Elementary Classroom

Currently I have a job in a Rhode Island elementary school, 2nd grade specifically. Today while I was there I was talking to the teacher and she was explaining to me how difficult it is to be 1 teacher of a class of 20 second graders when the class includes mainstreamed kids. She told me that there is a special ed teacher that comes in and helps but that sometimes makes things harder. She said they do not team teach and each of them is set out to do their own thing, making it hard on the child because they are involved with 2 different teachers with 2 different teaching styles. When I found out that it wasnt only high schools that were being mainstreamed I was really surprised. I think that mainstreaming elementary kids is good and bad. I think its good because it allows kids with certain disabilities to be involved in normal social activity and allows for normal relationships to be formed but at the same time the first years of education are crucial and I think they need to be formalized better.

Schools in RI are slowly seeing a downfall in special education and it is a real shame, these kids are young and they need the correct resources to succeed, putting them in a mainstream classroom will either have a great affect on them or a completely negative affect. I can understand mainstreaming at a high school level because the student is developed and understands better but at a young age it is very hard to understand the difference.