Inclusive Education

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Inclusive Education

• Dr Julie White

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As a teacher.

• What do you expect you
• might you have to deal
• with?

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Overview

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

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Deficits

• Is the cup HALF FULL or HALF EMPTY?

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GLEE CLUB

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

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Deficits

• Visibility
• Support
• Enabling practices

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Visible
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Invisible

• Diabetes
• ADHD
• Epilepsy
• Chrons Disease
• Cystic Fibrosis
• Depression

• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Cancer
• Haemophilia
• Lupus
• Eating disorder
• Asthma

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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
  persons body and features of the society in
  which he or she lives.
• http//www.who.int/topics/disabilities/en/

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What difference does language make?

• Cripple
• Spastic
• Retarded
• Mongoloid
• Lunatic

• Apartheid
• Nazis
• Stereotyping
• Labelling
• Rights

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What inclusive practices might you use?

• Speak with parents
• Encourage and welcome
• Be sensitive in your planning so that you include
  rather than exclude
• Dont 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

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What can this child do?
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How can I help this child to belong?Pictures of
three children shown
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How can I help this child to learn and to achieve
their full potential?
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Potential

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

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Myth No. 1

• Probably the most widely-held myth about
  teaching students with a disability is the belief
  that a detailed knowledge of the childs
  disability is needed before a teaching programme
  can be commenced. Teachers often say But I know
  nothing about Down syndrome or I havent
  studied cerebral palsy-how could I teach that
  child?
• Foreman, P. (Ed) (2001) Integration and
  Inclusion in Action (2nd ed.) Southbank, Nelson,
  p. 25.

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Education Institute

• Royal Childrens Hospital, Melbourne
• Phone [phone]
• Website
• http//www.rch.org.au/edinst/index.cfm?doc_id103
  85

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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.

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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)

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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)

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See Alexander Ch 8

• How the education system exacerbates inequalities
• Ethnicity
• Diversity
• Difference

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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

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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/

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3 useful websites

• http//www.chronicillness.org.au/invisible/
• http//www.education.vic.gov.au/healthwellbeing/we
  llbeing/disability/default.htm
• http//www.primaryreview.org.uk/

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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 youre an education
  student