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.

Widening the Circle: the power of inclusive classrooms

Widening the Circle: the power of inclusive classrooms by Mara Sapon-Shevin is a book that parents and educators should take the time and effort to read. For me, it is quite frankly the most powerful book I've read about inclusion.

From the back of book:

Widening the Circle is a passionate call to change the way we organize our classrooms, talk about differences, and teach. Through engaging storytelling and thoughtful argument, it lays out the moral and educational case for creating classrooms in which all students - including those traditionally segregated into special education classes - are full and valued members.
Taking on common objections to full inclusion and placing the issue in the context of our deepest goals as a society, Sapon-Shevin shows how inclusive schooling - which she defines more broadly than as a simple disability issue - teaches children to connect deeply with others and see themselves as powerful agents of change. She demonstrates how inclusiveness enhances the educations and lives of all children in myriad ways.

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.