Inclusive education and groups of level

                This week we have been talking about inclusive education which tries to attend all the diverse educative necessities of the different kids.  This means, educating every kid with their own necessities but not pulling apart those kids who have them.  In this kind of education teachers, policy makers, families and pupils should share their opinions to make the curriculum.

                
                When we were talking about it in class we were in groups and one question started a debate, the problem was dividing the class in groups of level or not. I was on the side of dividing the class; our partners were scandalized because they couldn’t understand what we were trying to say. We weren’t talking about dividing the class in the smart ones and the dumb ones and that’s what they understood. This is not easy to explain so I’ll try to explain it with an example; we are a normal class and we are teaching math, they are going to be some pupils who resolve a normal problem in 5 minutes, other who do it in 15, and other who are frustrated because they don’t understand it and they aren’t going to end it or maybe they spent 30 minutes on the problem. It is clear that the ones who spent 5 minutes in the exercise are going to get bored because their partners are slowly and probably they will just give them the solution and the other ones will copy it but if we gave the faster ones a more difficult problem and the ones who spend a little more time one easier, the whole class could be learning math, enjoying it and getting the necessities they need.
               
                Finally the ones who find more difficult math are going to be able to learn it because if we keep the rhythm of the ‘’normal’’ ones at some point they are going to be lost. So with this model everyone learns. Every subject which need to be divided would have not the same people at the same levels because maybe one student is good at math but not at spanish, so there aren’t going to be the ‘’smart’’ ones and the ‘’dumb’’ ones, furthermore we are not going to name the groups as the high level and the low level, we could name it as colors for example. They are not going to realize which level is lower or higher because every kid is going to find in the exercise the same complexity.

                But we are not saying that every class and every subject should be divided in homogeneous groups, diversity is also important. So maybe the school projects or some classes could be divided in heterogeneous groups, so the ones who find the subject easier could help the ones who find it more difficult. With this model we are giving every kid what they need but we are not saying that one is worse or better, everyone is important in the class but as teachers we have to accept that some kids are going to have more necessities than others and trying to deny it would harm them more than help them.