Building a Bigger Tent Is A Badly Needed Critical Analysis of New Brunswick Inclusive Education Policies and the Porter Aucoin Report

New Brunswick Legislature Fredericton 

Photo By Harold L Doherty June 17, 2012

The New Brunswick government needs to do a critical analysis of the Porter Aucoin inclusive education report. Porter Aucoin is not an arms length objective review of NB inclusion practice and policy. Too many ties between Alward-Carr government and Porter-Auocoin-NBACL-CACL. Paul Bennett and Yude Henteleff are two excellent external critics whose views should be considered carefully by NB government in setting inclusion policies if the 2009 NB government policy defining inclusion as evidence based on the best interests of the individual child is to mean anything. Yude Henteleff's 2004 paper on flexible, evidence based inclusion recommendations consistent with Canadian jurisprudence is already posted and his presentation to Atlantic Human Rights Centre inclusive education review June 14-16-2012 at the Crowne Plaza in Fredericton will be posted on this site when it is made available to participants.

Building a Bigger Tent Serving all special needs students better in New Brunswick’s inclusive education system  by Dr. Paul W. Bennett, June 2012  is an arms length analysis that has been made available free of charge to New Brunswick. From the Building a Bigger Tent summary on the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) Facebook page:

"Many research findings in New Brunswick’s 2012 report Strengthening Inclusion, Strengthening Schools raise serious questions about whether the existing ‘full inclusion’ model can ever serve the diverse and complex needs of today’s students. There is a place – and perhaps a need – for specialized learning programs where provincial education authorities build a bigger tent. 

....

It’s time for New Brunswick to embrace 21st century education. Bennett recommends a provincial review of New Brunswick’s current model of special education delivery, and ultimately the development of a new continuum of service, including self-contained classes and special education alternative schools."

New Brunswick education policy is important to all New Brunswickers.  It is of particular importance to students with special needs who require accommodation within our education system, including those students for whom the mainstream classroom is not an appropriate or even a safe learning environment. The contributions of serious analysts like Yude Henteleff and Paul Bennett should not be ignored in  designing policies to address the complex and demanding challenges facing special needs students in our education system.

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What Do NB Teachers Really Think About The Porter-NBACL Full Inclusion Model?

What do New Brunswick teachers really think about the full inclusion model  which has been pushed relentlessly in NB schools by Gordon Porter and the New Brunswick Association for Community Living since the mid-1980's? The truth is many teachers recognize that extreme, everyone in the regular classroom inclusion does not work.  Teachers know this but they are afraid, for good reason, to speak up while they remain employed in New Brunswick schools. Speaking up and openly criticizing  the Inclusion Illusion would be detrimental to their careers and livelihoods and they know it.

Full inclusion, as defined by Gordon Porter, means "everyone in the mainstream classroom" as Mr. Porter preached to a Newfoundland audience a few weeks ago:


"Porter’s session revolved around the theme of parents and teachers working together to make inclusion work.“It means kids go to their neighbourhood schools with kids their own age in regular classes,” said Porter.“If you’re seven years old you go to the school just down the street. You go in a class with other seven-year-olds, and you’re supported if you have extra needs. “It’s so simple, it’s that simple,” said Porter."

I am a supporter of flexible inclusion and I am a critic and opponent of the full inclusion, everyone in the mainstream classroom inclusion, of Gordon Porter and his followers with the NBACL.  This father of a son with Autistic Disorder, and profound developmental delays learned long ago that Mr. Porter's  regular classroom is not appropriate for my son's learning requirements. It caused him harm and resulted in self injurious behavior repeated, severe biting of his hands and wrists. Today he is very well accommodated by a flexible inclusion which sees him receive his instruction in a quiet area outside the regular classroom.  He starts his day, has lunch, and has friends in a resource center in his high school with other students with challenges, challenges which Gordon Porter's full inclusion model would not accommodate.  He attends many events with his group from the resource centre and he loves, he absolutely loves going to school.

On my son's behalf and as a representative of the Autism Society New Brunswick I participated in the MacKay and Ministerial Inclusion reviews.  During these proceedings I was approached by teachers who thanked me for speaking out for a flexible model of inclusion.  Some children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder can function in the regular classroom, some can not.  Teachers can see that in their daily work, in respect of autistic students and others with severe challenges. Teachers though,  like most employees, know which way the wind blows where they work.  They know that if they preach the full inclusion gospel according to Gordon Porter they will be viewed favorably by the higher ups in the education department and the de facto education department ... the New Brunswick Association of Community Living. They know that if they publicly criticize full inclusion their careers could suffer. 


My experience during the inclusion review proceedings has been replicated after I have spoken publicly on television and radio.  I have been approached by many teachers who told me that they and their colleagues support my efforts in speaking up about the shortcomings of full (extreme)  inclusion. I have been encouraged by many teachers to continue critiquing the full inclusion model which governs the mindset of those who determine how our children will be educated.


I don't expect anyone in the office of the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development or at the "bricks and mortar" building of his colleagues at the NBACL to believe what I have stated.  They do not accept actual direct evidence that conflicts with their full inclusion model and they will certainly not accept my hearsay evidence based on undisclosed witnesses to what actually happens in our regular "inclusive" classrooms. The full inclusion true believers simply ignore such evidence and blame problems on the students themselves or argue that more resources are needed in the classroom under the guidance of classroom teachers.  Then everything will work smoothly.  


The full inclusion model of Porter and the NBACL is not an evidence based approach to education.  It is at best a  feel good philosophy.  At worst it is an illusion.  The full inclusion illusion.  One that can literally cause harm, mental, emotional, even physical harm, to some children for whom it is not an appropriate learning environment. This father of a son with severe challenges knows it.  The teachers who work on the front lines educating our children also know it.


The attached document is the 2005 report of an executive committee of the New Brunswick Teachers' Association which describes New Brunswick schools as being in a state of crisis.  The NBTA's report talks about the classroom composition concerns expressed by the teachers they represent but denies that the issue is classroom composition; the issue for the Association is the need for more support in the classroom.   If you look under the politically correct tap dancing of the NBTA's report though there is an honest recognition in many of the statements of its' members that classroom composition is in fact the issue.  I have posted the 5 page summary of the committee's recommendations following my comments in case the document is removed from the NBTA web site in future.

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