What are best practices you can use daily in inclusive instructional

5 9

3
Lever age the Str engths

of All Educat or s

Newly hired to teach at an elementary school, Nancy sat in a large audi-
torium, watching the school district’s other new teachers fi nd seats. After
inspiring speeches by the superintendent and other district leaders, the
attendees were invited to scan the day’s agenda: a review of employee
benefi t plans, contract requirements, and logistics. Concurrent orienta-
tion sessions would be held for elementary and secondary teachers, and
a separate orientation would be held for the special education teachers.

Nancy was taken aback; nothing on the agenda was related to
education- specifi c issues. When she inquired why special educators
would be separated from the other teachers, an event staff er replied,
“We’ve always done it this way.” The school district was sending a clear
message that it believed special education and general education to be
fundamentally diff erent.

The Great (False) Divide
This division between general and special education, entrenched in many
schools, is reinforced on the fi rst day of most teacher preparation programs.

YourMyOurStudents.indd 59YourMyOurStudents.indd 59 8/19/19 5:06 PM8/19/19 5:06 PM

Jung, L. A., Frey, N., Fisher, D., & Kroener, J. (2019). Your students, my students, our students : Rethinking equitable and inclusive classrooms.
Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.
Created from usw-ebooks on 2021-10-25 21:56:30.

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60 Your Students, My Students, Our Students

All four of us chose special education as a career only to discover that
choosing special education meant turning away from general education.
Preservice special education teachers do not share courses with those
studying general education, and at many colleges and universities, the
curriculum is delivered by separate university departments. This tradi-
tional arrangement has serious consequences. Special education is gov-
erned by the principle of the least restrictive environment (LRE), but how
can special educators support this without understanding what general
education is? How can general educators embrace educating students
with disabilities when they have had little preparation for and experience
with this part of their job?

When Doug was an aspiring speech-language pathologist, he worked
as an intern at an elementary school with a large cluster program for
children who were Deaf. Doug was providing pullout services for two
5th graders, unaware that their general education science class h