A Challenge for Our Times

Cheryl Ashlie

I am delighted to be the guest editor for Visions’ issue focusing on schools and student mental health and substance use issues. This is a perfect way to end my nine-year commitment to public education as a school trustee.

When I was a picture-perfect “greenhorn” trustee, one of my key goals was to increase awareness and funding to our schools to address youth mental health and substance use issues. Now, as a slightly wiser retired trustee, my views have changed somewhat. “Awareness” has created its own boondoggles—and funding may be going into a growing, bottomless pit.

Labels, specialization and an endangered ideal

I have observed that awareness of special needs in the classroom, which mental health and substance use are a part of, has led to labelling the students who have such issues. The increasing specialization of our medical system has been applied to the school system.

Students are labelled by district staff so that school districts can get ministry funding to assist with additional support for these students. In today’s medical model of education, administrators have become very adept at “coding” children to get the required funding that comes to a “coded” student. Boards of education allocate millions of dollars in funding for these children.

Students are also labelled so that specialized education can be designed and delivered by specialized educators. The supports for the identified special needs child—such as the child with autism spectrum disorder or the child with anxiety issues—are becoming more and more specialized. And the more specialized the support, the harder it is for the average classroom teacher to keep up with the professional development required to be current in special education. This is only one of the demands being placed on a teacher’s professional development allowance; time and dollars for professional development is limited.

Newly trained teachers enter classrooms armed only with the tools to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. These teachers quickly realize that the reality of the classroom demands far more from them than methodology learned in academia. So these teachers look to experts to help them as they struggle to meet the needs of the different learners in their classrooms.

I believe this labelling is being done with the best of intentions. But I worry that it may be moving us away from the goal of letting these children have a classroom experience and relationship with the teacher that is equal to that of their non-labelled peers.

Many children with ‘special needs,’ as recently as the early 1970s, were placed in institutions or segregated classrooms. Today, these children learn side-by-side with budding physicists and future prime ministers, who themselves may have identified—or unidentified—needs for support.

We need to be doing more so that, from the moment teachers step into the classroom, they are better equipped to meet the needs of today’s diverse learners. Otherwise, the expectation that all learners will be together in the classroom will soon be a thing of the past

An eye-opening set of statistics

In a presentation last fall to our school board, Laurie Meston, Director of Student Support Services for our district (SD#42, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows), walked us through the history of special education.

She explained that 97% of the students in the ’60s and ’70s were considered to be typical learners. In the late ’70s and into the ’80s, when integration started to appear, those considered typical learners dropped to 90%–92%, as more and more students had specialized needs defined. She went on to explain that, from the late ’90s to the present day, the typical learner has dropped to 65%–70% of students in the classroom. That means almost one-third of students in today’s classrooms are considered non-typical learners. She also noted that there is added pressure from the teachers and parents to code students’ differences on an even wider range.

Ms. Meston, who has worked in both the segregated and integrated systems, contends that if we continue this trend, in 10 years only 30%–35% of the student population will be considered typical. Two-thirds of the student population will be considered non-typical learners!

With the current trend to demand specialized services, it may not be realistic to believe we could ever keep up with such a demand, as the support system is already stretched. Instead, Ms. Meston challenges the system to focus back on the classroom teacher. “It may be more effective practice to prepare classroom teachers to teach all learners using universal practices (academic, social, emotional, behavioural) that allow more learners to be successful in the classroom. This would reduce the demands for specialized services,” she says. (See text box.)

Revising teacher training for a changed world

Funding is often a factor that is cited as a barrier to the needs of these children. While I will never argue against more funding in the area of special education, I don’t agree that the money should go toward the structure we’re using today.

I’d request that more money go to post-secondary institutions for improved teacher training. Teacher training programs need to be redeveloped to address what the teachers of today are facing in the classroom. The education system must work hand-in-hand with experts in other fields, such as the social sciences. Together they can design teacher training that would prepare our teachers to handle the diverse needs of the students.

At the district level, we need to foster a culture that encourages participation in in-service programs and professional development to improve teaching strategies. Teachers in the classroom need to stay current on effective teaching methods for diverse learners.

Ms. Meston pointed out that teachers themselves want more specialized knowledge. If they have the knowledge, they can help students themselves, instead of having their classrooms disrupted by outside specialists. And they can help move away from a new kind of ‘segregation,’ which can happen right in the integrated classroom when a coded child ends up relating primarily to a special education assistant.

“Diversity is the new norm . . .”

We are very lucky to have dedicated people willing to take on the challenges that the public education system puts before them. When we ask them to teach our children, we must acknowledge the enormity of that job and the fact that most do it the best way they can. And, to support their teachers, the education system needs to reach out to service providers who specialize in supporting children with special needs.

Ms. Meston said it best when she concluded with the following words: “Diversity is the new norm—we must acknowledge it, accept it, understand it, plan for it, teach to it and celebrate it.”

I believe the system is capable of this. Leaders such as Ms. Meston and other members of the BC Council of Administrators of Special Education (BC CASE) are working toward it throughout our province. And the provincial government needs to provide a structure that arms teachers with the knowledge they need, both at the beginning and during their careers, to handle the diversity in their classrooms and maintain their own well-being.

This issue

Enjoy this edition of Visions; it has been a pleasure to participate in its creation. I hope you will gain some insight, tools and, most importantly, the inspiration to make sure every child continues to have a place in the classroom.

Resources for Teaching in the Diverse-Learners Classroom

• Karen Hume. (2007). Start Where They Are: Differentiating for Success With the Young Adolescent (with CD-ROM). Toronto: Pearson Education Canada.

• Carol Ann Tomlinson. (2001). How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

• Rick Wormeli. (2007). Differentiation: From Planning to Practice, Grades 6-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Cheryl worked in the nutrition field prior to staying home to raise her three children. Involvement in her children’s education prompted her to run for the Maple Ridge school board in 1999, where she served for nine years, the last six as board chair. Now a municipal councillor, Cheryl is also enrolled in Political Science at the University of Athabasca

*reprinted from Visions: BC's Mental Health and Addictions Journal, 2009, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 4-5