Mainstreaming

[ocarinagirl]

In other words, putting mentally handicapped kids in as many regular classrooms as possible. Do any of your schools do this to an extent? Is it a positive learning experience or more of a distraction?

My high school did that, and it wasn't a very big deal. There was this one girl with cerebral palsy in my art class. She was a pretty good student, but she kept trying to flirt with this guy who was a total ass. Meh...*shrug*

I don't see it as a distraction, personally. =/

[Cornell J]

When I went to pick Andre up from school earlier today I saw the dumbest things.

There is this autistic boy, who I'm guessing's real name is "Russel", he gets annoyed when you call him "Russ".
The kid carries around a mini-briefcase and all, and he is a very smart kid from what I've heard.

Well, these stupid red-neck-hick kids keep blocking his way and callin him "russ" repeatedly to annoy him.

I can't stand it, I wanted to grab one of these little over-tanned shrubs over the head, but, last time I did that, I was restricted to only picking Dre up outside and not being able to step out the car for a good month.

[CaptHayfever]

In my experience, it's been pretty much neutral for the rest of the class and mostly positive for the specific kid.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Erdawn Il Deus]

Originally posted by Cornell: The Headmaster:
When I went to pick Andre up from school earlier today I saw the dumbest things.

There is this autistic boy, who I'm guessing's real name is "Russel", he gets annoyed when you call him "Russ".
The kid carries around a mini-briefcase and all, and he is a very smart kid from what I've heard.

Well, these stupid red-neck-hick kids keep blocking his way and callin him "russ" repeatedly to annoy him.

I can't stand it, I wanted to grab one of these little over-tanned shrubs over the head, but, last time I did that, I was restricted to only picking Dre up outside and not being able to step out the car for a good month.

Tell them to go **** themselves until they can identify a spleen on one of their sexual organs.

Or something along those lines, anyway.

[The Missing Link]

The technical term in this neck of the woods is "inclusion" since you're including them into normal classes.

My mother is a high school mathematics teacher, and she absolutely loathes it. The problem with inclusion is that, in academic classes, you have to teach to an extremely wide variety of students with quite spread out abilities. It's "irresponsible" for teachers to teach to the best of them because it will leave the class behind, so what happens in essence is that teachers have to teach their material at a lower level than normal so as to include them as well. To me, this lessens the quality of education that we are providing for children, and that's just going to have a cyclic effect next generation and so on.

I really don't believe in the principle. Sure, it might encourage some drive in some of the handicapped students, but I think it's a disservice to the student body at large.

[ocarinagirl]

But see, for the smarter kids, there's always honors classes (at least in a lot of schools).

There was a girl with autism in my history class (Civics, to be precise) and having her in there certainly didn't bring down the quality of our learning. If anything, the rest of us brought the girl's learning up by quite a bit. It's actually more beneficial than most people would think.

[CaptHayfever]

Heck, I even had a mildly austistic kid in a couple of my honors classes in high school, and he was in the top half of the class.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[ocarinagirl]

And besides, the kids who are more..."severe" when it comes to being handicapped, they're mainly included in stuff like PE and art. That's the mainstreaming that I'm talking about here.

And autism's not really a mental handicap, I don't think. The girl in our class just had a pretty severe case of it. =/

[Link2000]

Depends on the classes. I like the approache our shcool takes. They allow the mentally challenged kids into PE and the arts, and that's prtety much it. I had two rather severly disabled people in my drama class last year, and they certainly did disrupt the class. But since it was only drama, I suppose it didn't matter too much.

[The Missing Link]

Originally posted by Bad Andi:
But see, for the smarter kids, there's always honors classes (at least in a lot of schools).

But follow me here --

You make a difference between the "good kids" and everyone else. There are kids who distinctly have a different ability level than everyone else, and as such should be separated from the remainder of them. What then enables you to say that the "not-good kids" who have ability below everyone else shouldn't be separated? If you're going to make a distinct difference between two classes, and you're going to tailor education on merit of ability, why must the lowliest of the low be grouped with the middle, therefore dragging down the middle since we'll have to teach to the lowest common denominator?


"There are some who call me... Link?"
"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

[ocarinagirl]

But honors classes aren't mandatory-the "good" kids don't have to be separated from the rest if they don't want to.

And, like myself and others have said before me...
A) Regarding mainsteaming, the only "normal" classes handicapped kids are put in are either PE or Art. Not something of such calibur as, say...English or Algebra. You're delving into the concept of ability grouping now, not mainstreaming. Mainstreaming involves handicapped kids while ability grouping involves grouping students into low, average, and high. Stop confusing the two terms.

B) Most of the time, the handicapped kids actually benefit from being in a regular class instead of the other kids being dragged down. The point of mainstreaming isn't to put handicapped kids in higher level classes. The point is to give them kind of a balance in their life and so they get to be with the "regular" kids. It's great for them and the rest of the class doesn't get "held back" by the kid.

And why are we debating? This isn't PPR, goddammit.

[The Missing Link]

Oh, fine, fine. I'll hold my tounge. I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods, however, but here they do group handicapped children in English, algebra, history, and the other academic classes.


"There are some who call me... Link?"
"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

[ocarinagirl]

Originally posted by The 404 Link:
Oh, fine, fine. I'll hold my tounge. I don't know how it is in your neck of the woods, however, but here they do group handicapped children in English, algebra, history, and the other academic classes.

...Well, that's odd. Usually, mainstreaming involves putting handicapped kids in stuff like arts and PE. Although, if you have something like autism, you can certainly take an academic class with little to no problems...

...I think that's where we might have gotten confused. o_O

[Godot]

It depends on the student, their learning capitally, and also the WILL to learn. If they can do the problems the selected class gives, and feel like stepping up a notch without no hassle, they can do what they want. However, be warned, for where great things you do, there is always the stupid ****s that follow. And on the lines of autism, it's also if they are willing to be somewhat social. I only socialize when there is a problem(s) I am having, but otherwise I am very quiet.

And with severely handicap human beings, it is also a depending factor. There is a kid in my school name Patrick, and he has some sort of condition which makes him who he is (I cannot tell what it is...). If they get some supportive background help, then there is a chance they can pull it off.

[Cosmonautical]

Singling out second rate classes for them to join isn't going to help anybody. Art Foundations and P.E. aren't real classes. They're goof off classes, really.