Videos and Reflection Questions

Chapter 1

Inclusive Learning: Everybody’s In

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTXtT05782Y
This video uses footage from eight Edmonton schools to demonstrate effective inclusion practices. Administrators and teachers provide useful commentary about their beliefs and experiences throughout.

Reflection Questions

  • Think about your own educational experience or that of your own children. How were children with special needs treated and educated in your pre-school and/or elementary school? What did the school’s special education practices communicate to students about beliefs around disability?
  • As a future educator, what are your beliefs around educating children in inclusive spaces? Do you have any beliefs or attitudes about disability that you will need to adjust to be a successful inclusion teacher?
  • What resources and supports will you need as a new teacher to be a successful inclusion teacher?
  • The video opens with a principal talking about exclusion: (1) intentionally by design, and (2) unintentionally. Where have you seen or experienced unintentional exclusion?
  • At around 6:20 in the video, an educator talks about a strategy of using their existing resources – people and time – to work with a small group twice a day while the rest of the children go to “intervention time.” What are the potential pitfalls or challenges of this strategy? What are the opportunities? Do you think inclusion should be full-time or is it useful to have periods where children are separated?
  • At around the 7:10 mark in the video, the assistant principal mentions teachers observing each other’s classrooms to see where students are coming from and where they are going. Another educator says “collaboration [between teachers] is king.” What do you think about this strategy?
  • Discuss the following comments, relating them to your own experiences, ideas, and beliefs:
  • At the 9:23 mark, a teacher says, “Inclusion is not just breathing the same air as another student; you have to have the supports in place. If they’re being successful in an inclusive setting then it’s the right place for them to be.”
  • Around the 9:59 mark, an educator says “That sense of growing up in a community, and that everybody has some value and role to play, I think is absolutely critical. And if that doesn’t happen in the classroom, then I don’t know where else it will happen. As we learn that practice, our beliefs will change over time, and we need to learn how to do that practice and craft of teaching in this context well and when we do that then we’re able to have an impact with kids and change attitudes over time.”

Celebrating 35 years of IDEA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUn6luZQaXE
This video, produced by the US Department of Education, succinctly tells the story of disability laws that dictate education policy in the United States.

Reflection Questions

    • If you had to choose the most important disability education law, which one do you think it would be?
    • If you were to introduce legislation to further enhance education for students with special needs, what would you propose be added or changed?

 

Isn’t It a Pity? The Real Problem with Special Needs

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ7QaCFbizo
Torrie Dunlap discusses the issues with segregated services and community settings for kids with special needs and offers suggestions for changing the ways in we think about disability.

Reflection Questions

  • Have you ever had a bleachers moment? What happened and how did it impact your thinking about disability?
  • Think about activities in your community or classroom – story times, playgroups, etc. Are they truly inclusive? What resources would the organizers need to make them truly inclusive?

 

Special Education Acronyms

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ZO7dVWyKk
Overwhelmed by all the acronyms in special education? Here’s a song, set to the tune of The End of the World as We Know It to help you remember what they all mean.

Reflection Questions

  • Does jargon make it easier to communicate? Why or why (not)?