Teacher Collaboration
"Included" - as defined in the Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary is a verb meaning " to take in or enclose." Today many times children feel excluded because of their differences, whether it is the way they look or a learning disability they have. This exclusion has forced the education system to reform their ideas about how are children should be educated. One of the newest reform ideas is to encourage "inclusion" special education programs. Teacher collaboration and inclusion is beginning to be encouraged by many of the education journals and more information is accessible to help move this idea in a positive direction. In Childhood Education, a five-page report was dedicated to teacher collaboration in school reform. An education journal, Young Children also published a telling article, "Children Blossom in a Special and General Education Integration Program," on the collaboration of a daycare and a school that benefited all the children who were involved. An education Internet sight included an informative article, "Inclusion! The Bigger Picture," about the meaning of inclusion and how educators should view their students. Although the three articles suggested different strategies to collaborate and include eve
Schoen, Theresa Maloney, Jeanne Auen, and Mary Ann Arvanitis. "Children Blossom in a Special and General Education Integration Program." Young Children 52 (1997) : 58-63. While the successes of Schoen, Auen, and Arvanitis' approaches incorporate typical classrooms, revised lesson plans, language interaction, and loads of attention which is something the children look forward to. These strategies seem to stress long term effects, which are ultimate goals in integrating special and general education. Gable and Manning's strategies offer a sense of shared decision-making and create a climate in which all students are successful. Forest and Pearpoint also stress that inclusion is not something that we have to agree on; instead, it celebrates our diversity and differences with respect. Once everyone realizes that teacher collaboration is needed, our children will definitely blossom and begin to celebrate their differences. While schools cannot be solely responsible for enacting the collaboration in classrooms, they can alert the need for parents, politicians, and television networks to pull together in a concentrated effort to reform the school system. The knowledge that many children blossom and become more accepting through special and general education should be enough to gain the needed support. Since this reform is also a political goal, schools should receive ample support from the President, Congress, and every state governor. If this support is not received the politicians must be held responsible. Also since many disabled children have normal siblings in the home, parents must join the effort for success to be an option. Parents need to be strong role models and express to their children that everyone is unique and that it is good to be different. It is the responsibility of everyone to bring out the strong points of every child. All three articles held that the schools could not reform the special education system alone. Teachers, parents, administrators, students, and the whole community must get involved in classroom collaboration in order for progress to take place. Schoen, Auen, and Arvanitis' report named the disabilities of special needs children to be: down syndrome, autism, and physical
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Approximate Word count = 1513
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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