Philosophy? Where'd you get that from??

It's so important for teachers to have a philosophy. Without a philosophy of teaching, how can one even call themselves a teacher? My views have built through years of personal experience as I imagine most peoples are. In classrooms throughout my early education inclusion never seemed to be a focal point. Yes, the special education students came to specials and classroom parties, but not all the students wanted to interact with them. As I went to middle school and high school I saw even less inclusion and I couldn't figure out why. Then, when my younger brother moved school districts I finally realized why. At my brother's school inclusion was a must for a every student. The general education students had no problem interacting with the special education students. It's almost strange to even describe. My brother has Down syndrome, and happens to be almost 7 years younger than me. Throughout the years I went to many events at our home school district, and it always made me so sad to see what little interactions he had with the general education classes. When he moved however, and I would attend events, students would come up to him the entire time, both from the special education and special education classes. Now, I thought  to myself that this is completely different from when I grew up, but why? At first, I thought it was just time changing, students were becoming more accepting, but that wasn't it. On a side note, my home district was trying to pull my brother back for money reasons and asked us to take a tour of the middle school. After this tour I realized that the school district he is in now does something better for their students, inclusion. It's astonishing how much of a difference I noticed in the two schools. Not only that, but how much of a difference I noticed in my brother. He finally had positive peer role models instead of copying behaviors from students in his class. It helped him grow more as a person and I just can't say for sure if that would have happened if he had stayed at his other school. This is why I find inclusion so important. Without including our special education students we are taking away the fun of school. I can't imagine where I would be without some of my friends growing up, and they weren't always in the same class as me. Knowing that I could see them at lunch, recess, school assemblies, band, chorus, and all the other school activities really made school worth it. I feel as though as a teachers it is our job to make sure each student can experience what it's like to be included because if not we're truly doing them a disservice. Even the students in the general education will be better people because of this. By having students around who are different from them, they learn to be more accepting of the differences of society. I'm lucky that I had my brother because without him who knows if I would have these same views, which is sad to think, but I hope that by making students with disabilities more included and more common it will shape the views of all my future students.