mild to moderate needs could be mainstreamed with cognitively similar children, with special education support. Students with severe to profound difficulties would, of course, need to be educated in segregated settings academically, while still providing social integration and life skills instruction with their typical peers. Teachers trained thus would be able to work with students with any kind of disability, instead of being narrowly trained and broadly ineffective.

          While public sentiment is tending towards inclusive education, the powers that be need to facilitate such a process with the right and effective methodology to make it a reality. 

Continuum of Services

When education is federally mandated for all, then every student has to be accommodated within the school system. No longer can school education mean merely academics. Schools have to create a continuum of services, ranging from most restrictive to least restrictive, from self-contained to full inclusion. The most restrictive self-contained classrooms would still try to have their students interact with their typically developing peers in some non-academic settings.

Education is federally mandated and a universal right. Every taxpayer is eligible to free and appropriate public education. 

This arrangement of classes is born from the word- appropriate. It means every student has to be appropriately placed and educated. 

To enable appropriate placement, a continuum of services needs to be offered. Practical considerations create the need for coming up with some plan to accommodate all students- not just academic students. Every student has to be fit in somewhere....

The continuum goes from fully self-contained classrooms with minimal interaction with typically developing peers at least during lunch (or, typically developing students could volunteer in such classrooms as community service) to fully integrated programs, where support is offered by the special education department inside the regular classroom. Ancillary services such as speech and Language, OT, Braille, etc, etc are offered in self-contained classes in what is called a pull-out setting for a part of the day. When students are in the mainstream classes with paraeducator support, that is called push-in support. Most of my students have a combination of both. We specify in their IEPs how much of the day they will be pulled out and how much they will be pushed-in. The same is true of life skills classes. Students who are very good at Math or science, etc, are integrated for that; yet go to life skills classes for social pragmatics, etc... The continuum goes on to include services for students in prison/reformatory and for chronically sick students in hospital. Teachers and paraeducators go to hospitals after the regular school day to tutor sick kids. The continuum also includes homeschooling. In short, the law states that EVERY student needs to be accommodated. 

Continuum of Services

School site services:

- Self-contained (usually life skills classes)

- Push-in Inclusion (academic classes with paraeducator support in their areas of strength)

- Pull-out ancillary services (Speech and Language, OT, sign language, braille, social group/pragmatics, etc)

No hard line separates these categories. Students are interchangeably placed for part of each day in each kind of class. As students mature and progress, their percentage of participation in inclusion increases...

Off-site services:

- Home-schooling

- Reform school

- On-site education for kids in hospital

Interaction with typically developing peers is encouraged during lunch time, physical education classes, or typically developing students work in the life skills classes. The life skills class in our school makes, packs and sells popcorn to the whole school on ‘popcorn Fridays’, they make and sell Christmas presents (they use these funds for field trips and for cooking supplies). They set up and man stalls to sell these things. They work with real money, make change, etc... They also run office errands, deliver office mail to teachers (this is their Geography activity, reading a school map to find different classrooms) and serve lunch in the lunch line. They clean the cafeteria after lunch, etc. They are integrated into the school community and a common presence all around the school.

An academic program would imply some inclusion (also increasing levels of inclusion over time) in a formal academic classroom setting. Life skills students also study academics- basic Math and literacy- but they study these in a self-contained class. It is a modified curriculum and taught at a much slower pace. But this level of academics wouldn't qualify as inclusion in an academic class, since it is taught in a separate setting.

Another yardstick to differentiate between life skills academics and 'academic' academics is to see who is teaching the course. Life skills academics are taught by special education teachers to a homogenous group of students with special needs; academic academics are taught by general education teachers who have the right subject credentials.

It's only academic inclusion if a student is in a general education class taught by a mainstream teacher, and the class is a heterogeneous mix of typically developing students and students with special needs. It would be a scenario where students with special needs are exposed to the same curriculum as all, and are expected to meet the same standards of performance- with the help of accommodations, modifications, scaffolding, and support, of course.

I would love to see Indian schools offer life skills classes, academic inclusion and the ancillary services necessary for academic success on all school sites. It would be wonderful to see students with special needs become a part of the education community. It benefits all students, not just students with special needs. Typically developing students who routinely interact, or simply just meet students with special needs around campus, take such inclusion for granted, and grow up with a better understanding of such students’ capabilities. While there is no accounting for prejudice, there might be fewer pilots who make people with special needs disembark from flights in the future…  

School Choice

This is a controversial topic in the US. Teachers’ unions fight this every time the politicians bring it up. The reasoning is that school choice creates the pressure necessary for schools to raise their performance. ‘Their’ performance means students’ performance, of course. After all, a school’s performance is not separate from a student’s performance.

This would be right if school performance was the result of only the efforts of teachers and students during the 6 hours that they are in school. We know this is not true. School performance also has a lot to do with what the kids gain at home. The socio-economic and educational levels of the parents determine the success of the child much more than the school environment. This is clearly demonstrated in the US, where schools in socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods consistently perform poorly.

In India too, there is now talk of allocating spots for socio-economically disadvantaged students in all schools. Quite predictably, the teaching establishment is reacting in a similar way in India too.

I am a special education teacher who strongly believes in an inclusive teaching environment. I want my students with disabilities to have access to the curriculum and resources that typically developing students take for granted. This thinking would also apply to economically disadvantaged students. They too should have access to the curriculum and resources that is typically available to all. It is to the advantage of such students to have exposure to a learning environment where the bar is set high, where students are expected to challenge themselves, where excellence is the norm rather than a novelty, and where well-stocked libraries and laboratories open up a world of wonder for them. I am forever crusading for my students to learn in such an environment.

However, I can also see the flip side. The advantage to our target students is easy to see. But, what about the schools? Can they continue to be excellent when the student demographic changes? Teaching homogeneous classes is far easier than teaching mixed groups of kids.

Teaching students who come from stable families, with educated parents, and a rich cultural tradition that values learning is very different from teaching students who have no academic support at home, who might be expected to work at jobs or chores after school, who have neither a place nor time to do homework, who don’t sleep well at night due to multiple, crying siblings, the list goes on. Put these two groups together, and it could very well be a teacher’s nightmare.

Teaching a heterogeneous classroom is a skill that has to be taught in teacher training programs before any legislation is enacted. Expecting untrained teachers to work miracles without equipping them to do so is bad policy. Putting the cart before the horse can hardly be wise.

Training to teach in inclusive classrooms

           All classrooms have students with special needs in them, whether we know who they are or not. Just because they have not been identified as having special needs doesn’t mean they are not there. They could be the students with behavior problems, social problems or chronic failing grades. These kids may or may not look different from the other kids. They certainly cannot be identified as needing special education services just by looking at them. Does the classroom teacher know how to teach such students? How does the teacher work with such students?

          Society and public policy these days are leaning toward inclusive classrooms. It means that there will be more and more students with mild to moderate needs in all regular mainstream classes. This is the trend, and a great one toward creating a fully integrated society.

          The classroom teacher needs basic knowledge of special education issues. Maybe not depth of knowledge, but certainly a breadth of knowledge. Teachers are one of the earliest identifiers of learning difficulties, after parents. They see the child everyday for hours at a time. It is unfair to put a teacher in a classroom without the requisite training to handle the range of students there.

          The Rehabilitation Council of India has a course called ‘Foundations’ aimed at the regular education teacher. This is wonderful indeed. This course would acquaint teachers with the basic knowledge of different kinds of disabilities, recognizing special needs, and strategies to deal with these in the classroom. Including students with special needs in the general classroom makes the classroom heterogeneous. Teaching such a mix of students simultaneously in one classroom is a skill that needs to be taught and developed in new teachers. This course alone is hardly enough preparation, but it is a great start.

          However, this is a course that teachers have to enroll in of their own accord. Why wouldn’t this course be part of the regular B. Ed program? This is important information that every teacher needs to have. The Rehabilitation Council of India can advocate for the population that it is supposed to serve by lobbying for and getting this course embedded into the regular B. Ed curriculum. After all, inclusion is the wave of the future, and every teacher has to be equipped to handle it.

Necessary Skills for Students (It’s not just academics)

Students need three different kinds of skills to succeed in life:

·         Academic- Every student needs some academics. High achieving kids focus on rigorous academics, but even students with disabilities need minimal reading and math skills, and some can handle even more.

·         Vocational- there are two kinds of vocational skills

v  Income-generating vocational skills- auto mechanics, culinary arts, handicrafts, technology (keyboarding, data entry, graphic design, etc), painting, carpentry, construction, etc, etc

v  Everyday vocational skills-

§  Organizational skills- This involves both mental and physical organization.

·         Mental organization is the ability to plan, visualize where things are, foresee problems, anticipate the next step and be ready for it

·         Physical organization is the ability to keep backpacks, files, binders, assignments, papers, and all other school and personal supplies neatly organized, and to be able to find and produce the right paper at the necessary moment

§  Time management- The ability to track multiple due dates and plan for completion by each due date

§  Project management- Know the various steps from the beginning to the end of a project or assignment. If a big project has multiple and simultaneous steps, then it is the ability to keep track of it all, and get to the end successfully

§  Attention span- Projects and long school assignments take a week, a month, or even a semester to complete. The student has to keep attending to it over a long span of time, even over weekends and holidays.

·         Life skills- Teamwork, asking for help, telling time, handling money, balancing the check book, managing due dates, checking schedules, cooking skills, shopping, conducting transactions, resolving conflicts, cleaning, etc

Schools do a good job of imparting academics indiscriminately. One size fits all. In fact, students who cannot absorb the intensity of academics are made to feel like misfits in school. It almost feels like the fire hose of academics is turned on at full blast, and it has no other speed.

Students who can handle this level of academics can also absorb the vocational and life skills necessary without explicit instruction. So, schools which cater to academically inclined students do not focus on teaching them the auxiliary skills necessary for success. But students with special needs do need explicit and direct instruction to learn the soft skills. And they don’t really need the intense level of academics. While every student needs all these skills, the stress is different for different kids.

Why, then, do schools cater to only one kind of student? Isn’t it our responsibility to equip every student to become an independent and productive citizen?

Measurable Achievement Targets

          How does one measure something as intangible as learning? But schools are commissioned to deliver on such a product, anyway, which means we have to figure out a way to measure it. In an age of age-based promotions, automatic pass till 8^th standard, how can one figure out what exactly a student has learned? An 8^th standard pass student could have passed with 90% marks, or with 30% marks. So this kind of information is essentially useless. There is another tool that is always bandied about by successful students- rank. I got 1^st rank in my class, or 5^th rank, etc. Again, what information does this give students, parents, potential employers, about the student’s actual capabilities?

          This kind of scoring is useful neither to the high achiever, nor to the struggling student. High achieving students still have to prove their actual learning and abilities by taking a rigorous entrance exam to enter college or employment. School-based evaluations are apparently not worth much in the real world.

          As a special educator, I’m more concerned with what students with special needs get from school. Is school merely a substitute for a crèche, or is it contributing to true and useful learning? What is true and useful learning for such students? Has it been defined? What do parents expect that schools will do for their children with special needs at the end of about 8 years of schooling?

          Is it really useful for a student with a lower IQ or mild to moderate disability to learn how to divide a 3 digit number by a 2 digit number? Is it really useful to make them memorize the capital of every European country? What about the symbol for every element in the periodic table? Is such specialized knowledge useful for some students? Absolutely! But what if such knowledge comes at the expense of truly important learning, such as basic literacy and math, balancing a check book, resolving a problem, or a vocational skill? Many people reading this went to school, maybe even to college. Yet, how many of you remember the capital of Tuvalu? Is it knowledge itself, or the skills to access knowledge when needed, that is more useful?

What, then, is the minimum that every child should know at the end of 8+ years of schooling? Targets have to be tightly defined. Standards-based report cards reflect exactly what the student has learned. Some minimum academics are necessary- basic literacy and arithmetic. These contribute toward enabling them to live independently.

What is basic literacy? It could be what some official definition, national or international standard, says it should be. Or it could be a school’s adaptation- a consensual definition. As long as it’s achievable, measurable and tightly defined, it will suffice.

Basic literacy is the minimum level of literacy required for independent living. The ability to tell a bottle of poison from a bottle of medicine. The ability to read road signs and billboards. The ability to write a two line note to your child’s teacher.

·         Read any language at 20 words per minute, of 3 syllables or less, with 5 errors or less, with comprehension of material read- such might be a tightly defined measurable target.

·         Write at least a 40 word paragraph in any language, with fewer than 10 errors each in spelling, mechanics (punctuation, capitalization) and grammar. Stay on topic, be legible and convey meaning.

Basic arithmetic would be the ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide rational numbers- whole numbers, decimals and fractions. More importantly, this knowledge would only be useful if students could apply it in real life.

Apart from this, real life skills like problem solving, shopping, reading train schedules, making change, paying rent, managing due dates, ability to find answers, and so much more- these are the main lessons needed for independent living. Students with disabilities need direct instruction to learn these.

And some vocational skills. After all, how independent can anyone be without a source of income?

(By the way, the capital of Tuvalu is Funafuti- I Googled it…)

Soul Searching- My Thoughts on Special Education

          The first questions that are asked in any teacher training program are, or should be- ‘What is the purpose of education? What is the mandate of schools? What do we expect that they will do for our children? And lastly, who is education for?’ Unless these questions are answered, the entire educational system will be an inequitable, rudderless ship, full of busy work for the achievers, and baby-sitting for the strugglers.

          Let’s tackle the last question first, because it is the bedrock basis for this soul-searching. Who is education for? For everybody. Every child. Every child is educable. At this point, it is important to stress that education is not academics; education is learning. Academics would be part of learning, a subset, if you will. Most children need an academic education; all children need to learn.

          What, then, is the purpose of education? Simple. To make the child as independent as possible. Now we need to define what independent means. It means different things for different students. As a special education teacher, it is a question that particularly impacts the demographic of students I work with. Independence for a child with IQ below 70 would be different from independence for a student with a higher IQ.

For students with lower IQs, independence would be to have and master as many life skills as possible in order to live as independently as possible as an adult. Life skills would include basic academics- some literacy and arithmetic, along with the very important and necessary skills of shopping, navigating public transport, balancing the check book, telling time, following instructions, resolving conflicts, asking for help, appropriate social behaviors and relationships, etc.

For students with higher abilities who can handle a more rigorous curriculum, the purpose of a school education would be to prepare them for employment or college. It certainly implies an academic education, of varying rigor, along with all the life skills mentioned above, and vocational skills, if necessary.

This, then, is why we send our kids to school. This is the mandate of schools, what parents expect that schools will do for their kids. Schools will produce capable adult citizens, with the necessary skills to contribute to society to the extent that they can.

Next: Setting measurable achievement targets