The world is made up of many different kinds of people. There are people with different skin colors, different religions, different hairstyles, and different learning abilities. Yet, despite all their differences, people somehow manage to work together successfully.
Learning to get along with different kinds of people is one of the keys to being successful in life. School helps you to do this. Inclusion in classrooms allows you to work and get to know all different types of kids. .
Background Information.
According to Friend and Bursuck (2002), inclusion is the term used to describe a professional belief that students with disabilities should be integrated into a general education classroom whether or not they can meet traditional curricular standard and should be full members of those classrooms. In this process a regular teacher teaches the class and the special education instructor, a paraprofessional, or a volunteer joins the class to provide support to the classroom teacher. Inclusion was first known as mainstreaming. The term mainstreaming describes the education of students with disabilities with those who do not have disabilities (Friend and Bursuck, 2002).
Benefits of Inclussion.
There are many good reasons to continue building inclusion programs. This report will focus on four of the reasons.
Sense of Belonging.
In today's world you are either included or excluded. You simply are in or your out. Inclusion helps all students, even those with out disabilities, to be included. In an inclusive classroom, differences among the students can be openly discussed. It is highly important for each student to understand that differences are natural and that it is okay to be different (Voltz, Brazil, and Ford, 2001). According to Voltz, et al. (2001), diversity is something that should be viewed as a value and should not be eliminated. Each and every student is seen as unique and having something important to contribute (Forest and Pearpoint, 2000).
