The most vivid image Marsha Swindler, Ph.D., has about the start of her career is a hallway.
“When I started my teaching career in the ‘80s, all of special education was in one room down the last hallway,” recalls Marsha Swindler, Ph.D., core faculty at Pacific Oaks College. “Anybody who walked down it was singled out as either an instructor or a student in special education. And it became othering for them. Our students’ self-esteem was nonexistent.”
This “othering” of special education can color a student’s entire educational experience. From the rooms students learn in and the way they are disciplined and interacted with,
to the actual language used, separating students with support needs can limit opportunities and inadvertently create an unequal learning environment.
More than 60 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of children by race was unconstitutional. While Brown v. Board of Education is mostly known for ending “separate but equal” doctrines in education, it also set the foundation for special education policies from that moment forward, giving students with support needs the right to public education.
In 1975, the first iteration of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed allowing more than one million American children with disabilities to start receiving free public school education. More than 7.5 million children with disabilities were provided special education and related services in 2018-2019, with more than 64% of those children in general education classrooms for 80% or more of their school day—something that has been shown to lead to improved outcomes for these students.
“Special education specialists are teachers, but their craft is about understanding how to take the curriculum and adapt it to meet the students where they are at,” says Kathleen Mercier, Ed.D., an adjunct professor at Pacific Oaks. “If students are solely taught by education specialists, these students might not be getting instructors that specialize solely in that curriculum area.”
Teacher education must evolve to be able to meet the needs of children. In a report by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the National Center for Learning Disabilities, the graduation rate for students with learning disabilities is only 64%. In a 2019 report, less than 20% of general education teachers felt prepared to teach students with mild to moderate learning disabilities.
“For general education teachers, it’s almost fear of the unknown on how to teach students with support needs,” Dr. Swindler says.
The next frontier of special education lies first with teacher instruction and modeling for teacher candidates the type of instruction that can work best in their own classrooms.
Intersectionality of behavior, culture, and ability
By nature of the current educational landscape, teachers are often the adults most privy to the day-to-day behaviors of children. While their job is to educate, teachers also have a duty to their students to recognize them as a whole person, allowing every part of a child’s identity and behavior to be seen and celebrated. Othering them—either through race or ability—robs them of a potential to express who they are and risks further widening key achievement gaps present in schools today.
Not only are students of color identified for special education at higher rates than white students, once classified, they also spend less time in general education classrooms than white students with disabilities. This trend, called significant disproportionality, widens the achievement gap between students of color and their white peers.
In Dr. Mercier’s role as a transition coordinator at Antelope Valley Union High School, she aims to equip general education teachers to work with students with support needs. Dr. Mercier encourages them to change the way they teach students, rather than expect students to change the way they learn.
It also requires a more individualized approach. While some people may conflate inclusion with “mainstreaming,” there is a difference between the two. Mainstreaming is full integration with no bridges to equity, while inclusion is ensuring that every child is given the opportunities they need to reach their full potential.
“In my lifetime there has already been so much progress in serving students with support needs. And what I’ve seen is that learning happens in a community, not in an isolated environment. Yet 10 to 15 years ago, there was a big push on full inclusion for every single child. That has some validity, but there needs to be a way to get students the services they need to level the playing field,” Dr. Mercier explains.
Dr. Mercier emphasizes that it’s up to the individualized education program (IEP) team to decide where and how a student should receive services, based on the individual needs and the resources of the school. It’s an opportunity for teams to come together to implement creative solutions for students.
Another developing area of education is universal design for learning (UDL), something that both general and special education teachers use and can help reach all students. Started by Harvard researchers in 1984, UDL began as a way to customize the learning experience of students with support needs, evolving later to challenge not an individual’s disabilities but the shortcomings of the institutions. UDL proved to be beneficial for all students, regardless of ability.
“Instructors can use UDL to help students show their learning in a variety of ways,” Dr. Mercier says. “The workforce doesn’t need a whole bunch of people that can do really well on multiple choice tests. We need critical thinkers that can work together.”
To illustrate UDL in practice, picture how certain design elements, like ramps, are created to increase access. If architects can universally design our world to access life, teachers can do the same for students by creating a classroom environment where all students can be successful.
“If we use universal design for learning throughout all of our programs in education, then we’ve reached every single student. Everything we do in special ed is going to benefit all students. But if we start out with universal design for learning, then we’ve covered all levels of learning,” Dr. Swindler explains.
Teachers learning from each other
UDL is a powerful illustration of the idea that both special and general education can benefit from each other. Learning should not exist in a vacuum, closed off from possibility. When reimagined and broadened, education can help all students reach their full potential.
Harkening back to her own impactful experiences in the classroom, Dr. Swindler started the Course Buddies program at Pacific Oaks, partnering general and special education teachers together to collaborate and work through their program synchronously. Her aim with this program was to have teachers learn from each other and bridge the gap that exists between general and special education.
“I spent 23 years in the K-12 education environment, working as an education specialist in many different classrooms. I found a trend where the general and special education teachers didn’t know enough about what the other person did,” Dr. Swindler says. “When I started teaching at Pacific Oaks, I realized I can partner up general and special education teachers in our courses, enabling them to learn from each other before they even get out into the field.”
To Dr. Swindler, emergent education is looking at a student not only as how they show up in the classroom, but their experiences and values—having the student guide the curriculum and their learning. Instead of it being a didactical approach, it’s more collaborative and ensures teachers meet the students where they are. This kind of modeling at Pacific Oaks helps when students go off to lead their own classrooms, prepared to teach all students regardless of their ability, behavior, or background.
The basis of integrating classrooms must be grounded in inclusion practices to be successful. While the future of education is in integrated classrooms, it’s also in teacher preparation ensuring both general and special education teachers learn from each other and collaborate to find appropriate solutions for each individual student. With teachers ready to reach any student, all students will get a better education—and students with support needs will gain strengthened instruction across the board. Given how much special education has already evolved—from an isolated hallway to universal practices that provide individualized support – the next iteration of special education will only push inclusion further.
“Once our students go out there, they are ready to be advocates for students with support needs,” Dr. Swindler says. “We can put them as pillars in the community, so no matter what classroom setting they find themselves in, or what age they instruct, our teachers will be able to advocate for all students. It’s my hope then that as those students grow up, they’ll take what was modeled for them and lead in a similar way, a continuing cycle of inclusion.”
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