Controversial Issue Within the Classroom

Kelcie Evdokimoff

Professor Barrios

English 120-A

30 October 2013

Controversial Issue Within the Classroom

        Deciding the factors that negatively affect a child’s ability to learn becomes a controversial issue. An example of a controversial issue among people today is whether or not having children with disabilities integrated in regular classrooms negatively affects the learning of the nondisabled students. Being able to adequately gain knowledge in a classroom is incredibly important, and it becomes a problem when the knowledge that is being taught is not provided at a constant and effective rate. Having children with disabilities in the classrooms with children who do not have learning disabilities will affect the ability of those students to achieve their education in order to gain their American Dream. Mixing a classroom with children who have learning disabilities does not just affect the ability to be taught for the children with learning disabilities, but also the nondisabled children because the information that was continuously provided to the students before is now negatively altered.

        For the most part, there are two sides to every story and issue. For instance the controversial issue of the education for nondisabled students has become corrupt when the classrooms became integrated has just that, two groups of people who believe differently. One group of people believes that having children with disabilities in the classroom gives all the students a chance to mingle and broaden their education. On the other hand, the majority of people believe that having children with disabilities in regular classrooms causes a distraction and creates an obligation of the teacher to teach at a slower rate. Within the article “Teaching Students with Intellectual Disabilities in Regular Classrooms: Good for Kids, or Good for Budget” compiled by Celia R. Baker, published in the Deseret News, contains opinions that support children with disabilities in classrooms with nondisabled students. Such as the opinions of Adelman, an orthopedic surgeon in Seattle, who believes that the practice of mainstreaming the students with learning disabilities with those who do not will benefit all students and help them to develop real world knowledge. This way of looking at the situation is nice, but one should consider the overall effects of mainstreaming. The article “The Impact of Disruptive Students in Wisconsin School District” shows a study that demonstrates students with disabilities can be disruptive in class and greatly affect the ability to learn for the whole class. These students cannot help that they misbehave, but once they do, there are steps that the teacher must take to properly take care of the matter. These steps take away valuable class time that could be spent providing education to the class. In order to prevent disruptions in the classroom by children who have disabilities with unmanageable eruptions, they need to be put back into their special needs classrooms where they can retain the information at their own rate by a more specialized teacher in that area. This will allow the rest of the students to be able to properly receive their education to achieve their American Dream.