Sparks Notes

Integration

A review of surveys on teachers’ work lives over the past 15 years reveal that most BC teachers support inclusion. In a recent study Charlie Naylor (2002) reported that 43% of B.C. teachers in two school districts, felt:

1. unprepared to teach the diverse range of students in their classrooms

2. concerned with the difficulty of daily implementation of integration

3. frustrated by the lack of awareness by the powers that be, of practical teaching issues

I reckon that in 2008 three-quarters of the teachers in B.C. feel unprepared, concerned and frustrated trying to integrate diverse students into their mainstream classrooms. And that figure may well be too low.

Teachers believe in inclusion, but inclusion is not mandated in BC schools. “Integration” is mandated in BC schools. In order to integrate diverse students into mainstream classrooms, teachers are required to adapt and modify the standard curriculum for individual students with different backgrounds, different languages, difference cultures, different interests, different processing styles, different abilities, and different disabilities in widely varied learning contexts. There is no expectation that the Procrustean mainstream curriculum will change. Integration is presented as a “strategy to achieve inclusion” but teachers tell us that integration makes no practical sense. Integrative education also makes no conceptual sense.

We cannot make a word mean what we want it to mean. Each word has a history and when we use a word, we call up the cultural-historic tradition associated with the use of that word. Historically, children who “differ” from what is considered “normal” have not been included in mainstream schools. They have been excluded and segregated. The Special Education system developed to teach those students.“Integration” is the step that follows desegregation–moving a child out of a segregated setting and into the mainstream. But the mainstream with its standard curriculum and lock-step grade progression is not designed for diversity. Integrating a student with “disabilities” involves efforts to attach or push a student into that Procrustean setting. Based on a student’s differences, an Individual Education Plan, is created to record different goals, objectives, methods, materials, and evaluations. There is no expectation that the mainstream curriculum will change in response to the child’s presence. Integration is moreover, conditional and can be withdrawn if the child with the disability inters with learning (his/her own or others). A child with a “disability” is not “at home” in the mainstream. The child doesn’t “belong” there. They are not included–they are invited in and can be sent away if it doesn’t suit. No amount of incremental changes and efforts to join the parallel systems of mainstream and special education can result in an inclusive education.

Inclusion

Instead of searching for individual differences, inclusion seeks the common ground. When we lose sight of what we hold in common as human beings, we lose our commonsense. Inclusive education is a human rights issues based on “one right for all.”

Our task is to provide an education for the kind of kids we have, not the kind of kids we used to have, or want to have, or the kid who exists in our dreams. (Author unknown)

It is not enough to tolerate or accept diversity. Instead, we must embrace and celebrate it. Diversity is the human condition. Parents and teachers know that no two children (even identical twins) are the same and learn the same. We need to begin with the understanding that our classrooms will be filled with unique individuals, and then provide curriculum that is inherently flexible enough so ALL our students can learn. Take life as it comes and make the most of that gift.

Universal, or Inclusive, Design for Learning, UDL

UDL creates the conditions for inclusive education. www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/

The central practical premise of UDL is that a curriculum should include alternatives to make it accessible and appropriate for individuals with different backgrounds, learning styles, abilities, and disabilities in widely varied learning contexts. The ‘universal’ in universal design does not imply one optimal solution for everyone. Rather, it reflects an awareness of the unique nature of each learner and the need to accommodate differences, creating learning experiences that suit the learner and maximize his or her ability to progress.” (www.cast.org)

The purpose of UDL is to remove obstacles to learning. This goal is accomplished by implementing three design principles:

1. provide multiple, flexible representations of knowledge
2. provide multiple, flexible means of student engagement
3. provide multiple, flexible ways to assess progress

To accommodate a broad spectrum of learners inclusive, or universally, designed curricula require a range of options for accessing, using, and engaging with learning materials. The materials themselves, as well as the teaching approaches, need to be sufficiently flexible to support varied pathways towards common learning goals.Instead of trying to force-fit students into the mold of an inflexible, print-dominated mainstream curriculum, UDL provides a practical way to begin with flexible materials that enable most students to succeed. Now, unlike any other time in history, we have innately flexible digital resources . We have an opportunity at the beginning of the 21^st Century to engage in 21^st Century teaching.!