Inclusive Education and Choice

As a carer of a family member with a disability and a CEO of a not for profit agency supporting 500 adults with disabilities, most of whom went through special schools, I have been extremely disappointed recently by the call by some for special schools to be phased out. In 2022, at a time when we hear the words “choice” and “control” and phrases like “person first”?so often, and when we increasingly realise nothing is binary or simple, it shocks me to hear such an important and complex issue being treated in such a simplistic manner.

I will set out 4 reasons why this call is misguided :

1. People without disability get to choose from a myriad of diverse school settings – religious, Govt, Private, co-ed, selective, single sex and schools for the gifted just to name a few. Each of these choices offers self-selecting segregation.?Surely it’s fair and reasonable for the same right of choice of educational setting to be offered to people with disability? If everyone else is forced to give up their choice of educational setting (and we all therefore only have one homogenised school choice because the powers that be decide that inclusion is the best and only option allowed for us all to live our best lives) then I will concede that special schools should merge at the same time. Until then, leave them alone.
2. In my experience, the self-titled ‘advocates’ calling for special schools to be closed often do not have, or come from the community of, intellectual disability. Physical disabilities are far easier to accommodate in mainstream schools than developmental or intellectual disabilities. In comparison to the complex needs of kids with intellectual disabilities,?inclusive physical infrastructure like ramps are relatively easy to provide, and don’t necessarily require wholesale changes to curriculum, pedagogy or lesson content. All of us bring our bias and personal lense to this issue. I have seen first hand special schools play an amazing role and enable students with additional needs to thrive. So that lived experience means I am biased in favour of this choice. However many of the advocates i hear calling for these schools to be closed spent some time in this setting and found it very limiting and only thrived when they escaped that school to be mainstreamed. None of us should let our personal experience here - whether good or bad - set policy for everyone. There are good and bad schools everywhere. Our focus should be on elevating the teaching that goes on in all of these settings.
3. In 2019, I spent 6 months in California, arguably America’s most progressive state for disability rights. While there, I met with several talented special needs teachers who worked inside inclusive mainstream schools. It was truly heartbreaking to learn about their dysfunctional reality, versus the idealised theory. Whilst it was great to hear that some students (often those with only physical disability or very mild intellectual disability) were able to move between the classes so they had some integration, many kids with moderate to higher intellectual disability stayed inside the special needs classroom – yes, there were still ‘special needs’ classrooms even within this inclusive environment. I heard of teachers who often tried to stretch out ‘eating time’ at lunchtime as long as possible to minimise interactions in the playground – this was well-intentioned, protective behaviour, because left unsupervised the mainstream kids would bully and tease their differently abled peers. This illustrates a profound truth: Physical inclusion is not social inclusion.?Indeed, students in these environments often feel more socially isolated and ‘different’ than those in special schools. In California in 2019, the Government admitted to getting the inclusive school model wrong by not investing enough in training teachers beforehand. Instead, they simply dumped the kids with special needs into the mainstream schools and hired untrained casuals to be the aides. Twenty years later, they admitted the error and are now investing hundreds of millions to provide the proper teacher training.
4. One of the criticisms of special schools is they are segregated and set up the students for a segregated life.?Segregation is a very loaded word and it needs to be unpacked. Segregation can be forced – and we’d all agree that’s not appropriate - or it actually can be a choice. There are many examples of self segregation in our community –Fernwood gyms for women, Mens Clubs, and how about ladies’ days at Golf Clubs??The Paralympics is segregated and is one of the world’s most loved and impactful events. Athletes with an intellectual disability were actually kicked out of competing in the Paralympics in 2000 (not re-admitted until 2012) and so they set up their own self segregated event called the Global Games . I could go on. Long live the right of peers to self segregate and compete with each other, gather with each other or learn with each other.

Inclusion is a journey. And it’s not the only destination.

We all travel and move between inclusive and segregated settings in our lives. And we make choices. Often, I choose to spend time with people like myself. Maybe that’s a bad choice. But no one tells me I can’t make that choice because I am limiting my future outcomes. It’s my right to choose who I spend time with. Others are welcome to their opinions – but those opinions are subjective, and should never trump my right to choose how to live my life. People with disabilities deserve the same freedoms of choice. And if they don’t choose inclusion, then that choice should be heard, respected and accommodated.

One hard line inclusion advocate told me recently that if someone with an intellectual disability doesn’t choose inclusion then this should be ignored because they don’t have the capacity to make that choice.?

Let me repeat that so we all hear the judgement being made ....and can reflect . I was told - if a person with an intellectual disability does not choose inclusion, then its not an "educated" or "informed" choice....so it should be ignored...because essentially that person does not have the intellectual capacity to make such an important choice.

I hope we all find that terrifying. And controlling. And disrespectful. I sure do.?