H2 – Honor student access to content material.
Special Education and it’s accompanying debate correlates highly with providing the most accessible education for students if they happen to have various impairments or disabilities. Both sides of the “Special Education” debate provide valid evidence for whether separation or inclusion in mainstream education for disabled students is the right way to go. While separation of disabled students may help with their immediate academic performance, in the long run, they may or may not have been provided the resources to succeed in the mainstream society that they live in. Similarly, abandoning students in regular education classes without any resources to accommodate their disability will lead to academic failure. I believe that keeping students in regular ed. classes is valuable for social and academic growth so long as appropriate accommodations are provided for the students who require them.
In reading Evans’ chapter regarding the special education debate, the example of eyeglasses as an accommodation stood out to me (2008). As educators we need to see that accommodations are not “special treatment” for students. They merely serve to improve or change how students access academic material. For special education students the barrier is that they are not able to access information in the same way as many other students. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act states that students will receive an education in the “least restrictive environment” (1974). By working to alleviate certain restrictions, we can unleash the full potential of all of our students and provide them the thorough education that they deserve. Teachers need to accommodate this idea and not feel that special education students are a burden or not smart enough to be in their class. In most cases they are smart enough when they are able to access information in a useful way to them.
Evans, D. (2008). Issue 17. Is the Practice of Providing Accommodations to Children in Special Education a Good Idea? In Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Teaching and Educational Practice (Third ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. (1974). Scheuerman. R. EDU 6989 Session 3 outline. Retrieved from https://mountainlightschool.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/issues-session-3a-special-ed.pdf
Online Teaching Portfolio 