Inclusive Instruction: The How & Why

I have never met anyone who was like, “Inclusive instruction? Nah. I hate those kids.” Maybe those teachers exist, but they aren’t the ones I know. Instead, I meet a lot of folks, both special and general educators, who want to be inclusive but are stymied by how hard it is. 

If there was ever a time where classes were homogenous, it is long gone. Classrooms are full of students who speak different languages, who have different experiences of wealth and poverty, who differ in who, if anyone, is there to care for them at home, who differ in their social skills, and who differ in their academic skills. That is a true in a small, special education classroom as it is in a big, inclusive one.

Teaching to the middle is easy– you just sit up there, lecture, and hope someone actually learns from that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. 

There are, however, a lot of things that do work from differentiation to UDL to utilizing paraprofessionals well to coteaching (if done well) to leveraging family support. None of them are quite as easy as standing up in front of a class and blathering on– or as teaching a mythical class of perfectly average students. But all of them work– and all of them can make inclusive education less of a good idea and more of a de facto reality.