Inclusion
Perspectives on Parenting©
by Nancy Lambert Davenport


Nancy Davenport's Column:
For Richardson News 04-09-00
Copyright Nancy Lambert Davenport 2000

"Exclusionary Tactics Do A Disservice"


I take exception to what I read in a news article published April 3 in the meto section of The Dallas Morning News. The premise of the story was that public school teachers were not meeting the needs of students with disabilities.

While airing criticism of these teachers, the writer praised the work done at Notre Dame School of Dallas as being better for students with mental retardation because it caters only to students with mental retardation.

One parent was quoted as saying she felt her son, "needed to be with these kids because he's not terribly verbal or social" and that " he spent a lot of time doing a puzzle in the corner" at the public school.

The principal, when explaining that many graduates do find jobs when they graduate from Notre Dame, said, "The repetitive jobs that you and I might not find interesting are often the ones they excel in."

I decided I needed to speak up in defense of our public school system, as imperfect as it sometimes is, and our kids with disabilities who do go and learn and play with everyone else there. As several public school teachers I know pointed out to me, someone needs to say something.

So here I go.

First, as to not meeting the needs of students with disabilities, I think we need to define what the needs are. If the needs are

then that will be difficult in a segregated setting such as Notre Dame.

I think everyone in education agrees that the most productive learning is not done in a clinical setting, but when the subject is put to practice. People don't learn photography by reading a book. They learn through trial and error when they take pictures.

The best way for young people with disabilities to learn those skills listed above is to be in the classroom, in the lab, in the gym, at the dances, at the football games, in the cafeteria, and in the hallway with kids of all ability levels.

Students with disabilities who are fully included in their schools are not "being prepared for the outside world" as one parent at Notre Dame said in the article. They are IN the outside world.

I remember when my older son was struggling with his German classes in college. He spent months and months in the classroom trying to break the code of the language. Then after spending part of one summer in Germany, immersed in the language, he came home able to carry on a conversation with anyone in German.

So why, I ask, would someone want to learn language skills in a class with all students who have language deficits or social skills from students who lack them?

Experts have proven over and over through research that students learn best in a natural setting. Too many people see the student with disabilities who is "not very verbal or social" as destined to stay that way forever.

I know many, many people with and without disabilities who were "not very verbal or social" when they were young yet blossomed as they matured. I am concerned that children given labels such as the one this mother gave her own child will bring to pass a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In addition to touting the good of a segregated learning setting, the article mentioned that in public education students spent time "doing puzzles in the corner."

Where was the irate parent of that student? Why was the Individual Education Plan not being waved in the teacher's face? Why was the parent not sitting in the principal's office every day until the child was in a good learning environment? Why was the parent not using every legal option he or she had in our newly revised Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)?

Parents have got to be on the front lines in the battle for their children's education whether the child has disabilities or not. That is the parents' role in the "outside" world. No one else cares as much as they do.

That principal's last point about graduates from Notre Dame enjoying "repetitive jobs that you and I might not find interesting" reflects too well, perhaps, what that school teaches.

As one of my son's friends with a disability says, "Give me a break!"

People with disabilities enjoying repetitive jobs is a myth. They get bored just as quickly as anyone else. They want interesting lifetime work, work in a place where they can make friends, work that contributes something important to the work place, and their best chance of learning the skills to achieve those desires is in a totally inclusive setting.


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Nancy Lambert Davenport
EMAIL: nancdave@swbell.net
URL: http://www.nancyldavenport.com