The State of Inclusion in Alberta Schools

This was written by Avis Glaze as the Forward in The State of Inclusion in Alberta Schools by the Alberta Teachers' Association.

by Avis Glaze

So often, as teachers, we reiterate the statement that “all children can learn and achieve given time and proper supports.” I have no doubt that we believe this statement. But I would like to encourage deep reflection on what this statement means, and, more importantly, what we will do differently to enable students to be more successful. 

Permit me to congratulate the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) for its attention to inclusive education here. The State of Inclusion in Alberta Schools is an outstanding study that will serve as a model internationally. I commend the Association for carrying on its rich tradition of excellence and leadership in education through its creation of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Inclusive Education in Alberta Schools. The Blue Ribbon Panel’s findings, outlined in this report, are very important and the focus on inclusion is timely. 

All across the globe, teachers, politicians, community members and parents are striving to ensure that education lives up to its promise of creating a more just and harmonious society. They recognize the complexities associated with inclusion, but want more inclusive practices to prevent their children and grandchildren from falling through the cracks. In the same vein, Albertans want the best for the province’s children and youth, but will not be able to confidently say that the education system is successful until the bar is raised and achievement gaps are closed. A commitment to inclusive practices will greatly enhance the quality of education in the province. 

Education is the ultimate tool of empowerment. It requires both will and skill to help students fulfill their potential. Alberta teachers fully realize this. They know that they must continue in their relentless quest to achieve excellence through equity. They want the best for their students. But there is also a broader goal. We live in one of the greatest countries in the world—one that promotes democracy, fairness and justice. We cannot afford to forget that democracy and education are inextricably intertwined: democracy is strongest where education is strongest, and publicly-funded education is the hallmark of democracy. 

To my mind, this study’s focus on inclusion and its findings represent a clarion call to action. Reaching the goals and successfully implementing the strategies outlined here require a shared purpose and mission. Alberta teachers—who work with students every day and are committed to student success—have the will, skills and attitude to make it happen. 

The children deserve no less.

What can we learn from Honduras's teachers and schools?

Natelee is a teacher from Honduras

Here is my second contribution to UNESCO's #TeacherTuesday. You can find all of my posts for #Teacher Tuesday here.

Natelee is a teacher on the Bay Islands, Honduras. She started teaching when she was 19. As I read Natelee's story, I was struck by a couple of key points:

• When Natelee discovered that one of her students was autistic she required professional development to properly meet that students needs.

• Natelee often invited community members into her classroom such as police, firefighters and dive masters.

• Natelee discovered that her travel experiences helped her to better understand why intercultural education is important in a multicultural context.

• As a student, Natalee was hyperactive and benefitted from teachers who didn't "bash" her -- but rather saw her potential and modified their teaching to meet her where she was at.

• In Honduras, there are 9 indigenous groups (Miskitu, Tawakha, Lenca, Tolupan, Maya-Chorti, Garifuna, Nahao, Pech, Negro de Habla Ingles) and 7 languages. Two groups have lost their language and became fragmented. One of those languages (lenca) is almost extinct, there is now a process to try and keep that language alive. Despite this, in the Bay Islands English is the main language of instruction and on mainland Honduras, Spanish is the main language of instruction. Natalee has found success by striving to use a learner-centered approach, which places the child at the centre of the learning process -- so her classroom has an approach that embraces a multicultural, multilingual and differentiated approach to reach all students.

I am struck by 1 BIG IDEA from Natelee's story:

1. Inclusion is for everyone. It's easy to say that we want to build a great school for all children, but it's not easy to agree how we will actually do it. Should all children get a great education? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean everyone should get the same education. We have to stop assuming we can meet all children's needs by pretending they all have the same needs. Having high standards does not require standardization. Alfie Kohn reminds us that "uniformity is not the same thing as excellence - or equity." What could be more inequitable than expecting everyone to learn the same things, to the same level of competence, in the same amount of time? Ultimately, standardization is about meeting the system's needs, even if it means ignoring the children's needs. 

The best schools understand that it is developmentally inappropriate to demand all children progress in the same ways at the same time, but that doesn't require children to be segregated, isolated and excluded from their peers. Top-down mandated, prefabricated, content-bloated, scripted curriculums are problematic because they are insensitive to the needs of children and community (the same is true of standardized tests). Curriculum is not something that should be designed and laminated by distant authorities and mailed to the school -- curriculum must be co-constructed by the teacher and the student with the support of their local school and community.

When we allow public schools to track and stream students by ability, low achieving students are often pushed into low-track classes and schools, separate and apart from more successful students which leads to classes and schools to be segregated by race and socio-economic status. We know that de-tracking often benefits children who need the most help. We also know that the gap between rich and poor is growing -- our schools and students' scores are a reflection of our societies socio-economics. It's important to remember that while racial integration is an important aim, so to is economic integration. 

After all, the best way for us to understand and value different people is for us to be surrounded by them.

For a wonderful read on inclusion, check out Mara Sapon-Shevin's book Widening the Circle: the power of inclusive classrooms.

Belonging...

This was written by my friend and colleague Ev Tetz who is a middle school teacher and councillor at Glendale Sciences and Technology School in Red Deer, Alberta. He tweets here. This post was originally found here.

by Ev Tetz

Original artwork by George D. Bluebird, Sr.

I believe that the importance of belonging to a larger group, community, or family cannot be understated in relation to today’s societies. On a large scale, we’ve wandered away from the village mentality into a highly individualized existence resulting in disproportionate demands on the person rather than persons. Pockets of true community are now sparse but tend to be the driving force for social, economic, and political change. On a smaller scale, in a school for example, a sense of community may be what makes true social and academic learning possible.

I believe a true sense of belonging is one of the most important factors to being engaged and successful at school. The truth is though, that this does not come often enough and certainly not without work and intention. At times, we need to choose to accept what might be different, what might make us uncomfortable, or what may even scare us. We must challenge ourselves to view the world through someone else’s eyes and see what they might see. We have all found ourselves in moments when we have desperately wanted someone else to be able to feel what it is like to be “us.”

In Native American and First Nations cultures, significance was nurtured in communities of belonging. Lakota anthropologist Ella Deloria described the core value of belonging in these simple words: "Be related, somehow, to everyone you know." Treating others as kin forges powerful social bonds that draw all into relationships of respect.

I want you to think of those around you. Think of someone who may 'feel' different, or perhaps that they don’t belong to the group. What would that actually feel like? Maybe you feel like one of these people. You are certainly not alone. As we strive to create inclusive environments in our schools, we must work together to create a culture where all are accepted regardless of ability, religion, sexual orientation, cultural background, skin color, hobbies, interests, strengths, weaknesses, and family history. We must work together to be a truly inclusive community of learners. I personally believe that a sense of belonging is the foundation on which we build all other skills.

"Belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity, these are the four well springs of courage." Martin Brokenleg

In essence we may actually be discussing the underpinning of community and belonging which is empathy. Our ability to recognize feelings experienced by another being is the skill needed when forming connection, community and belonging, ultimately bonding us to the larger human experience.

New Hope for School Integration

From All Walks of Life: New Hope for School Integration is a powerful article on school integration and diversity by Richard Kahlenberg. If you are interested in Inclusion, then I think you'll find this enlightening.

Here are a few highlights:

• Racial integration is a very important aim, but if one's goal is boosting academic achievement what really matters is economic integration.

• Finland - often held out as an education success story - had the lowest degree of socioeconomic segregation of 57 countries participating in PISA.

• The only educational intervention known to have a greater return on investment than socioeconomic integration is very high-quality early childhood education.

• The KIPP model, which relies heavily on self-selection and attrition, reinforces the idea that the peer environment may matter a great deal.

• Many families now believe - as do virtually all leading colleges and universities - racial, ethnic, and income diversity enriches the classroom.

• In high poverty- schools, a child is surrounded by classmates who are more likely to act out, more likely to move during the school year, and less likely to have large vocabularies.

• The major problem with American schools is not teachers or their unions, but poverty and economic segregation.

Formal & Traditional vs Progressive Education

I teach in a psychiatric assessment unit in a hospital for children under the age of 18 who present with a wide range of complex psychiatric symptoms.

Some of these children are in mainstream schooling. Some are in special education.

Some are in mainstream looking to move to a special education placement. Some are in special education looking for a mainstream placement. Many just want to get out of the hospital so they can get back to their regularly scheduled lives.

Preconceived notions about what school should look like heavily influences what some believe children should be doing during school. These notions tend to frame school around a pedagogy of poverty where the children are marinated in non-reflective acquiescence. When school is seen as something done to children while they play a passive role, compliance and obedience become the gold-standard. If a child can sit quietly through a morning's worth of lecture followed up with an afternoon of filling in worksheets, then they are considered ready for school.

As a progressive educator, my challenge is to engage those who have never been invited to reconsider their assumptions about education. The truth is that many people are reassured by signs of formal-traditional school and are disturbed by their absence.

By the time students get to me in the hospital, they tend to have received more than their fair share of formal-traditional education. Despite their prevailing problems in and out of school, I find it sadly ironic that conventional wisdom tells us to simply double the dose of the formal and the traditional. But if this worked, many of these children wouldn't need to come to the hospital.

This is precisely why spending all of our time trying to get kids better acquainted with a kind of formal-traditional education that they already know all too well is at best unhelpful and at worst harmful.

Mara Sapon-Shevin writes in her book Widening the Circle: The Power of Inclusive Classrooms:

More restrictive placements do not prepare people for less restrictive placements. Students are unlikely to be able to work themselves down the continuum. Being in a segregated classroom almost always makes the transition to general classes less likely and more problematic. Though certain isolated skills can certainly be taught "away" from the setting in which they will ultimately be displayed, the nature of that isolation often makes it difficult to transfer those skills or to even envision what "typical" behavior looks like. We become so focused on teaching Kevin to sit at his seat and attend to the task in front of him in a segregated setting that we lose sight of what typical fifth graders are required to do in the regular classroom. Learning to swim in the bathtub doesn't ensure that you will be able to swim in the ocean. Particularly because many students with disabilities have trouble transferring skills, it is far more effective and efficient to teach the necessary skills in settings that are authentic and normative.

The elements of "mainstream" education should not be built on the ability to sit passively during a lecture in order to regurgitate prefabricated facts on a worksheet. In fact, elements of real learning are built on characteristics that make formal-traditional education almost unbearable.

Debra Stipek, dean of School Education at Stanford University puts it this way:

Drill-and-skill is not how middle class children got their edge, so why use a strategy to help poor kids catch up that didn't help middle class kids in the first place?

It's important to note that a pedagogy of poverty is not just for the economically disadvantaged; children who present a wide range of mental health problems and children in special education often get more than their fair share of sit and get, spew and forget.

The most important attitude that can be formed is that of a desire to go on learning. The best way to nurture and support those who are hardest to educate is to see their learning difficulties less as problems with the child and more as problems for the curriculum to solve.

I'll close by making my point this way: Look at that chart again. Which kind of education do you want for your son or daughter and which one is good enough for other people's kids?

Inclusion and Standardized Tests

Plans can be important... but it's important to ask who the plans are for.

Most school districts have education plans. So I want to know... who are these education plans for?

I am familiar with one school district's education plan where one of their goals is Inclusion of All Students. The priorities for this goal are two-fold:

• Each student is engaged in meaningful learning that is appropriate to his or her abilities and takes place in the most enabling environment.

• Each staff member has the ability to meet the diverse needs of all students.

Inclusion is an impressive goal, and one that I applaud. I honestly can find no fault with the two priorities above. This is all very impressive.

No matter how sweet your strategy smells, it's important to occasionally pause and check on the results. In other words, how will this district know if they've accomplished inclusions for all?

In the Outcomes section of this Education Plan it states that one of the measures will be participation rates in Provincial Achievement Tests. The idea here is that if more kids are included in the mainstream classes, rather than excluded, more kids will write Provincial Achievement Tests in grades 3, 6 and 9.

Let's consider how this Education Plan could play out:

Scenario 1:

A school district plans on inclusion for all students and measures their success by looking at the participation rates on the Provincial Achievement Tests. High-needs, reluctant learners are included in classrooms with their peers, and educators are provided the necessary supports. When the district looks at the participation rates on the Provincial Achievement Tests, they see lots of kids writing the test, so school board trustees, senior administrators and administrators can report MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. 

Scenario 2:

This scenario differs only in that the necessary supports are not provided for educators to successfully implement inclusion for all students. High-needs, reluctant learners are still included in classrooms with their peers, and the participation rates in Provincial Achievement Tests are still climbing, so it is again reported: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Can you see how using participation levels in a one-day standardized test at the end of the year can nullify an entire year's worth of work on behalf of the teacher and learning on behalf of the student? Regardless of the scenario -- whether educators are supported or not -- using participation levels on Provincial Achievement Tests will signal that inclusion was successful. Either way, the policy-makers, senior administrators and administers will say that they did their job and the plan was successful.

Are you as concerned as I am?

Let me explain.

One of the number one concerns raised with inclusion for all students is that inclusion can end up being code for integrating children, who need the most help, with their peers without providing educators the necessary supports to make it happen. In other words, inclusion can be used as nothing more than a smokescreen for policy-makers to show progress on paper while doing nothing productive in reality. In this context, inclusion becomes yet another victim to education jargon for consumption on the evening news.

When inclusion is a front for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons with little to no support, is it any surprise that educators become cynical and suspicious of inclusion?

Let me be clear, I am in favor of inclusion for all students. 

My objections for such an education plan has nothing to do with their goal -- rather, my contempt is reserved for how policy-makers and senior administrators continue to use standardized tests as an indicator for what goes on in the classroom. I find it grossly ironic that such education plans are sold as mechanisms for accountability. At the very least accountability should be about transparency -- that is people should be privy to the information they need to know what is happening in their schools, and yet as I've shown above, standardized test scores as an indicator for inclusion is nothing if not deceptive and opaque.

So who is this education plan and others like it for?

Based on what I've explained above, I defy anyone to look me in the eye and say that all this is for the kids... 

...the only people who prosper from an education plan that uses standardized test scores as an indicator for inclusion are those who wrote it.

Knowing the difference

This was written by Tom Altepeter who is a former elementary principal and present middle school assistant principal. He is passionate about intercultural responsiveness and social justice. you can find him on Twitter here and his blog here.

by Tom Altepeter

Disagreeing with someone doesn’t make you racist, and it doesn’t mean you’re practicing sectarianism, and it doesn’t mean that you’re a xenophobe. You may not agree with the same viewpoints as someone else, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with disagreeing. However, we need to know the difference.

Calling into question if a person belongs or doesn’t belong isn’t about disagreeing with them. I want people to truly understand this point. So, I’m going to say it again: Calling into question if a person belongs or doesn’t belong isn’t about disagreeing with them. We need to know the difference.

I’m going to use a most famous example since people will be most familiar with this. I realize it’s a risk because it also means there will potentially be a lot of heated feelings around the topic, therefore quite possibly clouding the ability to discern what’s being communicated. With that said, I believe enough has happened in recent times to put to rest any questions about the example I am using, except for those who are most sincerely on the furthest fringes of the spectrum. There are those who have strong feelings, and then there are those who are so removed from reality, no explanations will suffice. We need to know the difference.

Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States, isn’t everyone’s cup of sunshine. There are those who agree very much with his political bent, and there are those who disagree very much with his political bent. That disagreement is a healthy part of a democratic republic. The United States affords its citizens the ability and right to debate openly about politics. Disagreeing with the President is one of the luxuries we have in the country I live, but disagreeing with him isn’t the same thing as calling into question if he belongs or not. We need to know the difference.

His name alone makes some people cringe. It sounds so “foreign.” It sounds so “Muslim.” It sounds so “Islamic.” Then, throw in his skin color. We’re not used to having multiracial presidents. This also makes some people cringe. And, so, what happened next could most certainly have been predicted; however, it didn’t make it acceptable. We need to know the difference.

Now, I know, we all know, that our President is a Christian. What was debated for a long time by the mainstream populace was that he was a Muslim. Now, the fact that he may or may not have followed the Pillars of Islam wasn’t the issue. People can have curiosity about the faith of another person, especially their leader. The issue, rather, was that it was viewed as unacceptable that he was possibly a Muslim. So much time was spent attempting to prove he was a Christian that we got lost from what was the real concern: Why did it matter if he was a Muslim, and why did he have to go through such a process to prove he was a Christian? This isn’t about disagreeing with his political bent. It’s about questioning if he belonged. We need to know the difference.

Now, I know, we all know, that our President is a natural born U.S. citizen. What was debated for a long time by the mainstream populace was that he was not. Now, the fact that he may or may not have been a natural born citizen wasn’t the issue. People can have curiosity about the natural born citizenship of someone, especially their leader when their leader is required to be a natural born citizen. The issue, rather, was that this particular president, Barack Hussein Obama (the multiracial one with the “foreign” and “Muslim” and “Islamic” sounding name), was questioned. So much time was spent attempting to prove he was a natural born citizen that we got lost from what was the real concern: Why was he questioned (even though no other President had ever been questioned), and why did he have to go through such a process to prove he was a natural born citizen? This isn’t about disagreeing with his political bent. It’s about questioning if he belonged. We need to know the difference.

Intercultural responsiveness is a journey. We can choose to get defensive about this. We can choose to ignore this. Or, we can choose to grow and change because of this. We need to know the difference.

Limits of labels

Shouldn't all kids be considered gifted and talented?

If not, perhaps we are not looking hard enough... or perhaps we are looking too hard in one place.

In her book Widening the Circle, Mara Sapon-Shevin writes:

Inclusive classrooms teach us that we are all different and that we want to be talked about respectfully. The language we use - and the labels - are profoundly important in shaping our own understanding and others' perceptions. Calling me a "middle-aged, organizationally challenged woman" feels very different from calling me "a creative woman in her prime who grasps the big picture rather than being mired in petty details." Both descriptions are true, but which one would make you think "Gee, I'd like to hang out with that woman?" What we call people does matter, and inclusive settings help us to expand our vocabularies, widen our lens, and sharpen our kindness skills. 

Ultimately, labels fail because they encourage us to over simplify and categorize others in myopic terms. Nobody can be defined simply as caucasian, Jewish or autistic. Our needs can not be met nor can our identities be reduced to these one dimensional labels.

Because diversity and differences are the norm, perhaps we would all be better off if we stopped thinking about children as being "the same" or "different".

Perhaps it's time we move beyond the limitations of labels.

The fear of exclusion

When we confuse harder with better, we run the enormous risk of allowing a scarcity of success, via desperate competitiveness, to creep into the classroom.

When we brag about how many kids couldn't cut it in our class, or how quickly we can cull the heard, or efficiently separate the wheat from the chaff, we frame learning as an act of compliance.

When we take as much pride in the number of students who fail as we do with those who succeed, we invest in a learning environment built on exclusion.

When we define our own success as educators by wearing students' failures as a badge of honour, we teach powerful lessons to not only those who are excluded but to all of us who witness the exclusion. Under these threatening circumstances, we wonder and worry what it means for us and for own safety and desperate need to be included - we eagerly comply to be included out of a fear of being excluded.

Under these conditions, real learning doesn't stand a chance.

Education for all

Alfie Kohn writes in his article Debunking the Case for National Standards:

Are all kids entitled to a great education? Of course. But that doesn’t mean all kids should get the same education. High standards don’t require common standards. Uniformity is not the same thing as excellence – or equity. (In fact, one-size-fits-all demands may offer the illusion of fairness, setting back the cause of genuine equity.) To acknowledge these simple truths is to watch the rationale for national standards – or uniform state standards -- collapse into a heap of intellectual rubble.

Stanford University's Elliot Eisner adds:

The kind of schools we need would not hold as an ideal that all students get to the same destinations at the same time. They would embrace the idea that good schools increase the variance in student performance and at the same time escalate the mean.

In The Myth of Standardized Tests, the authors paraphrase Eisner:

That's a professional way of saying that we ought to  become more different, rather than more alike, as we grow to physical and intellectual maturity. More different, yet we all grow.

Mara Sapon-Shevin, the author of Widening the Circle, adds:

What we teach people about human variation as children will have a profound effect on their understanding of difference in the future and their abilities to connect and relate to people who are different from them.

Mara Sapon-Shevin goes on to say what I believe is to be the whole point of this post:

It seems obvious to say that we can understand and value differences only if we are surrounded by them.