Lit Review

Throughout looking for secondary sources, I have found that there is more information about the negative impacts of inclusion classrooms than I originally thought. Yes, a lot of the research and information leans towards inclusion classrooms but some of these articles also bring up the negative side. Though some of my research will cover the necessities of an inclusion classroom, my argument is guided towards the downfalls of this environment for both special needs students as well as the general education students. The secondary articles I have chosen discusses some of the advantages and downfalls of an inclusion setting across different grade levels and disability areas. There are many challenges associated with inclusion classrooms including the level of content, the pace of the classroom, expectations of independent skills, and much more. Throughout reading some of these articles, I have come to the realization that the teacher’s attitude and ability to differentiate instructions properly have a major impact on the effectiveness of an inclusion classroom. My second article discusses the importance of continued professional development with specific components that should be discussed and implemented for inclusion teachers. There are many articles I found that discuss ways of making an inclusion classroom work. Ideas, practices and skills that can be contributed to making a successful inclusion environment, but I am going to focus on the ways this environment doesn't work. 

Mastropieri, Margo A., and Thomas E. Scruggs. “Promoting Inclusion in Secondary Classrooms.” Learning Disability Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 4, 2001, pp. 265–274. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1511115.

Vaughn, Sharon, et al. “A Collaborative Effort to Enhance Reading and Writing Instruction in Inclusion Classrooms.” Learning Disability Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 1, 1998, pp. 57–74. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1511372.

Obiakor, Festus E., et al. “Making Inclusion Work in General Education Classrooms.” Education and Treatment of Children, vol. 35, no. 3, 2012, pp. 477–490., www.jstor.org/stable/42900597.

Implications of Inclusion for General and Special Education

This is a great article for my research purposes as it summarizes critical issues in the inclusion controversy, it falls perfectly in line with the line of research I plan to pressure on inclusion education. It covers everything from the questions concerning the program efficiency, legal and financial considerations, and implications for carious populations within the educational community. It is a scholarly article published by the University of Chicago Press in a book titled The Elementary School Journal. Murphy definitely takes a researchers approach to this article, she is sure to cover a lot of historical content on inclusion, laws, movement, and general information that is prominent to the discussion. She also asks questions that she wants readers to think about and then answers them. 

Murphy, Donna M. "Implications of Inclusion for General and Special Education." The Elementary School Journal 96, no. 5 (1996): 469-93. http://www.jstor.org.proxy-bc.researchport.umd.edu/stable/1001845.

The negative side of Inclusion Classrooms

For my research proposal I am going to take on an unpopular opinion that inclusion is not as beneficial for students with disabilities as studies and research has lead us to believe. 

As a future special educator, I am interested in seeing the benefits and drawbacks of an inclusion classrooms. As I have already began working in the school system I have seen both the pros and cons of inclusion classrooms. Studies and research states that inclusion classrooms maximize the success of students with disabilities as well as benefit socially with fewer negative labels. But I have personally found this research to be untrue in many scenarios. I have seen the students with disabilities struggle to understand the curriculum they are being forced to learn, I have seen their face when they realize that everyone else in the classroom understands and they do not. I have also seen the effects this has on the general education students, the students that consistently have to slow their ideas down during group work, the students whos lessons are constantly being interrupted by the numerous questions one student has because they don't quite get it, the constant interruptions from other adults being in and out of the room to support another student. Do not get me wrong, I also see the good side of inclusion classrooms, the friendships that can be made, the social interactions that the students would otherwise go without, and the utter understanding from general education that special education students are worthy of an education. But my questions still remain;

Is placing special education students in inclusive classrooms beneficial for their success or harmful for their education? Self-contained or inclusion, which breeds success? Is an inclusion classroom beneficial for those without the special needs? Does inclusion truly benefit everyone?

Separate classrooms for students with special needs, known as self-contained classrooms, with lower student to teacher ratios, controlled environments, and specially trained staff would offer more benefits to a student with disabilities but according to research it has failed to provide sufficient evidence of the effectiveness of self-contained classrooms. Most research suggests that inclusion classrooms are favorable in the success of students with disabilities but there is minimal studies to show the negative impact inclusion classrooms can have. People are scared to ask the sensitive questions, the politically incorrect questions, of the potentially negative impact inclusion can have on both the general education students as well as the students with disabilities, which is why there is such a lack data on these questions. In my research proposal I plan to address these questions through research, personal experience, and experiences of educators and students of both abilities.

It is of the upmost importance to not exclude any students from equal education opportunities and most research suggest otherwise; inclusion classrooms pose more harm to student success with both the disabled student as well as all of the general education students in the class.

“Listening to Learn: Analyzing a Song from the ASA Dissent Mixtape”

A Place Where Love is by Andy Bey

 To me this song inspired a sense of community and love. Andy Bey, along with many other African Americans, were fighting for their equal rights as citizens. A lyrical line that stood out to me was “You live your life here. And it’s a sad, sad story; That each one, of us, awaits a day of glory” I think Andy may have been referring to his struggle in life as a young black man fighting to be seen as an equal. The specific line ”Brothers and sisters, I wish they would be, A place where love is” I feel is spot on to his wish that everyone could be considered brothers and sisters and just love each other for who they were.

This song was released in 1974 on Andy Bey’s Album Experience and Judgement. It is a considered of the genre Jazz but it is soulful music that has been loved by many and inspired many other rhythm and blues artists in the industry. This is song written from the soul. I think that many R&B artists may have been inspired through his work. Not only this song but other from his album seemed to have been written from his heart and through his experiences. A more recent artist in the industry I feel may have been inspired by Andy Bey is Rahsaan Patterson. His music holds a similar style to Beys and though it flows in a more contemporary way his lyrics are about his own experiences. I have type the lyrics as I listened through the song in case some of you would like to listen as well, there was no lyrics for it online. I did miss a small part because I could not understand exactly what was being said but for the most part I think it is correct.

You live your life here

And it’s a sad, sad story

That each one, of us, awaits a day

Of glory

But why? but why

Do you think flowers die?

Why do you think babies cry?

For people like you and me

Brothers and sisters, I wish they would be

A place where love is

Each generation, believes it will have a new day

But it can only suffer what we had today

But somehow, since white dessert has sand

And a woman has never felt the warmth of a good man

But why, do you think flowers die?

Why do you think babies cry?

For people like you and me

Brothers and sisters, I wish they would be

All of us sharing, 100 years a day

And we can’t even get together to change the hand of fate

But why, why

This is why, and for some reason we each grow old

I thought this was a future

But its only history

Brothers and sisters, I wish they would be

A place where love is

A place where love is

AMST 300 Blog 1

I am a typical essay researcher. The most I have ever researched anything outside of being for a paper was last semester in AMST 490 preserving places and making spaces in Baltimore. I actually found out that researching can be a lot more fun than the typical internet searches. Research can be interviewing people, diving into historical documents at the local library’s and even just walking the streets and observing the area. I really enjoyed taking that class and it gave me a new perspective of researching. As for this class I am interested in seeing how the research skills I learned last semester can help me with my research paper. As I am on the elementary education track I would like to research something in education, more specifically problems we find in special education. I have worked in the special education field for quite a few years now and have come across some important topics I think may be interesting for me to conduct my paper on. There is a lot of controversy about inclusion classroom and if the students are really getting the education they need to be as successful as possible. A working title I may consider is Inclusion classrooms and teaching: Helpful or Harmful. I would like to focus on something within this topic because I am receiving my teaching certificate for general elementary education but plan to continue my education into special education. With a duel certificate like this I will be likely to become an inclusion teacher at some point and I would like to have background research on how helpful I could be to my future students.

A Journey Through Hollins Reflection

Our event was held on a beautiful saturday afternoon. During our last class meeting before the event we were concerned that people would have difficulty locating our building, our original idea was to find a chalkboard to put outside advertising our event, but i was unable to locate a chalkboard. I decided to go with a balloon bouquet with information on one of the balloons, i think this idea was helpful in drawing attention. We had no complaints of difficulty finding the building.  I was surprised to find that many people showed up early for our event and were extremely interested in the walking tour. I would say we had at least 25 people sign in on our log, and a pretty decent size group went on the walking tour. It was exciting to present the information we gathered to the community. De’Andre did a great job catering our went and I heard a lot of compliments from the attendees. Zachs presentation of the website went very well and people seemed to enjoy the interactive aspect. Most people really came for the tour though. During our entire event i took a lot of photographs to document this great experience. I still have to edit them but i think i got some great shots, especially during the tour. The tour was exciting, and it was great to see in person all of the buildings we did our research on. I noted that this tour was almost completely different then our original tour with Curtis. We went to a lot of new places. We ended at Hollins Place which was a great way to end the event. De’Andre and Curtis did a wonderful job for the open mic portion and we even had some community members participate. This was a great experience for one of my first UMBC classes and I actually hope to take it again as the higher level class for my graduate degree.

Semester Reflection

              AMST 422 has been one of my favorite classes this semester. The first few weeks I really enjoyed discovering the history surrounding Hollins Market. I had the 1920-1930s, I expected to find a lot of information in that time period but only found information on the remodeling of the market and crimes from the area. Once we were finished with our decade research we really began diving into more hands-on activities. My favorite class was when we went on the walking tour with Curtis. We were able to gather a lot of information about historical buildings and residents of the area. When we did our personal research on a historical building I chose to do the bottle factory Curtis had mentioned during our tour. Unfortunately for me, I was not able to find much information at all pertaining to a bottle factory in Hollins Market. My research was slim to none on the subject and I moved onto researching the Pratt Street Conspiracy. Though there were not many articles with information, the Pratt Street Conspiracy was an extremely interesting subject. IT was a local shop managed by teenagers to provide fashionable clothes at reasonable prices. I really loved that there was an option for work for the teenagers of the area, even those that had dropped out of high school. This write up was in the Light City newspaper along with other pieces done by other classmates. It was really cool to have our pieces in a newspaper that the community would see during such an awesome community event.

              After this we really began working on our class project. We had many ideas as a class which made it a little difficult to decide what our project would be. I recommended a video of the market with a voice over history, I felt this option would be more appealing to the community. Ultimately, we decided to do a walking tour, a website, and a zine full of information. We even had ideas to include an open mic portion, so community members could be involved. The open mic portion has been taken over by Curtis, as we decided we had too many things going on. I think our class event will have a decent turn out. When we handed out fliers last week many members of the community seemed intrigued by the event and expressed interest in coming.

              I worked with the group that was writing up information the past of Hollins Market. My group created the website associated with important building we plan on talking about during our walking tour. I also created most of the Hollins Market history timeline based off of the research done by each student for their decades. Since the history/past of the market is pretty much set in stone, I then worked in the future of the market. I get in contact with a representative of War Horse, War Horse being the contracting company brought in to redevelop the market. I was in contact with Jim Mills, and he gave me a lot of information on the project. The market is going to become a very modern and open community space for all members of the area. I find the plans intriguing and think many patrons will be happy with the remodeled market.

              I am excited to reveal to the community all the things we have learned over this semester. I hope our event will bring some unknown information to members of the community. During the event I will be assisting Curtis on the walking tour. I am looking forward to feedback from people that attend the event, to see if our event served its purpose, to be an informative and fun community gathering event.  I really enjoyed the opportunity to work with my classmates and get involved in the community. I feel like it has been a wonderful learning experience, not only academically but socially as well.