ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the policies, politics, and personal ways that inclusion affects schools. It describes how the author began to develop an inclusive consciousness, particularly in recognizing the rights of students with disabilities. The author believes that inclusion has the possibility of transforming education by pushing school culture to support more equitable and inclusive practices for all children. The classroom the author was student teaching in was based on the inclusive co-teaching model where a special education teacher, a general education teacher, and a paraprofessional shared one classroom of students. Almost everyone in the United States has had the experience of going to school. Public education has long been a right, regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, or disability. John Dewey recognizes schools as social places where barriers are broken down, pluralism is embraced, and students grow independently and learn the skills to be members of society.
