Voices of Experience: Discussing Full Inclusion with Parents
With all the optimism of a new teacher, I thought I would have a talk with Paula's mother and it would all be worked out. Her mother came into the classroom early, we sat down and I began, "Paula seems to be uncomfortable with one of the children in our classroom."
Her mother shuddered, "You mean, that boy. I have been wanting to talk to you. Don't you think he would be better off in a classroom that meets his needs. I mean, do you really think he belongs with the normal children?"
"I know he looks a bit different," I told her, "but he is a very bright little boy. He is really ahead of his age for language, and is a good role model for speech for the other children. He is friends with everyone in the class."
Paula's mother was still not happy, "I can't believe having him there doesn't take time away from time for the normal kids. Didn't you have to spend a lot of time and money fixing up the classroom just for him. You're worried about being fair to him, what about being fair to the rest of the kids in the class?"
"Really, we didn't have to do anything except move the tables apart more so his wheelchair could get through. When we go from one activity to the next, one of the staff pushes his wheelchair. We might have to move a chair from the table to make room for him. It realy doesn't take us any time at all."
"Well, Paula just isn't comfortable in the classroom with him, " her mother insisted. "It's not her fault. Once we were out at a restaurant and there was a woman there who looked like she was retarded or something, and Paula was staring at her and the woman said to her in a really mean voice, 'What are you staring at?' and scared her. So, I think she just doesn't like handicapped people."
"You know, that's called being prejudiced, " I told her, "and we don't believe in that at our school."
Later, the Director told me that Paula's mother had complained to her that I "wasn't good at listening to parents' concerns." Two weeks after that, she took her daughter out of our center. I told the Director about my meeting with Paula's mother. She was quiet a moment and then said, "You want to know what I really think?" I nodded. "Good riddance."
This isn't the most politically correct story about how people react to parents, or people with disabilities, but it all really happened. So, you're not perfect. Parents in your program aren't perfect, and it won't all work out perfectly in the end every time. As for Derrick - by age five, he had a couple more operations that enabled him to walk with a walker, and he finally got to take that awful halo thing off his head because his skull had grown together enough. He went to kindergarten along with all the other kids.
