Some children in public schools experience problems such as difficulties with concentration, speech, language, physical differences, and other perception problems. This leads to problems in their learning and forming a social school life, such as having friends. These difficulties are caused by physical, psychiatric, behavioural, emotional, and learning disorders. Children with special needs in public schools must receive additional services to increase their ability to learn with others effectively. For instance, US Federal law requires that these children receive free and appropriate education in the most favourable environment. Although different states have different requirements for eligibility, it is important to note that children with disabilities in public schools require special assistance to make them feel part of the school.
Regarding including students with special needs education in public schools, some people support it while others oppose it. Those supporting it will see the social, emotional, and academic benefits the disabled and non-disabled will gain from learning together. On the contrary, others argue that the increased amount of time that children with special needs spend in public school classrooms is detrimental to the future of education. Children with special needs require special education whereby they will receive education by addressing their problems and integrating them as much as possible into their peer’s education. If this is not offered, they may never achieve success, academic achievement, self-sufficiency, and provide future family contributions. Children with special needs require love, support, and encouragement to increase their confidence, self-worth, and determination to keep going.
Add Diversity
One of the main reasons why children with disability should be included in public schools is because they add diversity to the school. While biodiversity increases more medicines, cultural, mental and physical diversity encourages innovation, creativity and new ideas in the classroom (Sandoval Gomez & McKee, 2020). In addition, neurodiversity makes the classroom interesting and learning become more fun. Diversity is important because it is boring when all students act and look the same in school.
Introduce New Strengths in School
The other reason is that children with disabilities introduce new strengths in public schools. In most cases, when people discuss issues regarding those with disabilities, they only think of their weaknesses, not knowing they have strengths too. Children with disabilities have strengths such as; having high creativity for children with ADHD, high special ability for children with dyslexia, and high technological expertise for those with autism disorders (Leijen et al., 2021). This shows that children with disabilities can benefit other non-disabled because they can share their strengths when interacting and learning with them.
Encourage Emotional Growth
When there are children with disabilities in the school, they support the climate of giving. According to Warnes et al. (2021), children with autism positively influenced the spirit of giving in a classroom. Children tend to have mercy and pity for children with these disorders hence making them learn to share things. Additionally, these children are likely to impact the mood of the classroom such that when they are absent, other children are gloomy, and when they are present and healthy, the class will be happy. This is an indication that children with disabilities help in providing emotional growth for other children. They learn how to love, care, trust, and help, which are important virtues in life.
They are Likely to Surpass Expectations
Children with disabilities surpass expectations in a setting that expects more from them. As shown in the “Pygmalion in the classroom experiments,” when teacher raises their expectations of students, the performance goes up, and when they lower their expectations, performance goes down (Crea et al., 2022). When the students are segregated and put together in a special needs school, they feel traumatized, ridiculed, stigmatized, and condemned. In addition, teachers take them as children with less ability than the so-called normal students, lowering their expectations and hence poor performance. When placed in public schools, they experience what it is like to be a normal child and study in a regular classroom environment. Following the positive performance of their peers, they are likely to be inspired and rise to achieve the high expectations that the teachers have of them.
Better Brain Development
Studying in an inclusive classroom helps children with disability to develop their brains. Children with disability are more likely to have stronger neural connections in their brains when they socialize with others and stay in a rich learning environment. An experiment done at the University of California, Berkeley, found that rats in a richer environment had more dendrites protruding from their brain cells than those in isolated cages (Kenny et al., 2020). This implies that an open environment is more helpful in brain growth than an isolated one. The rich environment provides a good environment for physical exercise and social interaction. Additionally, young children in their developmental period are very sensitive to their external stimuli, which is why those with learning disabilities should not be excluded.
Students with Disability Promote the Climate of Generosity
When a class includes children with disabilities, there is a climate of giving. When other children learn to live with disabled children, they become less selfish because they pity the disabled children. According to a case study using a child with autism, it was found that other children became competitive and restless when she was away (Crea et al., 2022). However, when she returned to school, every child in the class was calm and had a more positive attitude toward one another. When asked about the response of other children in the class, her teachers stated that she made other children less selfish and more caring for one another (Crea et al., 2022). This is na indication that children with disabilities send a message to other in the classroom that it is important to take care of one another in life.
Take Too Much Time
On the contrary, those who argue against including children with special needs in public schools have their reasons too. One of the reasons they give is that when children with disabilities are taken to public schools, they take too much time from the other students (Smith et al., 2022). For instance, when a class of 35 children has a quarter of the population with special needs, it may take the teacher much time to help each one. Sometimes the special needs within the group are unique, and each student requires their help. This may include behavior intervention strategies, blended learning, research-based reading, and individual progress monitoring (Cologon, 2020). This would take a considerable amount of time which would significantly affect the learning of others. However, this challenge can be solved through co-teaching, whereby normal teachers collaborate with those with special needs in planning, testing, teaching, and grading the children. This would promote an equal environment whereby each child’s special needs are catered for.
Fewer Distractions Serve Them Better
The other argument is that when special needs children are placed in a classroom with fewer distractions, it will serve them better. According to this argument, children with special needs should be secluded and given a special classroom with fewer distractions and better amenities for special needs children (Radez et al., 2020). This seems feasible for children with common disabilities, such as those with autism. In reality, it is difficult and expensive to have children with the same disability in one classroom. This means the classroom will have children with different disabilities together, making it more complex for the teacher to communicate and regulate behavior. However, this challenge can be solved by putting them in public schools with other non-disabled children, making them feel more comfortable communicating and expressing their behavior (Radez et al., 2020). The social and emotional interaction in inclusive schools is good for their growth.
Children with Disabilities May not Get Anything From General Classroom
There is a common argument that children with more significant disabilities cannot be taught in the general classroom because they will not get anything. Complex topics such as world history, algebra, or foreign languages prove challenging for children with disabilities (Cologon, 2020). Therefore, it is argued that these children will give the teacher more work to teach them these concepts or even choose to skip them. Therefore, to avoid these problems, it is better to have special children in their classes so that they learn their unique curriculum, which is simplified and effective for them. Their curriculum has to be easy to understand and not involve complex exams such as the ones done by normal students.
According to the above reasons, it is not feasible to seclude children with special needs and place them in special schools. The issue of time that has been raised can be solved using co-teaching. When teachers from the special needs department work with normal teachers, they can quickly provide the special requirements. The other argument is that they need a classroom with fewer distractions. This method has proved to be non-beneficial to the children since they cannot help one another. Therefore it is better to have them in public schools where they can support each other emotionally, academically, and physically.
In support of having children with special needs included in public schools, various advantages make this feasible. They add diversity to the schools, bring new strengths to the classroom, encourage the spirit of giving, are likely to do better, develop stronger neural connections and encourage a climate of giving in the class. This shows that disabled children are likely to benefit more when in an inclusive classroom than in a special needs school. In addition, their interaction with other non-disabled children will have positive impacts on the non-disabled children because they learn some things from the disabled children, such as emotional development.
Therefore, it is true that having special needs children in public schools is beneficial. This implies that they should be accepted to feel like part of the school. Denying them an opportunity to learn with other children only weakens their development, making them unable to be self-sufficient, successful, and dependable. This implies that society should accept children with special needs to interact and learn with their children. Other than helping the children with special needs, it will help other children without special needs acquire skills they would not have attained without them.
References
Cologon, K. (2020). Is inclusive education really for everyone? Family stories of children and young people labelled with “severe and multiple” or “profound” “disabilities.” Research Papers in Education, 37(3), 1–23. Web.
Crea, T. M., Klein, E. K., Okunoren, O., Jimenez, M. P., Arnold, G. St., Kirior, T., Velandria, E., & Bruni, D. (2022). Inclusive education in a refugee camp for children with disabilities: How are school setting and children’s behavioral functioning related? Conflict & Health, 16(1), 1–10. Web.
Kenny, N., McCoy, S., & Mihut, G. (2020). Special education reforms in Ireland: changing systems, changing schools. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 13(3), 1–20. Web.
Leijen, Ä., Arcidiacono, F., & Baucal, A. (2021). The dilemma of inclusive education: inclusion for some or inclusion for all. Frontiers in Psychology, 12(7). Web.
Radez, J., Reardon, T., Creswell, C., Lawrence, P. J., Evdoka-Burton, G., & Waite, P. (2020). Why do children and adolescents (not) seek and access professional help for their mental health problems? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 30(2). Web.
Sandoval Gomez, A., & McKee, A. (2020). When special education and disability studies intertwine: Addressing educational inequities through processes and programming. Frontiers in Education, 5(3). Web.
Smith, C., Tani, M., Yates, S., & Dickinson, H. (2022). Successful school interventions for students with disability during COVID-19: Empirical evidence from Australia. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 215(34). Web.
Warnes, E., Done, E. J., & Knowler, H. (2021). Mainstream teachers’ concerns about inclusive education for children with special educational needs and disability in England under pre‐pandemic conditions. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 22(1), 31–43. Web.