To pull or not to pull? That is the question that plagues an inclusive school system. On the one hand, targeted intervention for students with exceptionalities (language, learning disabilities, high achievement) allows for individualized programming and can be done outside of the hustle and bustle of a classroom. Separate spaces may also allow for more opportunities for risk-taking without the watchful eye of grade-level peers. Certainly, in the case of a brand-new-English-learner, this pull-out allows the acquisition of some survival English and relieves pressure from the already busy teacher. These are all justifications for our current model which breaks the mold of inclusive policy and allows for groups of students to leave the classroom for interventions. But is it best?
The article Leading Inclusive ELL: Social Justice Leadership for English Language Learners (Theoharis and O'Toole 2011) presets case studies of two schools that made the shift from exclusive ELL education to fully inclusive ELL education, their process in doing so, and the final outcomes the schools achieved.
Before continuing I want you, the reader to pause and think about your school and your classroom. Think about the ELL students and the staff who support them. If a stranger were to walk into your school would they think that the staff there view language [learning] as a problem, or is language learning a right? Are newcomers valued, or seen as a burden?
If it is not obvious to you where your school stands make no mistake, it is obvious to your newcomer students.
Theoharis posits that when school leadership see language learning as a resource to be harnessed rather than a problem to be solved they are motivated to make changes toward inclusive practices that will help ELLs achieve success school-wide and not just in their daily or weekly pull-out.
The article does not sugar coat the realities of making a shift toward more inclusive practice. Teachers quitting, voicing concerns, unprepared to coteach, unwilling to make any changes. Indeed some of these teachers, the article points out, saw the elimination of pull-out EAL as a moral issue. They were so committed to the idea that sending children to a specialist was the best practice. I have seen similar debates. When we proposed the idea of having trained EAL specialists in each school teachers expressed fears over losing their tutors; not because of concern for the tutor but for concern that the student would no longer be given support outside of class.
Many points in the article hit home for me. The idea that EAL students are "someone else's responsibility" or that if they are given pull-out then they are getting service and classroom teachers do not need to change their methods.
What was most interesting to me were the conclusions drawn from the studies. Since language learning takes 5-7 years (CALP) or longer for ELD students it is difficult to measure data at a moment in time. Instead researchers focused on the very real, very fixable issue of student feedback. In one school no EAL students were being assessed or given timely feedback and by the end of the inclusion, 100% of the students had a portfolio of work and were assessed formally 3 times per year. I think this is a direct result of the attitude shift away from "they're someone else's" to "they're mine". Under the New Brunswick inclusive education policy children have the right to assessment but I would hazard a guess that it is not happening with ELLs 100% of the time.
The articles conclusions were less (for me) about achievement and more about "normalizing" ELLs. Students went from being marganized within schools to teachers putting the same expectations on themselves that they have for any other student in their class.
What would it take for your school to become more inclusive for ELLs?
Can this be done by individual teachers or does it need to be school-wide?
Let me know what you think in the comments!
