"A inclusão está morta: longa vida inclusão"

O texto que se segue, em inglês, é uma recensão elaborada pelo Prof. Doutor James M. Kauffman (docente emérito da Universidade da Virgínia, nos Estados Unidos da América) do livro "Inclusion is dead: long live inclusion" dos autores Peter Imray e Andrew Colley.

No momento em que se encontra em debate a revisão do Decreto-Lei n.º 3/2008, de 7 de janeiro, este livro, com título polémico, pode levar a uma análise e uma reflexão mais profundas. Para não deturpar o conteúdo e porque o nível de proficiência em língua inglesa é reduzido, mantém-se o texto na língua original.

This is a very powerful little book (just 102 pages of well-crafted, pointed text, followed by references and both author and subject indexes). The authors are English and write from the perspective of the British education system. But they speak to issues of concern in the USA and around the world, particularly given the United Nations’ Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD’s Article 24 regarding education backs the idea of full inclusion, an idea (or romantic ideal) particularly troubling for all the world’s nations (Anastasiou et al. in press).

Social context is important in considering the worth of a book, and the context of Inclusion is Dead is extremely relevant to its value. The authors describe the context succinctly in their first chapter, ‘Setting the Scene.’ The context is an era in which, as the authors note in their opening paragraph, ‘Inclusion has become a recurring trope of academic writing on education; it is trotted out as an eternal and unarguable truth, but it is neither’ (p. 1). Imray and Colley say of inclusion, ‘It doesn’t work, and it never has worked’ (p. 1). But the social context is one in which scholars in many nations of the world are saying that full inclusion in education not only does work but is the wave of the future and a moral obligation.

Some special educators have even claimed that the priority of special education should be place, not instruction. For decades, some of the most extreme advocates of inclusion have been arguing (with comparison here to the law known as ‘Obama Care’) repeal now, worry about replacement later — first, eliminate all ‘segregated’ special education (i.e. classes and schools dedicated to the education of those with disabilities). Also, assume that general education is the least restrictive environment for all students. Then figure out how to make appropriate instruction a reality for all in that single kind of place, general education, regular classroom. The illogic and cruelty of that approach to the education of children with disabilities mimics those of the health care fantasies described by fanatics opposed to ‘Obama Care’ and willing to deny health care to millions until it is replaced, even if the replacement still leaves millions uninsured.

The authors write as practitioners who are also scholars. They both teach and think clearly about what and whom they are teaching. Peter Imray is a freelance trainer, advisor, and writer in special education. Andrew Colley is Senior Lecturer in special education at the University of East London. They are not dilettantes, but experienced teachers and trainers who know whereof they speak. They have worked directly with the students they write about in schools and communities in the United Kingdom (UK). Their primary topic is inclusion of students categorized in the UK as those with severe learning difficulties (SLD) and profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD), both of which they define quite clearly in Chapter 4. In the USA, these students would likely be among those with intellectual disabilities or multiple and severe disabilities, particularly the students who need intensive supports due to marked problems in communication, self-care, literacy, and numeracy.

Imray and Colley have separate chapters devoted to four imperatives: pedagogical, curriculum, capabilities, and social. Each deserves separate treatment because each gets to the nitty-gritty treatment and reveals the folly of full inclusion in education as that term is understood. The book contains many noteworthy statements, and it is impossible to capture them all. A few will give the reader of this review the flavor of the book.

In their chapter on the pedagogical imperative, they expose the ridiculousness of supposing that ‘all means all’ when it comes to teaching students with SLD and PMLD to the level expected of normal students, even with the much-vaunted universal design for learning (UDL). ‘What is disputed is the right to the same education, because it doesn’t make sense, any more than the right to the same education makes sense for 3-year olds, 13-year olds, and 23-year olds’ (p. 52).

[A person] may not like ‘deterministic beliefs’ but the [evidence] is very, very clear: children on the PMLD and SLD spectrums do not even reach the beginnings of the curriculum, never mind succeed within it. Denial of a fact does not alter the fact. (p. 53)

‘… not liking mathematical truths — there is a norm and there is a bell curve which indicates the broad parameters of that norm — does not alter the mathematical fact of the norm. … “special” is not normal’ (p. 53).

The chapter on the curriculum imperative tackles the inanity of the idea that what is important for one student to learn is important for all students to learn, including those with severe intellectual difficulties or severe and multiple disabilities. Imray and Collie show, with considerable patience, how the assumption of full inclusion denies individuals with SLD and PMLD opportunities to learn what is important for them by diverting attention to a standard curriculum designed, supposedly, for all children. The result for the children about whom they write is curriculum content that is completely cockeyed or totally irrelevant to their needs.

Capabilities and the imperative related thereto are based on what an individual can do. The idea of the capabilities imperative is to help each person become the best he or she can be at doing what is possible for him or her. The authors’ treatment of this topic of capabilities is particularly revealing of their concern for listening to those with SLD and PMLD. It suggests additional cautions about denying individuals their own voice (e.g. Travers et al. 2014). ‘When considerations of care, ethics, autonomy, and agency are … directly inter-related…, issues of ‘voicelessness’… may lead us to substitute our voice for theirs because judgements on whether self-determination is possible are so difficult’ (pp. 78–79). The authors urge us to pay attention to what students tell us by their behavior, not just through their words. In this chapter, the authors risk going off the rails by failing to consider clearly the relatively miniscule proportion of the population (even of students with SLD or PMLD) who persistently refuse to engage in any productive activity whatever and/or engage in persistent self-injury. But their message of granting the maximum choice, agency, and voice possible and listening to what students tell us with their behavior is welcome. Besides, no book can address every issue.

In their chapter on the social imperative Imray and Colley make a strong case for social inclusion, for valuing individuals with disabilities and including them in our communities. This is a good chapter, but I wish the authors had discussed in greater detail the social roles for which persons with particular types of disabilities may not be qualified. For example, I think relatively few people would question that mental disabilities of certain sorts should disqualify an individual from holding a particular position or being a political leader and that physical disabilities of certain types should disqualify a person from serving as a police officer or serving in the armed forces. Nevertheless, much in this chapter of great value. Again, no book can address everything.

Holding the concept of partial inclusion in general education — a range or continuum of alternative placements, not full inclusion or general education only — is in some respects difficult. Arguing that social inclusion should be a reality outside of schools, but that schools are not and should not be the tool for such social change, is difficult. Imray and Colley express the concept and argue the case extremely well.

Imray and Colley obviously support reasonable educational inclusion, but they want the special education of individuals with disabilities to be taken seriously — to be more than a cosmetic, pretense of appropriate instruction, teaching that is special in the way it encourages students with even the most limiting disabilities to do their best and prepares them for life after school. The authors understand why this simply cannot be done as part of the general education of children with normal or advanced abilities, and they understand why expecting general education teachers to meet the educational needs of literally all students in a catchment area is abusive of teachers. They seem to intuit the fact that extreme proponents of inclusion can become and perhaps have become their own worst enemies (see Kauffman et al. in press). If inclusion is dead, it may well be responsible for its own death.

The authors mention that the extraordinary abilities of a few teachers to deal with extreme diversity of abilities does not mean that most teachers can do this. They understand that because one student can do something is no reason to believe that all or most students can, and they understand as well that just because one teacher can do something doesn’t mean that most or all can do the same. The reality is that the statistical distribution of teaching abilities, like the distribution of learning abilities, approximates a normal curve. That blunt reality may not be part of the consideration of education reformers.

Imray and Colley end their fine little book with a gem of a paragraph:

We have suggested that inclusion is dead, but we hope also that this book has pointed towards a new beginning: we want inclusion to redefine itself as a living, breathing thing with real value and real purpose. Not just educational inclusion, but real and meaningful social inclusion, not only for those with SLD and PMLD but maybe also for many, many more for whom the current education system is no longer fit for purpose. Long live inclusion! (p. 102)

Fortunately, the American Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, since its inception in the 1970s, has provided a legal framework for achieving Imray and Colley’s goal. The notion of least restrictive environment (LRE), though long resisted by many of the most extreme advocates of full inclusion (e.g. Laski 1991), provides the idea for real value and real purpose of inclusion — putting appropriate instruction first and letting educators use their judgment in deciding where on a continuum of alternative placements that instruction can be most effectively provided (see Bateman 2007, Martin 2013, Yell et al. 2017). Full inclusion is not only dead conceptually but illegal in the USA under current law. Unfortunately, full inclusion is nonetheless proposed by some (e.g. Sailor 2009, Sailor and McCart 2014) and, ironically, supported by the Office of Special Education Programs of the U S Department of Education (see Kauffman and Badar 2016, SWIFT Schools 2017). Inclusion is alive, but partial, rational inclusion is not exactly well. Full inclusion is an illness threatening the wellness of its more limited version, by analogy a sort of autoimmune system gone haywire.

Many books currently on the market are either totally devoted to the matter of inclusion or give inclusion much attention. Most of them are well worth reading. If reading were to be narrowed to a single book, this is the one I would recommend. It is not only short but written with wisdom and heart.

James M. Kauffman

Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia, USA

jmk9t@virginia.edu

Fonte: Taylor and Francis online