inclusive learning/education

In Successful Failure, Varenna and McDermott touch on problem that has been occupying my mind since I enrolled in a German High School. “How can we treat all children the same while treating them all differently?” Children are different. Some require more time to learn a subject matter than others do. Some are autonomous learners, some need assistance. Some are diagnosed with learning “disability,” some are intellectually gifted. How can a school meet the different needs of children while maintain equality? What happens when we treat children with different learning abilities the same and place them in the same classroom? Do “low average” students slow down the learning process of “high average” students or do they get left behind?

The German school system categorizes children according to their learning abilities and places them in different schools once they graduated from elementary school. Gifted or high average students go to a Gymnasium, average students to a Realschule, low average students to a Hauptschule, and students with learning disabilities go to a Sonderschule or Foerderschule. On the one hand, the categorization might help to meet the needs of different students and foster their learning process accordingly but on the other hand, in most cases, it determines a student’s future career and what and how society thinks about him/her. Sonderschulen and Foerderschulen (roughly translated special school) have a bad reputation in society for hosting trouble makers and problem children. For these children it is really hard to climb up the social ladder or to get a decent job because they are socially stigmatized from an early age on.

In 2006, the UN published a convention on the rights of persons with disabilities to education that specifically addresses the problem in Germany. With a view to realizing this right without discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity, States shall ensure an inclusive education system at all levels and lifelong learning directed to the full development of human potential and sense of dignity and self-worth, and the strengthening of respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and human diversity; the development by persons with disabilities of their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential; enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society, etc. Currently, Germany is working on reforming the school system to meet the convention and to implement an inclusive education approach. I will follow this process closely and share with you any future insights.