[IEP_guide] Special Education is Not a Place: Avoiding Pull-Out Services in Inclusive School

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kathyR

Special Education is Not a Place: Avoiding Pull-Out

Services in

Inclusive Schools

Since the inception of inclusive schooling, teachers have worked hard

to provide students with disabilities access to both a typical

education in the general education classroom and to the individual

supports and services they need to find success in that classroom. In

many classrooms, however, educators stumped at how to do both resort

to pulling students out of the classroom for short bits of

instruction, or in some cases, for large periods of the school day.

Clearly, some students need special tutorials, individualized

instruction, extra skill practice, or reinforcement of key concepts.

Removing students from their classrooms to receive these supports,

however, may not be necessary. Some educators and scholars have

argued that pulling students out of their general education classroom

is necessary if students are to get the individual support they need

while others insist that students lose access to general education

curriculum, instruction, incidental learning, and social skills when

they leave their classroom and that the potential benefits of pull-

out services are not worth the cost of leaving. Perhaps educators do

not need to debate these points; teachers may not need to choose

between personalized instruction and a general education experience.

In today's inclusive classrooms, students can often get both. In this

article I explore three questions teachers often ask about pull-out

services and personalized instruction and suggest a variety of ways

in which students can receive appropriate instruction alongside peers

without disabilities in general education classrooms.

How Can Students Get Personalized Instruction In the Inclusive

Classroom?

Many students with disabilities are pulled from their general

education classrooms because teachers feel they need a more

individualized learning experience than can be provided in a general

education setting. It is certainly true that many students with

academic needs and learning differences require individual or small

group help or individualized teaching strategies. However, teachers

must always consider the answers to the following questions when

planning individual instruction:

How can this support be delivered in the most effective and

meaningful way?

Does the student need to leave the general education environment for

this instruction?

If the student leaves the classroom for instruction, what will he or

she gain? What will he or she lose?

Can the student get the content or strategies he or she needs without

losing access to the general education classroom?

If after addressing those questions, the team determines the learner

would profit from the general education classroom experience, the

following strategies can help educators provide personalized

instruction in those inclusive environments:

Co-Teaching

When two teachers are available to deliver instruction, roles can be

differentiated, the teacher to student ration goes down, and

instruction can be tailored to meet the needs of a wider range of

students. During student work time, instructors can move through the

classroom addressing the needs of individual learners and providing

extra enrichment or help as needed.

Station Teaching

Using stations or center-based instruction is one way busy classroom

teachers individualize instruction for all. This model is also often

used by co-teaching teams. During a stations teaching model, students

in the class can be instructed to visit some or all of the stations,

depending on individual goals and needs and teachers can design tasks

at stations that give students opportunities to tackle individual

goals and learn new skills.

Integrated Therapy

When therapists, social workers, counselors, and other related

services professionals enter general education classrooms, all

learners benefit. When Tyler, a student with autism, began receiving

his speech and language supports in his first-grade classroom, he was

able to study the same stories as his peers while gaining much-needed

competencies in the areas of articulation and language development.

Tyler's speech

therapist also profited from this experience as she

began to function as an instructor for a small group of six-year-

olds; she learned new ways to teach Tyler

communication skills and,

after observing the classroom teacher, she discovered new ways to

teach using standards-based and curriculum-based strategies.

Independent Instruction

In some instances, students are pulled from their classes to learn

new skills, other times they are pulled to practice skills that have

already been introduced. There are many ways learners can direct

their own learning- by selecting work from in a teacher-created study

folder, by " testing " themselves using flashcards, individual games

(e.g., crossword puzzles, memory games); workbooks, activity kits, or

computer programs.

Peer-Support

Before students are pulled out for instruction or skill practice,

teachers should always consider the possibility of using peer support

or tutoring to meet student needs. One school responded to the need

for individual support by pairing all students with a partner for a

part of the school day that was challenging and novel- working with

technology. Both students were learning something new so neither one

had more knowledge or skill than the other. In another classroom,

teachers used cross-age tutors to support their classrooms. Sixth-

grade students came into the fourth-grade classroom twice a week and

helped struggling readers write their own books.

Study/Work Time

In almost every classroom (including those in secondary schools),

teachers designate some part of the school day or week for individual

work, project-based work, or partner learning. If teachers plan

together up front, this can be a time where any learner in the

classroom can meet with a teacher (special educator, speech

therapist, enhancement/gifted education teacher, reading specialist,

parent volunteer, community mentor, cross-age tutor).

How Will Students Learn Functional Skills In the Inclusive Classroom?

One reason students are pulled out is to give them instruction they

may not be able to receive in the general education classroom. This

is primarily a concern of teachers in secondary schools, but teachers

of learners in lower grades may struggle with it as well. When

educational teams target functional skills as a priority, a number of

questions should be asked and answered:

What functional skills are critical for this learner's success?

Where can these skills be taught/learned?

If we pull students from coursework to learn functional skills, what

do we potentially give up?

Do we need to give up academic instruction or typical school

experiences to get functional skill instruction?

There are several ways to address the need for functional skills.

Perhaps the most obvious way to get students the skills they need is

to explore ways for students to get this practice in typical school

coursework or by being very inventive with a student's course

schedule. For instance, one 18-year-old high school student needed to

learn money/change making skills so he spent two high school periods

working in the school store with other students from his business and

marketing class. Another student who needed a lot of assistance with

self-care (and enjoyed athletics), was scheduled for two different

physical education classes – swimming and volleyball. She not only

learned two life-long leisure activities but was able to receive

instruction in dressing, applying make-up, washing, and other self-

care skills on a regular basis. She also learned how to engage in

relaxing stretching exercises as a way to manage stress.

What Will Students with Disabilities Do During Traditional Whole-

Class Instruction?

A common question teachers ask is, " What do we do with students

during lectures? " Recognizing how difficult it is for some students

to sit in their seats and actively listen for fifteen minutes to an

hour or more at a time, teachers pull students out to engage in

learning experiences that are more active, meaningful, and geared to

the student's individual goals.

Because so many students with disabilities do struggle to participate

during a traditional lecture format, this approach certainly seems

reasonable. It ignores, however, a larger educational problem- that

is, many many students (those with and without disabilities) struggle

to attend to a traditional lecture or whole-class discussion and need

opportunities to move, share, interact, and process in order to

learn. If students with disabilities are learning in classrooms where

the predominant teaching model is lecture and whole-class discussion,

then the teaching team needs to brainstorm new ways of providing

instruction to all students instead of identifying those who will

most obviously struggle and leaving the rest to navigate the lesson

on their own.

Consider the success one secondary teaching team experienced when

they made small shifts away from whole-group instruction (Kluth,

2003). Anne, a woman with autism, did not have a reliable

communication system and she often vocalized audibly during classes.

Her American History teacher was frustrated with her presence in the

classroom; the teacher was a popular and animated instructor but he

had been using the same lessons for several years and was not

prepared to make changes " just for one student " .

Anne's teacher, a special educator, offered to work with the history

teacher to create opportunities for Anne to participate in his

lessons. The class was studying the Vietnam conflict; in order to

teach this particular unit, the teacher was using a history textbook,

a range of popular films (e.g., Apocalypse Now , Born on the Fourth

of July , and Platoon ), newspaper clippings from the late 1960s and

early 1970s, and a few fictitious accounts of the war. While the

materials were varied and interesting to most of the students, the

teaching style was not. This dynamic instructor, although very funny

and entertaining, delivered instruction through a lecture format

every day. While students did have opportunities to ask and answer

questions during the lectures, they were not able to interact with

each other, explore materials in-depth, solve problems independently,

or create products. While some students could stay attentive during a

lecture format, many others, including Anne, could not. By the end of

the daily lecture, many students were falling asleep, writing notes

to friends, or staring out the classroom's large wall of windows.

The special educator suggested that once a week, while the teacher

was showing a movie, the students in the class would be offered an

alternative activity. The teachers decided to collaborate on the

activity. One teacher, they decided, would stay back in the classroom

and supervise the movie viewing while the other teacher would

accompany a small group of students around the large high school,

seeking faculty, staff members, and other adults in the school who

would be willing to be interviewed about their memories of the

Vietnam

era. For the first few weeks, the special educator took the

students on the school tour; five students including Anne marched

through the halls, visited the teacher's lounge, and even canvassed

the main office looking for family members who might be visiting the

school. Since Anne could not speak, her job was to operate the tape

recorder (a new skill), introduce the group to the adult (via a

communication card reading " We are conducting a history project

related to the Vietnam

conflict. We are interested in interviewing

people who remember the Vietnam

era. Do you mind if we ask you a few

questions? " ). Anne also participated in the interview process by

handing question cards to the adults being questioned.

Both educators were pleased with the unit and the history teacher

claimed that all of his students learned more, even those who

could " handle " the lectures. He saw more complexity in all of his

learners and felt that the interview activity allowed him to tackle

more complicated topics and give students more opportunities to think

critically. He didn't have Anne in any of his classes the next

semester, but he did continue to use the interviewing project as a

central focus of the unit. In subsequent semesters, all students

worked in groups to choose a specific focus for their interviews

(e.g. combat, on the home front, American politics during the Vietnam

era) and to design questions. Further, students were no longer asked

to skip the film while conducting interviews; all learners went out

into the school and neighboring community during the class period.

Conclusions

Too often students with disabilities are marginalized and viewed

as " the other " . This perspective has been perpetuated through the use

of the pull-out system. Pull-out services reinforce differences and,

more importantly, interrupt the typical experiences necessary for

social skill acquisition, life-skill learning, and scholastic

success. By creatively considering a variety of ways to personalize

instruction in classrooms, teaching functional skills in the context

of general education classes, and providing a wider range of

instructional options for all students, however, educators can

minimize pull-out services and give students access to individualized

instruction, social experiences, collaborative opportunities, and

academic curricula.

References

P. Kluth (2003). " You're going to love this kid " : Teaching students

with autism in the inclusive classroom . Baltimore:

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Publishing

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