The Current - Do inclusive classrooms work?

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Teachers and families are struggling to manage complex classrooms, with students of all different needs together. But the research shows inclusive classrooms are the best option. So what needs to change to make inclusion work at school?

Hi there, Steve Patterson here, host of the debaters, the show where Canada's best arguers put their skills to the test. This week, we want to know, are rules meant to be broken? Your favorite rule-breaking comedians take this one on, so listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Danielle Kellow's daughter, Anna, does not want to go to school. Anna is 12 years old, has a sensory processing disorder and OCD. and finds a regular classroom overwhelming.

But like so many students across this country, an inclusive education policy is not leaving her with many options. Across Canada, inclusive education policy is the norm, meaning that all students, of all learning abilities, should be able to learn in one classroom. In practice, it is not that simple. As part of our ongoing series, looking at the state of public education in Canada,

we're taking a look at inclusive classrooms, where it's working, where it's not, and what the cost of all of that is. Danielle Kellow is in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia. Danielle, good morning. Danielle, are you there? Oh, we had Daniel. We'll try and get back to her in just a moment.

The perspective of teachers is important in this conversation as well. Jason Ashmore is a middle school teacher in Alberta. He has been teaching in that province for over 20 years, currently teaches grade five in Edmonton. Jason, good morning to you. Good morning. Tell me what your classroom is like. This idea of inclusive education, as I say, in the best case scenario means that you have students from all sorts of abilities

learning together in one classroom. What does that look like in your classroom right now? Well, right now it's a bit of definitely a bit of a challenge because, you know, when you're dealing with different learning abilities, you know, like you're looking at different reading levels, different academic behavioral. Like there's so many kind of little challenges that. that it can become sometimes overwhelming, especially when class sizes now are over 30. So, you know, like, it's definitely not ideal, but, you know, I think it is important that, you know,

people come together and work together. It's just, you know, when you're one adult trying to meet the needs of 30 people at one time, it can, you know, cause those kind of, those unnecessary challenges, I think. What are the different needs of the kids in your class right now and the different levels, for example? Well, from some standpoint, I have children who are reading two or three grade levels below. What we are normally, so, you know, you're looking at trying to teach grade five, but you have kids who are reading at grade, you know, two. So those kids are kind of like almost learning to read.

And then you have other kids who are reading well above a grade level who need the challenge. So you're trying to find that balance of how to provide instructions to five or six different learning levels. Then you look at, you know, students who have higher needs, whether that be ADHD, autism, you know, English language, you know, so there's all these little things that you're trying to do and balance. And as you can imagine, if you're in a room where, you know, the conversations or the learning that's happening is something that you don't understand, you're not going to sit there quietly. What does that mean for you as a teacher? I mean, are you able to make anybody happy? I think that's what we hope.

We can make people happy. I think sometimes we do our best. We have to sometimes pivot from, you know, traditional sitting in desks and rows, you know, and standing up at the front of the room and basically giving a lecture. You're now doing more hands-on. You're looking at small groups. You know, hopefully there are some other staff that are able to help.

provide supports. But again, that's not, you know, always the easiest because it comes down to money. You've used a hockey analogy to talk a little bit about this. Can you explain that just in terms of the idea of everybody being in the same class or on the same team, for example? Yeah. The analogy I was using is, you know, I would love to play for the Emmington Oilers and play on Connor McDavid's right wing, but the reality is I can't, I can't keep up. Even, you know, in my earlier days, I still probably couldn't have kept up. And sometimes that needs to be, you know, a realization

that we aren't all equal. I think it's important that, you know, we have people who are all from walks of life and we're not all that we's going to be the same. Like, I think it's important that people understand that education is one of these things that we do by by age and not necessarily by ability. So, you know, if you look at anything, you know, we're not all the same age. We don't all have, we all didn't get married at the same time. We all didn't, you know, make, we all don't have the same number of kids. Like, it's, it's one of those things where, yes, we want everyone to be equal, but some people,

some children in this case aren't always going to be the same. Like there are kids who need the challenge because academically they are ahead of other students. And if we don't provide those kids with a challenge, then they're too going to get bored and then their needs aren't going to be met. And same thing on the other end. If you have kids who need that extra support just to have the piece of of the puzzle go together. You know, I have one student who processes on a very much a delay where it takes him probably

about 15 to 20 seconds to think about what you've just asked him. Well, you know, that might not sound like a lot, but if you think about 20 seconds, it's a long time. Sure. Jason, it's really interesting to hear your perspective on this. We're going to talk more about it from the kids' perspective, but also how we might go about making this idea work, because it's an idea that is in place across the country. But in the meantime, I really appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. Jason Ashmore is a grade five teacher in Edmonton. As I say, the perspective of children is really important in their parents as well.

Daniel Kellow is the daughter, the mother of a daughter, who finds yourself in that situation, 12-year-old who has sensory processing. order and OCD and finds a regular classroom overwhelming. Danielle, good morning to you. Good morning. Tell me about your daughter, Anna. I said in the introduction that she doesn't want to go to school. What were her first few years at school like? Great primary was not too, too bad.

But once things got a little bit more challenging, COVID was a huge hiccup. So Anna was always sort of a bi-exam. everybody when it came to her knowledge base, not in any other way. But Anna was always really kind of an advance. She picked up on things really, really quickly. So she was the one that was sitting in class and she was bored. But after a while, she found that the setting was just too overwhelming. It was busy.

It was noisy. It was bright. And back then, we didn't know that she had OCD. so we didn't understand that piece, which has put an awful lot of bits into the puzzle that we were missing. What are the conversations that you had with her teachers about the support that you felt she needed in the class? Sensory processing disorder isn't one that is necessarily understood as a standalone disorder. It's not considered a standalone disorder. So because that was the only thing that I had to come to them with, they didn't really,

they didn't have the knowledge and the understanding to put anything in place. I would say if you can give her a heads up on days that you're going to do a fire alarm, for example, then that would be a huge help. But because that's a trigger response that they're supposed to have, they couldn't do things like that. And so you decided to pull Anna out of school? I did. it just sort of got to a point where she wasn't learning and her mental health state was declining rapidly. That's a hard decision to make.

It really was. It got to a point where the very last day that I took her, she was clinging to door frames, the car frame, I couldn't get her buckled. And then once we got to the school parking lot, I couldn't get her out of the car. I would be at one door, she would be at another. And it had nothing to do with the staff themselves. They have always been absolutely amazing humans. And that made it even harder because it kind of felt like as much as we tried and as much as they tried, it wasn't human error. There was nothing that could really be done.

It was the building itself after the end. So you've been trying. in the wake of that to get Anna back into a class. I mean, we have. What has that been like? Well, they've tried implementing 20-minute increments. And again, the people involved have been absolutely amazing. They're trying their very best to make her as comfortable as possible.

I never, ever, ever wants us to come across as a fault towards the staff. it's just the way it is. So she would go and they would meet her at the door and they would set a timer to try and help her be comfortable. She tried sitting in a classroom a couple of different times and just found it far too overwhelming. To a point where we actually, we tried from September, October and we're here in January and I can't get her to go back. Is there a sense that the school wants her back in the classroom? Definitely. The school does.

It's just, it's difficult to make it actually work. It is, yeah. What sort of classroom would she feel most comfortable in learning in, do you think? It's kind of hard to say. When I talk with Anna, she tells me that she would love to be in the setting. It's not from lack of trying on anyone's end. but for her, she just finds that she would rather be in a room full of people who are the same. And I'm not saying that that's the feelings of everyone,

but for her, she would love to be in a room where she knows that other individuals have a lot of the same troubles so that she feels comfortable. She doesn't feel sort of, what's the word? I'm looking for here, sorry, singled out. Yeah. She doesn't know that anyone else has the same troubles and things that she does, so she feels alone in a room full of people. It's interesting because the idea of inclusive education is meant to get kids like Anna out of that special education stream

and into the regular classroom. In part, because, as I was saying, there's a stigma that can be applied to that. Do you worry about that? or is that something that you think would be something that you would take on if that would get her into a classroom where she felt herself, where she felt like she was with other kids? So I grew up. I grew up with that stigma. I myself have learning disabilities and different things. And the resource room had a massive stigma. If you had to go to that room, that meant that you weren't as smart as everyone else. and that's why you had to go to a separate space. And I think that is something that definitely needs to be worked on because it's just a matter of fact.

Some children just learn better in a different space. I'm not saying that that's a universal thing and it shouldn't be force and it shouldn't be anything like that. But I think in the end there needs to be more options. There are no options. You either send your child to school full-time, you pay out of pocket. to try and find somewhere that can do different learning,

or you have to take them out and homeschool them. And for a lot of families, that's just not financially feasible. So I think options is the answer that I'm going with. I wish you the best of luck. Your experience is really important to hear, and I can hear it in your voice, how difficult this all is. Danielle, thank you so much. Yeah.

Thank you very much for asking. It's good to talk to you. I appreciate it. Danielle Kellow is in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia. Her daughter, Anna, has a sensory processing disorder and OCD. And as you heard, hasn't been in a traditional classroom for more than a few periods since before the pandemic. Choose clicks. Choose the algorithm.

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Jacqueline Spect is a professor at Western University, director of the Canadian Research Center on Inclusive Education and has been listening to these conversations. And good morning to you. Good morning. What is at the baseline, what is the promise of inclusive classrooms? I think inclusive classrooms are meant to show that diversity happens. It's not just about kids with disabilities, right? I think if we think about inclusion, it's about teaching the children in front of us.

And so that as a society, we understand there are differences in the world in many ways, not just ability, but in religion, in language, in ethnicity, and those ideas, I think we hope, would make our world a better place for everyone because everyone would feel like they belong and have a voice. Do you think, if we're talking specifically about abilities, do you think that promise is being met? I think we can hear from parents like Danielle and parents that I've interviewed that, in fact, it's not being met.

Why is that? Why is, again, an idea can be aspirational, but why isn't that aspiration being met? I think because our system is human. And so we know that attitudes and beliefs are the key to successful, inclusive education. We have to start with the belief that all children belong in our schools and as teachers and as principals, that we can teach all children in our schools. And I think that we don't have that. We really don't have that belief.

We still think of ability as something that we can separate when we don't think about that with any other identity. Is your sense that teachers don't believe that? I think some teachers do not believe that. We've done research that would show that for sure. One of the things we heard from Danielle is that Anna, her daughter, she believes would rather be in a specialized class, would rather be in a class of kids

where she felt that she belonged in some ways. Is there an argument to be made for that approach? Well, I think the reason for that happening is that Anna doesn't feel like she belongs and is part of the community in which she was placed. And I think that is on all of us as a school system, as parents, as teachers, as principals, to do what we can to help our students feel like they belong.

I think that when that doesn't happen, I can understand why students might want to go elsewhere. But again, has she been elsewhere? Will she feel like she belongs? Even a class of eight people? I think having smaller classes, having more teachers would be ideal, but we still have to have people who are trained

and people who feel like everyone belongs and everyone matters, even if they're different than me. Jason, the teacher, talked about being in a class where, you know, students reading levels could be years apart. And his point, if we're talking specifically about ability, his point was that we aren't all the same. Why is that controversial to say? Because it could be taken as controversial by some people. I don't think it is controversial. I think we are not all the same.

I think that's really what inclusive education attempts to show us that we, are not all the same, and that's okay. But his point is that in saying that we aren't all the same means that you can't have all of those kids with all of those different abilities in one classroom and assume that you're going to make everybody happy or anybody happy. Well, I think we've seen that it can happen in our schools. Not every school is doing it, but there are schools who have varying abilities, who have students who have behavioral needs, students who have different learning needs, and they are

all working together in the same class. I don't think we're ever going to make anybody happy about anything. It doesn't matter whether we have every child that's identical, whatever that would even mean, in one classroom, right? We're always going to find difference, I think. Even if we take away the margins of kids, those who learn a lot faster than others and those who learn a lot slower, we're going to find something in the rest of those kids to say, well, they don't really belong either.

I guess the heart of that question is who is it helping if those kids who need more attention and need more help aren't getting it because the classroom is busy and full. And those kids who are thriving and want to do more also can't get what they need. Who is it helping then? But I will tell you that there are classrooms where that is happening. So it does help. I think that we need to do a lot better job supporting our teachers because I think our teachers do try. as hard as they can. But if they don't have the skill set, if they don't have the understanding that I can do this, then they are going to have more difficulty. And I think the problem is we

still silo our classrooms and have our teachers feeling like they're independent rather than having that sort of collectiveness of our schools. Where I see it working in our schools is where the team gets together. So if it's a small school, it's all the teachers. If it's a large school, it might be the primary division or the junior division that get together and talk about what's going on. And everybody feels responsible for all of the children, not just those ones in their classrooms. Where have you seen at work? Well, there are schools locally, and I have seen schools that it is working, that I was in one school in this board that have over 750 students. And we have a lot of issues here in Ontario with what we would call failure to fill.

So, you know, an educational assistant calls in sick or a teacher calls in sick, we can't fill their classroom. And in this school of 750 people, a failure to fill for an educational assistant never happened because they had a whole system in place that was ready for that. So they're prepared because as a collective in the school, they were prepared to know what are we going to do if this educational assistant calls in sick and we can't replace them. Is your sense that this is about funding, that schools, boards are being pulled in all sorts of different directions, and we hear constantly about a funding crisis in public education. Is it that schools need more money to hire more staff to make inclusion not just an idea,

but actually something that comes to life? I think more money is what we would always want in all of our systems, education or health, but there never is enough. But I do think if we look at the statistics, there isn't underfunding and education. but I don't think it's about more people. You could have one on one, but if you don't have the people who know in their hearts that all kids belong,

who have the skill set to do that and who are allowed to practice that, then we run into issues. So I think it's more about having coaches for our staff, educational assistants and teachers, and having those skills being able to be learned. I think that's where we run into issues. Just finally, we're speaking to you as part of this ongoing series of conversations about the state of public education. And one of the things that you might hear

are parents and teachers who are frustrated. They're burnt out trying to navigate getting the support that they need or that their children need. And if they're a parent, they could pull their child out of the public education system because they're not getting what they want and they could put them into perhaps a private stream. What would you say to them, given what we have heard and what we've talked about, about why they should believe in this, why they should believe in inclusive classrooms? I would say because we want a society that's inclusive. And if we don't have schools that are inclusive, then we run into problems in our society. And it's not just about disability and mental health.

It's about ethnicity. It's about language. It's about religion. It's about all of us getting along. And we have to do a better job of schools and families working together to make that happen. And your sense, just briefly, in the classroom, when it comes to ability, your sense is that that is possible to make that happen? I do think it's possible. I think we have a lot of research and a lot of resources that would show us that, in fact, it is possible. Jacqueline, it's really good to talk to you about this. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Matt. Jacqueline Speck is a professor at Western University, director of the Canadian Research Center on Inclusive Education. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.