What Does An Inclusive Classroom Look Like?

Inclusive classrooms look different all the time because the environment is created by whatever interactions the teacher and students have as a group or as individuals in the group, explains Chris Kliewer, thinking of his second grade classroom in New York.

It's a lot of students doing different things with people helping them, students moving from one environment to another. It's also a classroom where everybody is smiling, the students are actively engaged, and the teacher is delighted to be there. It sounds like pandemonium and looks messy.

Students spend a lot of time in learning centers where they make a lot of choices about what they're working on. It's a classroom where learning often happens in small groups with peer helping and supporting each others.

It's a classroom with a lot of time for social interaction that means something to curriculum expectations.

It's a classroom that is student-centered. Students have a high level of responsibility for creating their community. They help structure the rules and are expected to follow them and to meet contracted expectations for curriculum.

It's a classroom where students know others will be doing different things and the issue of fairness doesn't come into play because that's just the way it is.

It's a classroom that reaches beyond the classroom and into the community as a resource for learning new skills.

Inclusion without resources, without support, without teacher preparation time, without commitment, without a vision statement, without restructuring, without staff development, won't work. -- Mara Sapon-Shevin