Cage classrooms

Special education classrooms have become segregation within mainstream schools. And this is the “solution” the administration is offering, making people believe it’s inclusive. This must stop.

My son, with ASD level 2, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and other difficulties, is progressing, learning, and passing with his individualized learning support plans in a mainstream setting. And yet, they tried to convince me that the best thing for him was to leave it. After years of demanding adaptations, support, and measures that never truly arrived – because his subsidized school doesn’t even have a special education teacher in Secondary school – I received a call in August 2025 from Educational Inspection proposing a UECO classroom (specialized support unit). They presented it as something wonderful: that he would spend most of his time with his reference group, with specialized support and an inclusive model. But months later, in a meeting, it went from being an “option” to practically a verbal imposition, with a deadline to respond and without truly considering continuity in the mainstream setting.

When I said we disagreed and would continue fighting for his rights, the response was: “A judge won’t rule in your favor.” Well, we’ll see.

We filed a formal objection, complaints with Inspection, and with the Ombudsman. And thanks to that, many irregularities were put in writing: unsubstantiated clinical claims, references to non-existent intellectual disability, errors in reports, and restrictive proposals without first exhausting the inclusive measures mandated by law.

Meanwhile, my son remains in mainstream education. Happy. With his lifelong peers, with whom he has been since he was 3 years old. Integrated, loved, and progressing at his own pace. Because real inclusion is not about separating when there are difficulties; it is about providing the necessary support so they can remain with their group and participate equally.

And yes, maybe he won’t get a degree. Or maybe he will. We’ll see. But reducing a child’s entire life to an academic degree is forgetting something essential: they also have the right to belong, to grow with their friends, to feel part of their community, and to have a dignified school experience.

The hardest part of this whole process has not been my son’s ASD. It has often been the barriers put in place by the administration and, at times, by the education system itself. That is why I am deeply concerned to hear discourse that presents UECO classrooms as the “ideal” solution for everyone. There will be families who choose them freely and find they work, and that is totally respectable. But there are also cases where they are being used as a way out due to a lack of resources in mainstream education. And that is not inclusion.

“The girl (14 years old) escapes from class. We tell her to go to the bathroom, but she goes into other classrooms. She likes to tour the school.” While she was in primary school in mainstream education, no one ever told me about a situation like this. Obviously, no one likes being held captive in a tiny enclosure when all the other students have the freedom to move around the school.

In the autonomous community where I live, private subsidized schools are not allowed to have TEA classrooms; they only exist in public schools, and they are deceiving many parents because they are promised “healing” with them, but they are not a real solution since once they leave them, they neither address the needs nor prepare for true “inclusion.” They are “rooms” with “individuals” embedded in the building.

Mi hijo no salió de la #AulaJaula, como bien dices, durante 4 cursos. Después llegó un profesor nuevo y no entró. Muchas veces cuando te leo me siento muy identificada. Gracias Belén, eres maravillosa. Haces un trabajo que siempre quedará en algún lugar del mundo. GRACIAS

Una de las razones de la huelga en Asturias el pasado curso fue más recursos para la inclusión. Pero lo que en el fondo se quería era personal especialista para que atendiera a ese alumnado. Pero, en el fondo, la mirada no ha cambiado. El colectivo docente no se siente implicado en la tarea. Piensan que el Aula Abierta, PT y AL lo van a solucionar todo.

Felicitaciones! Como jode el mundo que debería de por sí ser inclusivo y empatico ! El mio terminó yendo al viaje de segregados a Bariloche con sus compañeros.

Hello Belen, I am a teacher, tutor of a UECO (Special Education Classroom Unit) in the Valencian Community. I have been in these classrooms for over 10 years, in different schools. And in all of them, I have had the same feeling: that they are cages that are very difficult to escape from. It seems that making inclusions in mainstream classrooms means “letting in” students for a few sessions.

I continue to be a tutor with the hope of closing the space we call UECO in my school. In fact, we are no longer in a large classroom, we are in a small office because I don’t want to have a classroom; little by little I see progress, but slowly. We have transformed the classroom we had into a sensory room for the school, for all the students in the school who need it.

But yes, I agree with you and my view is from the inside, not from what they tell me. Thank you for making this visible, because they want to open more and more, at least in the Valencian Community, and nobody sees that it is not inclusion.

I’m Seyla, a Speech and Language Therapist. I worked in a TEA (Autism Spectrum Disorder) classroom for many years. I have so much to tell you… I’m sending you several messages because I have many experiences.

Many years ago, I worked in a school in the Chamberí area, in the TEA classroom. The children in the classroom spent very little time in their reference classrooms. They only went in if the support assistant was there because I always had to be in the classroom with the others. The teachers didn’t even spend a minute alone with them.

To go to the bathroom, I had to take them all with me and lock the door, and then I would go into the bathroom stall. I would pee with my fingers crossed hoping nothing happened to any of them while I was gone. There were children from sixth grade down to kindergarten. All together. Because they didn’t want them in their classes.

One day one of “my” girls fell during recess and her lip was bleeding. The teacher on duty yelled at me to go pick her up. As if she had something contagious. Zero humanity.

Needless to say, I received the same treatment. I was “the one for the autistic kids.” I did all the recess duties, lunch duties, and was treated discriminatorily compared to other teachers. I lasted two months; I didn’t want to be part of that.

I reported it to educational inspection and to the families, and it was horrible. The families got angry with me because their view was that of an isolated classroom in which to protect their children. And the inspection ignored me.

Unfortunately, I have much more to tell…

I left the ASD classroom because of the pain of seeing segregation firsthand and fighting alone about it. They are a trompe-l’oeil of inclusion.

Bravo for this family’s fight. Hopefully, all families would have the capacity (and support) to enforce their decisions. It’s incredible to have to fight for things that are common sense. They should compensate families for all the violence they endure (and above all, we should ensure that no family has to go through this; education should have all the necessary resources, and teachers should have all the training and tools needed). Children are not an academic record; life is not about school results. A hug to this family.

I’m David, an adolescent with autism or autistic, for me, UECO, TEA classrooms… are the storage rooms of education. I made a video that anyone can watch. THE END.

They want to send us to… I’m not going to let them, I’ll fight as much as I can.

Since we knew what was going to happen, we refused. They wanted to put him in autism classrooms even though he’s not autistic, which is why we’re in a school without an autism classroom, but they keep inviting us to another school with an autism classroom.

My daughter is starting next year in a TEA classroom (in the CAM) and I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen.

And then in the secondary school where there isn’t a cage classroom where they park them… Nowhere, unless they reach the third year of ESO and put them in curricular diversification to keep suffering with the herd that usually is in those groups, because yes, many by then are kids who turn 16 during that course and leave the very day of their birthday.

When our son was starting first grade, they deceived us. They told us they were ordinary resources, and even though I insisted if it had anything to do with special education (I didn’t even know about the existence of these classrooms back then), they denied it. They also told me that even if he went out of the classroom more at the beginning, he would go in more later. A neurologist was the one who told me that if they had put him there, he wouldn’t get out. That’s when I started to take action.

I told them that if they didn’t take him out of there, my son wouldn’t go back. The truth is, I don’t know how we managed to get him out of there in the end; perhaps today we wouldn’t have been able to. All the classmates were going to do everything together, and he was in another classroom separated with 2 other children. They took away his right to learn, while the others were learning, he was in that classroom doing I don’t know what, and his right to be with the others. We managed to get him into a mainstream classroom, but those classmates he was with in fourth grade of ESO at 16 years old, I found them in a park for 2 to 3-year-olds. There were 2 special education teachers or caregivers, whatever they were, for 5 kids. My heart sank. Why were these kids, instead of learning like everyone else and with everyone else, in a park with mini-slides, basket swings, and the caregivers sitting at a table?

It’s clear that they use these classrooms to get them out of the way when they have the right to education just like everyone else. Since then, I have refused to have psycho-educational evaluations done, even though they were performed despite our written refusal. It’s a struggle because their objective is always to put them there.

At Ada’s school, she went to the CYL classroom, where she spent little time; most of it was in her mainstream classroom. I thought it would be the same in high school. I fought hard for her to go to that high school, which is where all her classmates from the mainstream classroom at the school go (since we didn’t have a spot there and I had to speak with inspection, the education department, and even the generalitat), because it was very important to me that she felt supported by her classmates, who had just discovered how wonderful she was. But, unfortunately, I soon discovered the reality behind why “they were so cruel in separating them.” Because they were going to separate them anyway.

She would never again be with her classmates, except on very specific occasions: recess, physical education, and some music or theater classes. The following year, she was going to repeat anyway because “that’s how it’s done,” so by the second year, she wouldn’t even know anyone from those occasional classes she attended. Her former classmates don’t even see her anymore. Otherwise, I have no complaints; her teachers are magnificent, but I cannot understand the system. Why does my daughter have to cook instead of learning history or biology… or what do the others learn? I don’t know anymore.

I want to publicly denounce the segregation situation my son (non-verbal autistic and ADHD) is experiencing at his school. What started during the pandemic as a “bubble classroom” for health reasons, the center has made it chronic, turning it into a UECO classroom: a space of hidden exclusion.

This is our reality:

Lack of preparation: Professionals are not trained in SAAC (Alternative and Augmentative Communication Systems); the little training they have, we parents have had to pay for out of our own pockets.

Zero inclusion: They literally tell us that inclusion is “unviable.” My son does not have real Individualized Curricular Adaptations (ACI) and they continue to give him content from kindergarten.

Invisibilidad absoluta: En todos estos años, ninguna de las maestras de su aula de referencia se ha presentado formalmente. Mi hijo ni siquiera aparece en una mísera foto de su curso. El aislamiento es tal, que su tutora actual ni lo reconoce si se lo cruza por la calle. No tiene ningún sentido de pertenencia.

Y ahora, tras vivir la exclusión en todas sus formas posibles, pretenden que pase al instituto alegando con total hipocresía que “ha crecido entre ellos”. No, no ha crecido con ellos. Ha crecido al lado de ellos, invisible y segregado. La inclusión no es un favor ni una opción que el colegio decide si aplicar o no: es un derecho. Basta ya de aulas UECO que funcionan como aparcamientos y de maquillar la discriminación.

Tenemos taaaantos mensajes que si nos dieran consentimiento para sacar ……y lo que nosotras llevamos viendo CADA DÍA durante años. Tenemos que alzar la voz. Tenemos que dejar de tener miedo y empezar a señalar prácticas, personas y centros que ejercen opresión, discriminación y maltrato. Gracias.

Estuve en un IES con Aula TEA. La persona a cargo era pedagoga de bandera. El aula segregada existe porque Ia mayoría del claustro no acepta convertir sus aulas en inclusivas. Mi compañera organizaba formación con las familias, pero pocos docentes acudían.

#AulasJaula son también las aulas segregadas que concentran alumnado racializado, machacado con repeticiones, en Aulas de Sudor donde nadie quiere estar, tampoco la docencia; las Aulas de la Criba como FPB, que maquilla el abandono escolar temprano con un 50% de “éxito”.

Pues si eso te ocurre siendo AL, imagina el trato que reciben algunas compañeras educadoras. Somos invisibles y, en algunos casos, maltratadas. Todo mi apoyo a ti y a todas las compañeras que trabajan por la inclusión en escenarios nada favorables.

Así tenemos nosotras a madres grabando que saben todo esto y unas mentiras que tiran para atrás. Una locura.

Almansa y comarca. Castilla-La Mancha: Los centros de aqui solicitan todos los años “equipos TEA” que se llaman aquí, que pretenden ser recursos para el centro y no aulas, pero que en la práctica acaban siendo “jaulas” tambien porque no hay cambio de cultura y acaban buscando un espacio donde meterlos para que esos profesionales del equipo trabajen con “esos” niños. Pues en Almansa todavia no han concedido ese recursos nunca, en ningun centro de la comarca, (estos equipos son pocos y se reservan para las capitales de provincia). Eso da como resultado que el alumnado esté dentro. Como los CEE: cuando no existen, no se segrega. Esto permite que se den experiencias reales de inclusión, que si existieran esos recursos espcializados no se darían.

A menudo se acepta “lo menos malo ” es cierto porque nos agarramos a que no nos expulsen y preferimos optar por soluciones que siguen vulnerando derechos, como dice Mercedes.

The whole year fighting because the tutor “cannot” (does not want to) keep the child in the classroom alone without support. Her classroom is that one, not the ASD classroom, and the maximum support hours are defined (and support in the reference classroom also counts).

When our children need real support, we families end up having to fight constantly to have their rights respected.

Sometimes, when it seems like everything is finally calming down, you realize that you are actually still almost at the same point and that this fight never truly ends. It has been many years of experiencing very tough situations, constantly fighting for something that should be guaranteed for our children.

Estuve en un IES con Aula TEA. La persona a cargo era pedagoga de bandera. El aula segregada existe porque la mayoría del claustro no acepta convertir sus aulas en inclusivas. Mi compañera organizaba formación con las familias, pero pocos docentes acudían.

En Bizkaia las están abriendo cada dia más, te lo pintan todo maravilloso para que te vayas del colegio ordinario.

Mi hijo desde los seis años en el mismo colegio, termina este año con 19. Sigue entrando y saliendo solo. No tiene ni un solo amigo.

Trece años de “inclusión” escolar no deben ser suficientes.

Voy a intentar ser breve aunque es dificil. Aleix ya sabes, tiene ahora 29 años. En aquellos tiempos aquí en Castellón no existían las aulas UECO, Tea etc, solo ordinaria y especial. Aleix durante su etapa de educación primaria fué a público ordinario pero los últimos años nos hacían ir dos dias cada semana a la especial con la promesa de que era lo mejor para él. Veíamos que Aleix no iba a gusto a la especial y un día me presenté sin avisar y veo que están todos a su bola con alguna chica de prácticas de magisterio pero sin ninguna interacción ni nada que se le parezca, todos intentando comunicarse a su manera pero sin respuesta por parte de nadie de las que había allí, tal fué nuestra decepción y ante lo que percibiamos por parte de nuestro hijo que decidimos siempre luchar por la escuela ordinaria 100/100.

Once primary school was over, there was no option, either special education or staying at home. And that’s where our suffering began. We fought as best we could, and suffered unspeakably, going back and forth to the regional education authority to get some inclusive option for our son. He had some relationship with his mainstream school classmates, some birthdays, some interaction. And not without great suffering, the regional education authority decided to create the CIL classrooms in Castellón for the first time. Everything was non-regulated as no one was his tutor as such. The professionals were quite empathetic but had little training on autism; however, some were catching up as best they could. Aleix enjoyed it, and we achieved beautiful things in the times they shared playgrounds with the others, but of course, they never entered mainstream classes, and on the few occasions they did, no one took responsibility, and there were no adaptations for them. At the curricular level within the classrooms, Aleix’s frustration was immense as they always repeated the same worksheets and writing, calculations, etc., that Aleix rejected, and no one wondered why. However, they were clear that Aleix was not making any curricular progress.

After two or three years, as no one saw academic progress and always against our judgment, they sent us to a special education school. He stayed there for 4 years until he turned 21. Meanwhile, we were gathering more information about the characteristics and achievements of non-speaking boys and girls. At home, we started dedicating time to learning to read and write with pictograms and words, and we saw that he liked it. Without much effort, we saw that he understood and could also read words and phrases in appropriate contexts like “Do not enter, Danger,” etc.

Despite our insistence that the special education teachers realize this, no one saw it. In the meantime, we continued to foster his autonomy, etc. When he turned 21, we did not want to sign for him to go to a day center where there was no longer any education or teaching as such. And from then on, it was with no less suffering that we saw Aleix happy being more autonomous, not being constantly held by the hand as the special education school educators did.

He started a vocational training program that existed then, which did not require a secondary school diploma. All this with a court order for “precautionary measures,” as you can imagine how much we fought… The administration made our lives impossible to get him out of that vocational training. But in the first year, we had an excellent tutor who, along with our support for classmates and the help of a great professional, Carmen Fernandez, we came in to guide them so they would know how to interact, coexist, and share with Aleix. It was there that Aleix began to stop taking any medication, where he decided about his day-to-day life. We looked for a specialized Personal Assistant, paid by us, of course, there was no other option at that time.

And that’s how, in four wonderful years at a Public Adult Education Center, Aleix earned his secondary school diploma. By then, everyone knew that Aleix had significant potential, that he read and perfectly understood complex sentences and texts appropriate for his chronological age. His communication was also increasing with his communicator, gesturally, etc.

What has he done since? Well, he has completed a fantastic one-year university course, and several other courses, which have always made him feel comfortable, increased his executive function, allowed him to share with young people, and continue learning.

Now his goal is employment because he wants it and decides it. Oh! He is also applying for public service jobs. In one of the applications he submitted for the Polytechnic University of Valencia, he achieved a score to be on the waiting list. And we are clear that this is not the end…..

Summarizing and so that it can serve other families our experience with UECO or ASD Classrooms, we would not do it again, and even less now, that is neither inclusion nor are their RIGHTS taken into account. “Always real inclusion” with everyone as everyone and knowing that their brain works differently but not for that reason less valid than the rest, yes they need help and surely always will, but who doesn’t?, to a greater or lesser extent…. I know that now he is happy, that he has a wonderful life and that he gets up every day with enthusiasm, autonomy, and learning every day from everything he does.

That said, families: LET’S ALWAYS BELIEVE IN THEM.

Classrooms set apart but in sight, classrooms that are but are not, that are there but are not there, that appear but do not appear, that is not fair. They are a trap designed to look like inclusion but in reality, it is more than segregation. Teachers who see them from afar but do not consider them theirs, who are not interested in their progress or their setbacks. Who do not adapt, who on many occasions do not even know them, do not go on their excursions, who are not there…

Classrooms considered inclusive, what value does it have to say that!

Thank you Belén, you are great, very much so.

I am a teacher and I have worked in schools with ASD classrooms and others that do not have them in the Community of Madrid. My experience has been terrible regarding those classrooms. The school that does not have them has nothing to do with it; it improves immensely in all aspects. I have seen how colleagues do not let these students enter any of their classes for entire courses, nor go on excursions or other activities. They are segregating classrooms and I am totally against them existing. I say this from within, from the day-to-day… I feel very sorry for those children and also for their families who believe it is salvation; it is the opposite.

Thank you, Belén. Give kisses to Lucía.

The ASD classrooms are segregation, there should be no debate, that is very clear, and it is not what should be by right, that these resources are in the mainstream. ASD classrooms take students out of the ordinary curriculum and therefore success in promotion falls, as well as generating demand for adapted vocational training or intermediate degrees???

Of course, the plan for them is already in place, task learning, everyone is put in the same bag and the individuality of the person must be considered, the curriculum of these people is greatly devalued by the internal instructions that the administration and the centers have and families are subjected to continuous mistreatment, curiously the families who fight for inclusion.

I believe that no one is criticizing the work of the professionals and their intentions, but the will they may have does not determine the orders behind it at all, sadly.

I would like to contribute my grain of sand to @DeAutismo’s initiative on #cageclassrooms, referring to the well-known ASD classrooms in this way. A few years ago, the school principal asked for our opinion on opening an ASD classroom, to which I replied that I thought it was a segregating measure. That it went against inclusion and that I thought it was taking steps backward. It was not my permanent school, so the following year I changed schools and left my opinion there. But several years later, I had the opportunity to be a teacher in one of these classrooms and I wanted to test my theory

Result: a disaster. For the teaching staff, they are your children, and the sooner they get out of the classroom, the better. People don’t want to train; they want materials, and for you to make them. This translates to: ‘If you give me lots of toys so the ASD child doesn’t bother anyone, I’ll be grateful.’ And the families?

For families, it’s a deception. Many families come thinking the school receives more resources for their children: teachers, TIS (Therapeutic Intervention Specialists), money, materials, a classroom. But no one understands the reality. You encounter:

Family 1, who prefers the child to stay there as if you were their second mother.

Family 2, who expects you to be the child’s shadow, for the child not to leave their classroom, for you to tell them how to do their homework so they pass and don’t need any adaptations, to entertain them during recess so they aren’t alone, to be their informant for everything happening at school, at their service.

Family 3, who doesn’t even know what they want, who doesn’t understand their child’s condition, who thinks you’re a private tutor and doesn’t grasp this resource. Conclusion: you end up dealing with all the problems. Your colleagues, the management team, and the families scrutinize you.

You feel you’re not doing a good job for anyone, that it’s not valued, and in the end, the ones who lose are the students living in the contradiction of what their family says, what their tutor says, and what you try to work on with them. And of course, they are totally segregated and excluded from their classroom.

All those resources they send (the extra PT, the TIS, the materials, the prepared spaces) are needed, but for the ASD students to be in their reference classrooms, well-supported by the entire teaching staff, with training and support for both the school and the families.

In the end, after three years in the classroom, under these conditions, with no support whatsoever, I decided not to renew my service commission and return to my PT position. I learned a lot about autism because I made an effort to train myself, I really enjoyed the children who came to the classroom, but it doesn’t compensate.

I’ll tell you, I’m fighting with my daughter, whom they want to refer to a special needs school, with a disastrous report where they put incoherent things. Let’s face the reality of the false strategies of an inclusion that is not and will not be. When we idealize that separating people gives opportunities, we put on blinders to be dragged into situations that later have consequences of having lost valuable time, effort, and hope.

Science has already confirmed that meaningful learning happens in coexistence with heterogeneous reality. Meaningful learning for each participant in the process, learning that when we have weaknesses we don’t self-segregate but rather start from strengths and realistic points of connection between people. Learning to discover the beauty of looking at each other with different glasses that highlight those details that connect us, leading us to practice and develop the tools we will need and have them discovered for when we have to navigate everyday adult life and work, which is more challenging and complex than a classroom. We cannot afford to waste time.

Hello Belén. You don’t know me, but I’ve been following you for a long time (I was on Twitter, that says it all =). I want to tell you that I admire you. I admire the courage and sensitivity you have to be the visible face of this terrible reality that many, too many, families are living or have lived. You have to be a very good person and very strong to move this forward and get so many people to agree. Even if it’s just to tell horror stories.

Our story is one of many.

Victor entered a mainstream school at three years old with a recent autism diagnosis. The Speech and Language Therapist was wonderful and saw his potential. The class teacher was frustrated from minute one. The following year, the pandemic started, and well… you know how that went… They suggested that the autism classroom was the solution to all our problems. The first year was fine. Victor spent a good amount of time in his reference classroom and was well-loved and accepted by his peers. He progressed at his own pace, but he was progressing.

In his last year of preschool, the hell began. The child spent almost all his time in the autism classroom. He did everything wrong, wasn’t progressing, and the headaches started. In the end, we gave in to the pressure and decided to move to special education for primary school.

Since we didn’t want the change to be too difficult, we opted for a stable classroom in a school “specializing” in autism, located within a mainstream school (a Basque Country model, I believe). And we were completely wrong. If autism classrooms are a cage, then stable classrooms are horror, or at least ours was hell.

There were 4 children in the same classroom: two 10-year-olds, one 15-year-old, and Victor, who was 6. One of the 10-year-olds had many behavioral issues and couldn’t control his impulses. He ended up hitting Victor out of frustration. And our son started self-harming. Daily meltdowns, sadness, screaming, hitting. And the medication started. When we spoke to the management of the special education school specializing in autism, they told us they didn’t make distinctions because that would be exclusion, even though the children were already excluded and couldn’t coexist with each other.

After a lot of struggle, we managed to change schools from the extraordinary one. To a special education school; let’s not fool ourselves, because once you’ve made the switch, going back to mainstream is practically impossible. And at the school, he stabilized. But they don’t do anything with them. They basically just pass the day. They are day centers for minors… If, for whatever reason (extreme interest or if the teacher clicks with them), they show they can understand and learn, something can be done with them. If not, it’s absolute nothingness. The same objectives every year. The same worksheets, and so on, until they go to the day center. Of course, we are not satisfied. We are looking for another center where they will push and want to teach Victor. And if not, we’ll have to do it ourselves.

Education is a scam, but inclusion is even more so. It’s not just a lack of resources; it goes much deeper. There needs to be a social mindset change, and that is very difficult.

Hello Belén, I would like you to share my experience anonymously as well, and I thank you for all the work of making so many experiences known.

I am not in favor of either autism classrooms or special education centers. My 20-year-old daughter, who has autism, has been in a SIEI classroom (Catalonia) from 5th grade to secondary school, and she has not progressed as much as I think she could have, in terms of learning. They were mostly parked there all the time, and even after the pandemic, her “teacher” in the SIEI wasn’t even a teacher, doing games, movies, music, mandalas, etc…. and of course, they didn’t give her the secondary school diploma, which she got on her own later.

The problem is that I see it’s very complex, most families also don’t want our children in the mainstream classroom because they “lower the level.” A friend of my daughter’s, who stopped being one, told her she wasn’t going to help her anymore because she wasn’t an NGO.

And what about the teachers, the vast majority I’ve encountered (I’m a teacher too), are against inclusion “as it’s presented, without resources,” of course, I also demand resources, but I don’t refuse inclusion nor do I ask for them all to go to special education, as I see many are asking for.

The issue is very complex, because most of society is currently in favor of segregation, it’s very sad to see it every day. And of course, I also experience the lack of resources, it’s like a dead end.

It seems that this last strike is achieving is dividing teachers between pro-inclusion and anti-inclusion, and guess who is winning…, is that what they intend, that more and more people are against inclusion? They are succeeding.

Estamos en huelga indefinida en la comunidad valenciana por la bajada de ratios y aumento del personal de inclusión en las aulas. Yo soy P.T y tampoco quiero más aulas UECO, quiero poder estar como especialista con el alumnado y que la formación que nos den también esté actualizada.

Necesitamos más acompañamiento para la escuela de todos. Yo no quiero más UECO.

Qué importante evaluar las barreras de contexto, porque es eso, el contexto que a veces no permite que todo el alumnado esté donde tiene que estar, con sus iguales, es decir, en la clase donde están todos los niños y niñas de su barrio o de su pueblo.

Es muy importante darnos cuenta que el foco y las energías para generar cambios hay que ponerlo en cambiar el sistema de manera estructural, no en pensar modalidades excluyentes. Entonces debemos rebelarnos para que todos los recursos y los facilitadores estén en lo ordinario, ya que mientras tanto tenemos alumnado en los márgenes del sistema. Necesitamos más autocrítica y saber qué lineas rojas no deberíamos traspasar. Seguimos.

Las aulas UECO es una simulación de la inclusión. Me explico: parece que están incluidos en el Sistema Educativo, pero la realidad es que estan excluidos de todo. Deberían cerrarlas todas y llevar esos recursos a las aulas ordinarias. Lo digo desde dentro, soy PT.

I insisted that my daughter stay in her regular school, appearing on the radio, television, collecting signatures,… and this school year she is in 2nd grade. But they continuously invite you to go to a special school because they say that your child will be better off there, will have the resources they need, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

So much pain, Belén!!!

How much I’m struggling to read these realities…. such pain!!!

Rights and dignity and millions of thanks, always.

Completely true, even from early childhood education (ages 3 to 6) they refer you to a “stimulation classroom” in a special education school 10 km from our home and regular school, taking the child out of her school and class during school hours, separating her from her classmates and having to travel with her on our own (they don’t even provide transportation, and my daughter has hypotonia due to her rare disease), forcing us to figure it out.

Last year they tried to put my daughter in the special education classroom so they wouldn’t close the classroom. They wanted to force me to sign a document even for them to speak with Usmij and thus change the diagnosis because with tdl they couldn’t enter.

Let’s also talk about the feelings of children and adolescents who grow up seeing day after day a group of classmates (PEOPLE, which we seem to forget) separated from them even during recess. Many feelings come to mind, and none of them good. Stolen lives, theirs and their families’.

I hope there’s a strike to close classrooms….

They sell them to you wonderfully, they say it will be for a little while, only when needed, and it turns out to be a lie. My son goes out 4 classes a week to the mainstream classroom with his classmates. 4 classes. By the time you realize what’s happening, it’s too late, even if you want to change the schooling model, it’s impossible.

Así que yo lo llamaría la trampa, la que le ponen a los padres para que firmen ese modelo de escolarización segregador vendiendo algo que no es. Por mí que desaparezcan todas, así no habría opción. Esos recursos a las aulas ordinarias. Admiro mucho tu valentía. Gracias por evidenciar la realidad.

Hola Belen. Nuestra hija con DI en la ESO en Madrid, sale 2 horas al día al aula de la PT, y en algunas otras horas sale con otra compañera que también tiene DI al pasillo, “porque allí trabajan las dos mejor, más tranquilas, sin distracciones”.

Como remate de tanta inclusión le suspenden la mayoría de las asignaturas a pesar de tener ACIS en todo, lo justifican diciendo que ahora tiene que ser así, que la inspección les obliga a que sea así para que luego no puedan titular al llegar a 4°. Vamos de mal en peor.

Cuando nos quejamos y denunciamos, nos convertimos en los culpables, en los conflictivos, en los que se han empeñado en que su hija titule,  “qué locura” y además se toman represalias contra nosotros, cuando lo único que hacemos es defender el derecho de nuestra hija a la educación.

Yo siento que no tenemos ningún derecho, por mucho que los mimen y los cuiden los profesores del aula (que ahora nos han tocado bueno, pero a veces también hay telita ahí), no pueden hacer nada, se conforman con lo que les mandan y da las gracias si lo hacen bien. Yo no puedo entender por qué a mi hija no se les enseñan las asignaturas.

My son was in a rural school. The best thing life gave him in primary school. Then came the special classroom and it was a horror because he didn’t understand anything and rebelled. He didn’t want to go. I didn’t force him because he would come home completely unhinged.

In high school, they told me he had to go compulsorily. I couldn’t carry him on my shoulder and take him, so I invited them to do it themselves. He stayed home for many days with threats of calling social services. They didn’t do it because he occasionally attended class.

One day he couldn’t take it anymore and his doctor came to the house. Seeing how he was, he was already 15 years old, he wrote a medical excuse and he stayed with me for 2 months until he turned 16. BLESSED 16 !!!!

He is still with me and now he is 24. We do what he likes to do. He eats when he is hungry and sleeps when he is sleepy. He makes puppets and records videos with them. He draws almost all day and creates 2D movies.

After a TEA classroom, they will go to a day center, and when we die, to a nursing home. And their whole lives they will be institutionalized and separated from society.

When Victoria was sent to that segregated classroom, away from her classmates, from those children who had integrated her completely for three years and who went out of their way to welcome her, they fought to be with her, it was a very difficult, terrible moment. As a mother, it destroyed me, and my daughter too, because whenever she could, she would escape to the classroom where her friends were. They called her an escape artist, because she couldn’t verbalize it, but she showed it through her behavior.

The following year they wanted to make her situation even worse, and that’s when I decided I wouldn’t send her to school again to go through that torture, because my heart broke every time I had to leave her there, in that “CAGE”.

My daughter has a communication impairment, and I am absolutely sure she would progress more surrounded by 20 or 30 children she could imitate, who would try to communicate with her, and teachers prepared to adapt to her and her way of communicating, than being with 6 others just like her.

Hello Belén, I would like to share with you some of the experiences I’ve had with my daughter in a specific classroom. I never imagined that the administration would exclude my daughter from the education system and use that exclusion for discrimination… They have discriminated against my daughter in writing from the summer reinforcement program, which the Junta de Andalucía offers to all Andalusian children with public funds, because she is enrolled in modality C schooling…

Students will not only not graduate but will also be excluded from benefiting, like the rest of their peers, from public education funded by public funds in the name of programs.

#cageclassrooms

Thaaaank you for all you do.

It’s where those resources should be, in mainstream education. They play tricks on families and use all sorts of deceptions, a real institutional abuse. Just for fighting for inclusion and for what is a right… Enough is enough!! Keep going, families!!! They won’t silence us!

Hello! Following up on everything you’re publishing. I work with autistic children and I see how USMIA makes diagnoses that often don’t correspond to reality “so that you can get all possible resources.” In many cases, these resources mean placing them in the UECO (Special Education Classroom Unit) because that way “they have their space to regulate themselves.”

Nosotros como sabiamos lo que iba a pasar nos negamos, nos lo querían meter en aulas tea sin ser tea por eso estamos en cole sin aula tea pero nos siguen invitando a otro cole con aula tea

Pues yo voy a contar una experiencia.

#AulasJaula

En el IES propusieron que mi hijo acudiera a las actividades del aula TEA (3 h/sem.). Tiempo después, me enteré de en qué consistían exactamente algunas de las actividades.

Los X, van al súper a comprar la comida para comerla en la hora siguiente. Mi hijo me dijo que él se sentía mal porque los demás compraban y él no. Resulta que era porque él no estaba en el programa de comida. Le propuse darle dinero y que él comprara lo que quisiera.

Escribí al IES para comentar la situación y no obtuve respuesta. Lo siguiente fue que le dijeron que no hacía falta que volviera. A mí no me dijeron nada.

La conclusión que saco es que es la exclusión de la exclusión. Sacan al alumnado del IES en horario lectivo para ir al súper, pretendidamente, para que se desenvuelvan con dinero y en público, y además, si suman a alguien no está en el aula TEA, lo dejan mirando, perdiendo clase.

Dear Belén, what can we do about that feeling we get when our sons and daughters feel that their place is in the little sparks, popcorn, bubbles, stars, rainbows, jingle bells classroom (insert any cute name you wish), which normalizes that their place in the world is a small space where they can be set aside so as not to bother, and mind you, “for their own good.” How can we make them understand that their place is alongside others, something they have never experienced (and fear), that there will be people responsible for making their coexistence possible, and furthermore, that they will develop their full potential.

Perhaps one day, a mother or father will stop hearing from their son or daughter’s tutor, “Well, I have your child and twenty-something others.”

Hopefully, one day, teachers will stop seeing our children as burdens, and will include them, understand them, and receive adequate training. And hopefully, mothers like us will stop swallowing so much garbage.

That’s right! Many centers become prisons when it comes to students with special educational needs, or even when they are disruptive, or labeled as “different.” In my son’s case, that’s how it was. He spent all day in the hallway or in a classroom with the special education teacher; we finally had to choose to remove him from the center and enroll him in another. Something is wrong with the current education system! but we must keep fighting and making ourselves heard.

After a TEA classroom, they will go to a day center, and when we die, to a residential care facility. And their whole lives they will be institutionalized and separated from society.

These days there is a lot of talk about a lack of resources, and professionals state that inclusion cannot be carried out due to a lack of resources. And I ask myself, if they really had the necessary means, resources, and tools, would they opt for inclusion? Unfortunately, I think not. I don’t doubt that resources are needed, but a change in mentality among professionals is also absolutely necessary. Without that change, they can have all the resources they want, but nothing will change.

I am a teacher, and that is what I perceive.

Hello Belén, you are very right and sensible in everything you say. At one point, I thought those classrooms were perfect, but when I saw the reality up close, I understood that it is not what they are sold as. Perhaps in specific classrooms, in specific contexts, with specific students, with specific teachers… they might work, but that is not the reality I encounter. I see them more as a barrier to inclusion, not a strength. And you are right when you say, what do they think about being there? I don’t know, honestly, but if we in the environment understand that it is not the best, we must fight for a change. I follow you and support you.

Not in my class, not in my son’s class, because they lower the level!

Statements that have been around in the education system for over 25 years.

Along with ableism, selfishness, comfort, sometimes even ableism; incompetence, lack of resources, lack of support, lack of real individualized adaptations with all their challenges and potential. Lack of training, lack of involvement, lack of knowledge, lack of specialists in ASD, Lack of motivation, which is not surprising, teachers who believe in diversity in inclusion end up throwing in the towel from sheer exhaustion, loneliness, misunderstanding from their environment, from fighting and battling so much (families also get exhausted, we break under so much injustice).

!? Diversity !?? And a dehumanized society, every man for himself, everyone looks out for themselves and figures it out as best they can, your child has a disability, well, we all have our own, ignorance said to empathy.

For those who want to see how “crazy” we are, look at Belén’s campaign #CageClassrooms #AndNothingHappens. That is the reality, that is the truth.

You are very brave Belén, also great, also very generous. Thank you.

Do students with disabilities lower the bar? But whoever makes that statement can’t sink any lower!

It’s all surreal.

In order for them to receive support outside the classroom, you have to sign a document, because giving it to them outside of class would be singling them out and differentiating them from their peers. But to separate them during recess, to constantly take them out of class because they “bother,” that they don’t go on school excursions or activities… and a long etcetera, for that, no one asks you to sign anything or asks for your opinion. Very inclusive and coherent, all of it.

The obsession they have with our children not graduating is unbelievable. They don’t want to admit it, but that’s the goal, so they can definitively separate them when they change cycles.

Do not authorize your children to undergo psychometric tests at school. Psycho-pedagogical reports are mandatory when changing stages, but tests are NOT.

Hi Belén, how are you?

I am very well. They told me I had to go to the special classroom, which they called classroom X, because I had to be with my people. And they said it in front of me, and it was horrible.

My place is everyone’s place, because everyone is my people.

Places and the world belong to everyone, and it’s high time we stopped separating people into special places to do special things.

I stood my ground and said no, and because I didn’t play along, they made my life impossible in class, so I would leave. Some didn’t even look at me, others looked at me badly.

I refuse to let a separate world be created, and that starts when they create separate classrooms.

They shouldn’t exist, it’s the only way to stop them from continuing to separate us people, and that way everyone learns that there are people who have to be apart, and that’s how they treat us. Lots of kisses, you’re really cool

In kindergarten (5 years old), my son was seated alone in the dining hall, separated from the rest of his classmates because “he’s calmer that way.” In 1st grade, they relegated him to the end of the table and left empty spaces so I wouldn’t complain about being at a separate table….

Soy maestra de PT y actualmente trabajo en aula

TEA. En mi centro, en el cuál llevo 2 años, se hacen visitas al aula TEA del resto de cursos y alumnos que hay en el centro, pero los alumnos del aula TEA no hacen visitas a las aulas del resto de alumnos del centro.

Cuando me enteré el año pasado, no supe como reaccionar. No me gustó nada, pero me quedé en paralizada. Desde el equipo directivo me dijeron que era una forma de concienciar al resto de alumnos sobre la discapacidad, forma que yo no acepto ni me parece bien. Así que este año, cuando han planteado hacerlo de nuevo, yo me he negado. No me parece bien que el resto de alumnos vayan al aula TEA, ¿a ver qué? Son niños, son sus compañeros, no son una exhibición o una feria. Lo peor de todo esto es que me he enterado que los padres de mis alumnos, los alumnos que están conmigo en el aula TEA, no sabían nada de esto, y esto se lleva haciendo año. Ha sido ahora que yo me he negado y ha corrido la voz en el colegio, cuando se han enterado de todo. Me parece increíble que bajo el “es por concienciar” traten a mis alumnos como atracciones de fue. Esa deshumanización planeada por adultos pero que es lo que le estamos enseñando a los niños y niñas. Normal que luego haya bullying, sobre todo ante los alumnos más vulnerables. Gracias por la visibilidad que das a todo esto

Gracias por dar voz a lo que sentimos muchas familias, aquí estoy luchando por su bienestar mental & , cada curso nuevo esos eran mis pensamientos, que sentirá mi hija por dentro, que pensará , si pudiese estar dentro de su cabecita y poder ayudarla más d a un abrazo

Nadie hace autocrítica… El problema siempre es el niño al 100x 100….

Thank you for your initiatives, for your dedicated time, and for your effort to make a hidden reality in classrooms visible!

Good afternoon, Belén.

As a Therapeutic Pedagogy Technician (PTIS) for 12 years in public educational centers in Andalusia, I can assure you that Specific Classrooms and

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Classrooms are the Administration’s “smokescreen” to justify that they comply with the “inclusive” education law.

The reality is that all students who attend these classrooms are, in their vast majority, segregated and forgotten by the rest of the educational community. You are surprised year after year when the educational center shows you that students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) are only the responsibility of the Therapeutic Pedagogy professional

(PT) or the professional

Specialized Technical Staff for Social Integration (PTIS).

For the rest, almost entirely, they are not their students, but someone who gets in the way, bothers, causes pity, or simply doesn’t exist.

It’s sad, but it’s the pure reality.

We must take into account that the information and (mandatory) training for teachers about the identity of all students who have the right to equal education, provided by the administration, is practically nil. Everything is left to the discretion of each teacher. Therefore, in the end, the “solution” is Specialized Classrooms and ASD Classrooms, where students who, according to “neurotypical” rules of the game, are not fit to be in Mainstream Classrooms are kept “hidden.” Although, obviously, all of this is attempted to be disguised for those looking from the outside. I should mention that out of 12 years of experience, I have worked in Specialized Classrooms and ASD Classrooms for 11 of them. So I know what I’m talking about. Keep up the spirit in your fight to change everything, which is the fight of many of us working on the same path.

A couple of academic years ago, I had a meeting with the families of our specialized classroom in secondary school. They got angry and felt deceived when they found out that in Andalusia, you don’t get a degree in specialized classrooms, no matter how much they “try.” Even if they have attended and done everything that has been asked of them from ages 6 to 21. The worst part: when there was a change in modality, for whatever reason, no one told them that they wouldn’t get a degree in a specialized classroom.

Thank you very much, Belén, for giving us a voice; I am very tired of suffering in silence.