This topic is something I am very passionate because I plan on being an elementary school teacher and this affects many schools in the US. No matter if mainstreaming is in effect in my classroom individually, most schools in the United States do have programs for children with Down Syndrome. It is best to start the mainstreaming process in elementary school so that they can get the most time possible in a fully inclusive classroom. Through mainstreaming, children with Down Syndrome improve their education more than if they were placed in a special education classroom, there by impacting not only the school, but also other students, their parents, and the teachers. When a Down Syndrome child is first placed into an inclusive classroom, some people might not be fully on board. But mainstreaming not only positively benefits the Down Syndrome child themselves, but also the other students. It's been found that general education students are accepting towards their disabled peers because it creates a social environment that is different than what they are used to. The general students learn more about patience and how to react when something is new and unfamiliar to them. They also learned about the quality of acceptance and that all students should have an equal opportunity to education, despite their academic ability. Peer tutoring and group work is a common way of how general students may interact with the Down Syndrome child. By mainstreaming children with Down Syndrome into a general education setting, it helps the other students learn how to accept and be patient, as well as learning how to interact with someone so different than themselves.I had a child with Down's Syndrome in my class in elementary school and it was such a great experience for me and I can tell it was the best choice for him as well. One of my best friends growing up at home had a cousin who faced the struggles of having Down's Syndrome; his name was David. David was always over at her house and we would always include him in our games or if we wanted to watch a movie and it would always seem to make his day. I've never met a more genuine, kind-hearted person in my entire life. David would always go out of his way to do nice things for people and could automatically tell if something was wrong or if you were not in a good mood. David is one of the reasons I chose this topic for my research. Down's Syndrome children are not given their chance to succeed in a normal classroom setting and mainstreaming can give them that opportunity.

My first resource is a documentary movie called "Educating Peter". Children with Down's Syndrome a lot of the time face the problems of having a low self-esteem. The low self-esteem comes from the children thinking that they can't do what all the other kids are doing. In "Educating Peter", Peter Gwazdauskas was a little boy in the third grade that was born with Down Syndrome.  Peter was mainstreamed, being placed in a regular third grade class. The documentary tells the story of his journey growing up and learning how to interact with "normal" children in the classroom. It shows how much Peter grows as a student and a person by being able to interact with children that are not struggling with his disability. The "normal" students learn just as much from Peter as he does from them and it's an incredible story. The director did a good job in the film getting the audience to sympathize with Peter's struggles in the class. There was one scene I strongly remember in the film of when Peter started gaining some self-confidence in the classroom and went on a long streak of good work. You could tell that the director wanted you to feel proud of Peter for this accomplishment and in this, is making you see the benefits of mainstreaming. The director also does a good job by not only including interviews with Peter and his family, but also interviews with the classroom teacher and some of Peter's peers. The other children in Peter's class were very honest in their interviews but all positive about having Peter in their class. Some students even go as far to say that Peter has become one of their beset friends.

My second source starts off with a quote by George Evans saying, "Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way." George Evans was an American football, basketball, and baseball coach that was all for becoming inclusive in the realm of sports. Evans received his education at the now defunct Des Moines University, which was later acquired by the University of Sioux Falls, this should not be confused with the present Des Moines University. The research paper then goes on to say that all children can learn, no matter their mental state or ability. The author talks about having Down's Syndrome students in some of her classes and how the "normal" students were great about working with the student who had Down's. By mainstreaming children with Down Syndrome into a general education setting, it helps the other students learn how to accept and be patient, as well as learning how to interact with someone so different than themselves. The "normal" students learn more about patience and how to react when something is new and unfamiliar to them. They also learned about the quality of acceptance and that all students should have an equal opportunity to education, despite their academic ability. This article mainly discusses the benefits of mainstreaming not only for the Down's Syndrome child, but also the other students and the teacher. 

My third source is a published essay on the "benefits of mainstreaming Down's Syndrome children into the classroom." The author of the essay says, "students who were mainstreamed had greater communication skills and overall higher satisfaction with their learning than those who were put into Special Education classroom." She then goes on for many pages on why mainstreaming is the best option for most children with Down's Syndrome and supports her claims using sources of her own. The author focuses a lot on the self-esteem benefits for children with Down Syndrome in a mainstreamed classroom. Even though students with Down Syndrome have an issue with self-esteem when first entering this new learning environment, the author of this paper goes on to say that the child's language development improves drastically by socializing with other "typical" students. The more comfortable these students become in the classroom, the more self-esteem they'll tend to gain. "Students who were mainstreamed had greater communication skills and overall higher satisfaction with their learning than those who were put into Special Education classrooms" says Gobel when defending her claim in the benefits of mainstreaming. This paper has many statistics that are relatively new and that is a great thing to have in a source for a research paper. This source really helps support my thesis not only by supplying multiple facts, but taking them from liable texts as well. Using a source that takes pieces from other sources is a great thing to do because it gives me all the best information in one spot. This research paper may be a little out of date, but it takes time for an issue like this to have a significant change in a short period of time. 

This research paper definitely has a side to argue for. Through mainstreaming, children with Down Syndrome improve their education more than if they were placed in a special education classroom, there by impacting not only the school, but also other students, their parents, and the teachers. Depending on where you come from and what your educational experiences have been can strongly influence how you view this issue; if you view this as an issue at all. 
