Inclusive Education

1. Inclusive Education Dr Julie White

2. As a teacher…. What do you expect you might you have to deal with?

3. Overview • Deficit, difference, diversity • The language of disability • Inclusive educational practices • And you?

4. Deficits • Is the cup HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY?

5. GLEE CLUB • http://www.examiner.com/tv-in-national/glee-stars-lea-michele-jane-lynch-following-lady-gaga-with-comic-book-1 • Check out this for Glee Cast picture • What do you notice about the contents of this picture?

6. Deficits • Visibility • Support • Enabling practices

7. Visible

8. Invisible • Diabetes • ADHD • Epilepsy • Chron’s Disease • Cystic Fibrosis • Depression • Chronic fatigue syndrome • Cancer • Haemophilia • Lupus • Eating disorder • Asthma

9. World Health Organization • Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. • Thus disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives. http://www.who.int/topics/disabilities/en/

10. What difference does language make? • Cripple • Spastic • Retarded • Mongoloid • Lunatic • Apartheid • Nazis • Stereotyping • Labelling • Rights

11. What inclusive practices might you use? • Speak with parents • Encourage and welcome • Be sensitive in your planning so that you include rather than exclude • Don’t think that the answer is just in resources • Every person is different – whatever their disability or health issue • Remember that standards (e.g. VELS) are made up by bureaucrats –children learn at their own pace

12. What can this child do?

13. How can I help this child to belong?Pictures of three children shown

14. How can I help this child to learn and to achieve their full potential?

15. Potential • How do I know what their potential is? • Do I have the right to decide?

16. Myth No. 1 Probably the most widely-held myth about teaching students with a disability is the belief that a detailed knowledge of the child’s disability is needed before a teaching programme can be commenced. Teachers often say ‘But I know nothing about Down syndrome’ or ‘I haven’t studied cerebral palsy-how could I teach that child? Foreman, P. (Ed) (2001) Integration and Inclusion in Action (2nd ed.) Southbank, Nelson, p. 25.

17. Education Institute Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne Phone: 9322 5100 Website: http://www.rch.org.au/edinst/index.cfm?doc_id=10385

18. Overrepresented groups Alexander, R. (Ed.) (2010) Children, their World, their Education. Final Report and Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review. London, Routledge. See chapter 8: ‘Children, Diversity and Equity’.

19. Over represented groups • Boys (1 in 40, girls 1 in 100) • The poor • Particular ethnic groups. e.g Black Carribean children – attributed to low teacher expectations Alexander (2010, p. 115)

20. In Australia • In Australia, we know that boys from particular postcodes (poor ones) are often diagnosed as having ADHD and subsequently medicated on the referral of the primary teacher. • And we know that the poor suffer more health issues (e.g. Indigenous Australians)

21. See Alexander Ch 8 • How the education system exacerbates inequalities • Ethnicity • Diversity • Difference

22. Pedagogy Pedagogy is the heart of the enterprise. It gives life to educational aims and values, lifts the curriculum from the printed page, mediates learning and knowing, engages, inspires and empowers learners – or sadly may fail to do so. Alexander (2010, p. 307)

23. Pedagogy Pedagogy determines how teachers think and act. Pedagogy affects students’ lives and expectations. Pedagogy is the framework for discussions about teaching and the process by which we do our jobs as teachers. Pedagogy is a body of knowledge that defines us as professionals. Anderson, P. M. (2005) ‘The Meaning of Pedagogy’, in Kincheloe, J. L. Classroom Teaching: An Introduction, New York, Peter Lang, pp. 53-69.

24. Pedagogy Pedagogy demands and constructs complex social relationships. Through exchange, pedagogy becomes productive, constituting the forms of knowing, the conditions for knowing, and the subjectivities of knowers. Pedagogy points to the agency that joins teaching and learning. Britzman, D. (2003) Practice Makes Practice: A Critical Study of Learning to Teach, New York, State University of New York Press. P. 54.

25. Your pedagogy As a teacher, what are your values and beliefs in relation to inclusion and disability? How will you enact your pedagogy? Prompts • Social justice • Rights of individuals • Schools should sort out the students from strong to weak • This is not my problem

26. My own research • 5 years • 10 young people with chronic illness • All over Victoria • Visits in their homes – long conversations • Gave them cameras and video cameras • Interested in getting their perspectives on identity, connection and education http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/keepingconnected/

27. 3 useful websites: http://www.chronicillness.org.au/invisible/ http://www.education.vic.gov.au/healthwellbeing/wellbeing/disability/default.htm http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/

28. Advice • Read a lot • Be critical of everything • Ask lots of questions • Look for complexity not reductionism. • Education is a complicated business. • Think a lot • Work out who you are and what you stand for (as a teacher) this year while you’re an education student