Some Kids Need Small Classes Tailored to Their Needs
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder argues that inclusion cannot work for 100% of students and that some children genuinely need smaller, specialized class settings.
Key Takeaways
- Inclusion has limits - Not every student thrives in a general education classroom of 25+ students
- Small classes change outcomes - For some students, a smaller setting with specialized instruction is the key to success
- The continuum of services exists for a reason - Self-contained classrooms, resource rooms, and specialized programs serve real needs
Transcript
Not every kid is going to do well in a regular classroom.
In a full-size classroom with a normal number of students, there are some kids who just need a different environment, whether it's a special education environment or not.
Some kids just do not thrive in a regular classroom, and I think most kids do.
Most kids can do fine in a classroom with 25 kids, and that gets a little bit ridiculous if you bump the class size up to 35 or 40.
Like, clearly class size matters.
Most kids, though, can do fine in a classroom of 25.
But for the kids who can't, I think we need to have something else.
And that could take the form of an alternative school.
That could take the form of a self-contained classroom.
And when we do away with those programs, we leave kids out to dry.
We leave them with no real opportunity.
opportunity to be successful and i've seen this especially for students with autism who get overstimulated very easily you know if you put a kid in a classroom where there's just too much going on there's no real accommodation that you can make for that there's no real teacher strategy i think so much of the the solutions that we hear we should be deploying to solve these problems come down to teacher training or teacher skill i don't think there's a there's a teacher skill issue that can solve student overstimulation like you can't make 25 kids be quiet enough for that to not be an issue for some kids.
It's an environment problem.
And I think when we frame everything in terms of, oh, the teachers just need more training.
Oh, we just need more staffing support.
We need more aides.
Well, adding more aides to the classroom does not make it less overstimulating.
It does not make it a smaller environment.
You have to actually be in a smaller environment order for that student to have what they need so let me know what you think about this have you seen these programs disappear in your area have you seen every kid get pushed into inclusion and I think inclusion is a good thing whenever we can do inclusion and it will work for the student I think it's a very good thing but the reality is some kids are not going to thrive in that setting and they need a setting that is tailored for them let me know what you think