Different Times, Different Thinking

1. Different Times, Different Thinking Inclusion Ireland Killarney Prof. Tom Collins April 24th 2010

2. What we are Facing • Crisis in – Economy • Crisis in- Environment • Crisis in - Confidence • Crisis in - Leadership • Crisis in - Knowledge • Crisis in - Self image

3. Global Challenges • Environment and Energy • Shifting centre of Gravity • Living with Difference • Nourishing the Soul- Identity and well-being • Appreciating the Civic

5. The Rogerian Approach • Rogers started out as an agriculturalist • Considers people as basically good or healthy • The actualising tendency • Organisms know what is good for them • Culture intervenes with conditional positive regard • Incongruence emerges where there is dissonance between the real self and the ideal self

6. Experience of Childhood in Ireland • The Stolen childhood-reality to virtual reality • Depletion in roles of Family and Neighbourhood • Overwhelming presence of Media • Children as Consumers • Depletion of ambient environment for children-fewer imaginative neighbourhoods • Children and mental health

7. Elements of an inclusion agenda • Community-Build social capital • Cohesion-Reduce class differences • Competitiveness-Employability • Citizenship-Civic awareness and responsibility • Consciousness-Capacity for ongoing interrogation

8. Ensuring children reach their true potential • Increased pre-school education • Tackle literacy difficulties in primary schools serving disadvantaged communities.

9. Child literacy and social inclusion (NESF, 2009) • Levels of child literacy problems in disadvantaged areas three times national average • 30% of first and sixth class students in national sample of designated disadvantaged schools had serious literacy difficulties (Eivers et al, 2004) • 22% of primary schools come under DEIS • Many disadvantaged children not covered

10. Affluent Neighbourhood ‘Professional skateboarder’ ‘Doctor’ ‘Jet pilot’ ‘Racing car man’ ‘Scientist’ ‘TV presenter’ ‘Artist’ ‘A person who finds dinosaur bones and fossils’ ‘Sea-diver’ ‘Policeman’ Economically Deprived Neighbourhood ‘Build houses’ ‘Fix cars’ ‘Footballer’ ‘Kill rats and get a gun’ ‘Work with my daddy’ ‘Make stuff with wood’ ‘Join the army’ ‘Fireman’ ‘Clean carpets’ ‘Just go to work’ Responses of 5-6 year old boys to the question: “What would you like to be whenyou grow up?” (Source: Connolly, P. (2004) Boys and Schooling in the Early Years (London: Routledge).

11. Health - Smoking • Smoking – Children 8-17 • ABC1F: 14.1% • C2DE: 17.2% • Overall Children: 16.3% (Source: Office of Tobacco Control) • Children who smoke are less likely to find it easy to talk to their mother (67.8% vs. 82.9%) and father (47.9% vs. 66.8%) than those who do not. • Children who smoke are more likely to report feeling pressured by schoolwork (49.9% vs. 39.3%) and less likely to report liking school (45.0% vs. 72.0%) than those who do not. • Children who smoke are more likely to spend more than four evenings a week out with friends than those who do not (57.8% vs. 39.4%). HBSC Ireland 2006: Research Factsheet No. 1

12. Sample of Prisoners in Mountjoy S ample of Prisoners in Mountjoy • 50% left school before 15 • 75% never sat State Examination • 4% Leaving Certificate or beyond • 29% had literacy difficulties • (Source: O’Mahony, 2002)

13. Health - Alcohol • Irish children report being drunk more often than those in most other countries (26% in the past month compared to a European average of 18%) • More girls (44%) than boys (42%) reported heavy drinking (5+ drinks on one occasion) during the previous month • Over half (54%) reported being drunk at least once by the age of 16 • Roughly three-quarters said it would be easy for them to obtain alcohol (ESPAD: 2007) • Children who have been drunk are less likely to find it easy to talk to their mother (70.8% vs. 85.2%) and their father (51.6% vs. 69.7%) than those who have not. • Children who have been drunk are more likely to spend 4 or more evenings per week with their friends (51.5% vs. 38.0%) than those who have not. • Children who have been drunk are more likely to report feeling pressured by schoolwork (50.7% vs. 36.4%) and less likely to report liking school (51.2% vs. 75.6%) than those who have not. • Children who have been drunk are less likely to report excellent health (23.9% vs. 37.7%) and feeling happy with their lives (36.1% vs. 56.0%) than those who have not. HBSC Ireland 2006: Research Factsheet No. 5

14. National Action Plan for Social Inclusion (2007-2016) - NESF High Level Goals • Ensuring children reach their true potential; • Supporting working age people and people with disabilities, through activation measures and the provision of services to increase employment and participation; • Providing the type of supports that enable older people to maintain a comfortable and high-quality standard of living; • Building viable and sustainable communities, improving the lives of people living in disadvantaged areas and building social capital. Increased Increased

15. Key Findings of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Differences in outcomes for those who received preschool education and those who did not (%) (Source: Schweinhart, L. et al (2005) Lifetime Effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40 (Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope Press).

16. Why do Kilkenny win All-Irelands?

17. Laying the Foundations

18. Some challenges for Schools • Cultural challenges re traditional beliefs and approaches teaching and learning-from prescription to negotiation • Focus less on preparation for the future than on current developmental challenges; understand the significance of lifelong learning • Schools creating knowledge rather than delivering it • Adapt systems , not people--learning from SEN • Integrate learning from outside into mainstream • Celebrate new Curricular opportunities

19. Turning Inheritance into Achievement • Class basis of Leaving Cert Outcomes

20. Leaving Certificate Completion by Social Class Background(School Leavers’ Surveys 2006, 2007) (Source: Investing in Education: ESRI, 2009)

21. Leaving Certificate Examination Performance by Social Class(School Leavers’ Surveys 2006, 2007) (Source: Investing in Education: ESRI, 2009)

23. Admission Rates to Higher Education by Dublin Postal District (2004) (Source: DoE&S web-site)

24. Top 20 Feeder Schools in Ireland:  by adjusted grade point average* 1 – The High And Diocesan School, Zion Rd, Rathgar, Dublin 6 2 – St Andrew’s College, Booterstown Ave, Blackrock, Co Dublin 3 – Coláiste Fhlannain, Inis, Co An Chláir 4 – St Louis High School, Rathmines, Dublin 6 5 – Gonzaga College, Sandford Road, Dublin 6 6 – St Mac Dara’s Community College, Templeogue, Dublin 6 W 7 – Alexandra College, Milltown, Dublin 6 8 – Loreto College, St Stephens Green, Dublin 2 9 – St Michael’s College, Ailesbury Road, Dublin 4 10 – Marian College, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 11 – Dominican Convent, Muckross Park College, Donnybrook, Dublin 4 12 – Terenure College, Terenure, Dublin 6W 13 – St Mary’s College, Rathmines, Dublin 6 14 – Our Lady’s School, Templeogue Rd, Terenure, Dublin 6 W 15 – Rathmines College, Town Hall, Rathmines, Dublin 6 16 – Templeogue College, Templeogue, Dublin 6W 17 – Wesley College, Ballinteer, Dublin 16 18 – Gorey Community School, Gorey, Co Wexford 19 – Christian Brothers College, Monkstown Park, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin 20 – Catholic University School, 89 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2 (Source: University of Ulster and the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick) *Taking socio-economic background into account

25. Ways of Learning • All people want to learn • Are capable of learning to the limits of their experience • Learn better by doing than by listening or watching • Learn by interacting, exploring and investigating • Learn in being accompanied • From lifelong learning to lifelong exploration

26. Future Minds - Gardner • The Disciplined Mind • The Synthesizing Mind • The Creating Mind • The Respectful Mind • The Ethical Mind

27. The Medium and the Message • Curriculum as subjects • Proliferation of learning objectives • Curriculum as experience • Pedagogy as Enquiry and Exploration • School as emancipatory organisation • School as Asylum

28. An agenda for Irish Primary schools • Develop a coherent vision of a good education -with the needs of the child at the Centre • Work towards a coherent vision of a good society-where principles of Justice and Inclusion are integral • Concentrate on learning as joy rather than as task • Interrogate everything we do

29. The Policy Priorities in Early Childhood Education • Need to increase funding to OECD average • Place the Child at the Centre of the Curriculum • Accentuate the social, cultural and moral purpose of Education as well as the instrumental • Shift funding emphasis to early years education-bearing in mind public and private returns • Develop a system of universal pre-school provision • Cultivate a culture of active learning-based on the multiple intelligences of the learner at all levels • Recognise the imperative of learning to learn as the critical foundation for a life of exploration • Develop a funding model which supports socio-economic and special needs integration and penalises segregation • Address continuing professional development of teachers

30. Teaching as an Aesthetic Activity 'It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs.' (Ethics, BkI. 1094b24)..

31. The Choice Domains For Catholic Primary Education • Positonal Power ========Moral Authority • Sacred ==============Profane • Battery ==============Free Range • Intrinsic value =========Extrinsic value • Elitism ============== Inclusion • Individual ============Communal • Holistic ==============Partial

32. The Alberta Experience • The need to challenge assumptions about the very nature of developmental disabilities • The desire to test the perceived limits of inclusion (who can be successfully included and in what contexts) • The intention to advance inclusion and reduce marginalisation • The necessity to extend existing knowledge and practice in supporting people with disabilities • The desire to explore radical change in contrast to incremental change and to learn more about social change • To utilise natural supports already available in the community • To facilitate inclusion where no history of special education practice or knowledge existed • To innovate in a place where no human service infrastructure existed to provide therapeutic intervention • To capitalise upon generic resources available to students who are not disabled

33. Shared Assumptions All agreed that the objectives were to: • increase relationships; • participate in life-enriching experiences; • have opportunities for meaningful learning & knowledge; • experience personal growth; • enhance ones’ own identity and access to careers; and • To get and keep employment

34. Success – Students and Parents Students • Meeting new people and making friends (with and without disabilities) • Doing and trying new things (e.g., courses, extra-curricular activities, campus life) • Gaining Confidence (e.g., from academic work, assignments, tests, getting feedback) • Independence • Having a career/job and earning a salary • Developing a personal identity Parents - Successes they described related to their sons and daughters • Independence and confidence • Improved communication • Finding and exploring personal identity • Opportunity for authentic challenges • Learning transferable skills & knowledge (academic and social) • Surpassing parents’ expectations of what was possible Parents - Successes they described related to the larger community: • Sets an example for what an inclusive society can look like • Community is improved by participation of all • Increased acceptance over time of diverse students and of inclusive education • Provides hope for other parents • Other students learn tolerance and how to invite inclusive participation

35. Contributions to Success Students • Being treated like an adult • Opportunity to make choices and decisions in an inclusive environment • Support from facilitators in doing course work and meeting people • Getting to know faculty • Working and learning with peers Parents - What Contributes to Success • Individual attention and support • Facilitator qualities and abilities • Unique and diverse opportunities available at college and university • Opportunities for independence related to post-secondary contexts (e.g., leaving home, using community resources) • Parent involvement in supporting students and the inclusive post-secondary initiatives

36. Lessons Learned • Small, individualised and personalised initiatives overcame ‘programmatic’ approach to generate ‘natural/invisible’ support • Greatest challenge for all initiatives lies in learning more ways to foster and sustain relationships between students with severe and multiple disabilities and their classmates/peers • High expectations and creativity are required in looking for meaningful ways for students to be fully included in post-secondary education, particularly across all social aspects of campus life

37. View of Exclusion