Kate's story

How teacher beliefs about inclusion translate into inclusive classroom practice in Year 10

This story contains thoughts from the teacher (via video clips and teacher notes) about why inclusive practice is important and how it can work in a high school classroom setting.

Kate is an English / SOSE / Drama teacher at a moderately sized high school. She is a passionate advocate for inclusion . She writes:

‘I don’t think about (student’s name) and (another student’s name) as “different” or separate entities from the rest of the class. Sure, I know they have disabilities, but I see them for their abilities and expect everyone else to do the same. There are very few of us who have the luxury of being able to say “I’m pretty good at everything”. I can’t play sport. I’ve never enjoyed it and I’m not particularly good in that area. There are lots of other things I can’t do. It’s those things who make me who I am and I would not find it acceptable for anyone to focus on my lack of ability in that area than the abilities I have in other areas. So why would I treat any of my students that way? It’s simply unacceptable. … I hated high school….There were students with disabilities at my school and they were subject to a lot of bullying and it always made me sick ….’

Kate used the opportunity of the Inclusive Curriculum Project to explore how she might go about developing a learning sequence for her Year 10 English class – a learning sequence that could be differentiated to meet the learning needs of all her students. In this way, she hoped her two students with severe intellectual disabilities could truly share in the learning of their peers.

Kate’s English class is a very cohesive and supportive group. They have been together since Grade 7 and, with the benefit of modelling by Kate and other teachers, treat the students with disabilities as regular classmates . Kate has high expectations for all of her students. She expects them to work cooperatively and in her English class there are many times when the tasks are differentiated. A teacher’s aide is often on hand to assist when needed, and at the times when she is not in the room, Kate works with her students with disabilities herself or utilises peer support for them. Members of the class help each other with their learning and delight in each other’s successes. Kate firmly believes that all the students have benefited from their experiences as part of this inclusive group.

Earlier in the year, Kate had started to explore the differentiation of her curriculum. The big idea she was exploring with her class was prejudice. Most of her students were using To Kill a Mockingbird as the central text for this. Kate found a picture book on a similar theme – Tusk, tusk which became the main text for the work of her students with disabilities. All students worked in the classroom on their parallel tasks and at times there were activities in which all were involved. Kate found the following activity (described on the video clip) as a particularly powerful one, especially for the students with disabilities. She had already found that using role play was an effective strategy for communicating ideas to these students so it was no surprise to her when Jane Elliot’s Blue, Brown eyes strategy, which she used with the whole class, made a strong impact on these two students.

When thinking about developing a learning sequence about Australian identity, Kate initially began developing two different learning sequences – one for most of her class and a parallel one for her students with severe disabilities. Recognising the impracticality and non-inclusiveness of this approach, she discontinued it and began looking at other ways of differentiating the learning. She explored other learning sequences on the LTAG and used some of the ideas from the snapshot What Makes Australians Laugh? By changing the focus Essential to one of Social responsibility she adapted the snapshot to develop her own learning sequence about the Australian Identity –What Makes a Real Aussie?

Kate settled upon the following strategies for building inclusivity into the learning sequence:

selecting widely accessible visual texts as the literary basis (suggestions for the central text actually came from another class of Year 10s)
incorporating a large component of cooperative group work and discussion
including an option for oral presentations of the culminating performance of understanding
working in collaboration with the Northern Project Leader, Kate developed a booklet with some alternative activities pages (sample pages can be found in the learning sequence) for her students with disabilities. The pages included activities at a simpler conceptual level and focused on personal experience and that of friends to help the students develop their understanding
identifying some understanding goals, tasks and assessments which pertained specifically to the two students with disabilities when writing up her sequence (the differentiated understanding goals are identified in red in the learning sequence text).

Learning Sequence – ‘What is a real Aussie?' [Word 898KB]

Student Achievement – Standard 2 to standard 5

Kate was pleased with the breadth of evidence of student achievement that she was able to collect as a result of implementing her learning sequence. She invited students to choose from a wide range of options for their culminating performance of understanding. This enabled students to demonstrate achievement at a range of levels across some different key elements.

For example, one student’s culminating performance of understanding [Word 78KB]was submitted for collaborative assessment at a school wide QMap day. This group of teachers found most of the evidence of achievement to be at Upper Standard 5 for Being Literate. There is also evidence of achievement at standard 4 Valuing diversity

On the other hand, Kate’s particular focus for her students with disabilities was to assess the literacy skills they displayed by being able to participate as interviewer and respondee in the interview situation. She also looked at what they had learnt about being Australian as it related to their personal situations.
Standard 2 Valuing diversity .

The interviews were completed with peers from the class and filmed by them. You are invited to look at the edited clips (Clip1 and Clip2 ) for evidence of the focus student’s achievements in Being Literate (Standard 2), but also to gain a sense of how his classmates (the student on camera and those behind) obviously value and respect the contribution he makes to their group.

Kate was pleased that she had been able to differentiate the curriculum so that all her students could learn together and individually progress through the experience. The supportive and genuinely friendly actions and reactions of the peers indicate the enabling environment in which the learning occurs.

Kate recalls an incident that indicated how much one of these students, who had been shunned by his peers at primary school, had become a valued member of his high school group. The incident describes the reaction he received from his peers after swimming a lap in the school swimming carnival .

Some more insights from Kate in conclusion:

‘As teachers we have so much to learn from all of our students and students with disabilities are no different. When I taught (student’s name) for Drama his miming skills surpassed those of most of the students in the class. I remember when he got up and performed in a piece of melodrama and remembered his line without any prompting. He had a lot to teach his peers and to teach me and so does (another student’s name). Anyone who doubts that is just selling these students short.

We impact on the lives of our students everyday. We may be the only people who have something nice to say to them or who make them feel safe. We have a huge amount of power to make or ruin their day. Many of them will measure their self worth by the way we make them feel. We have a duty to care and provide for all of our students without exception. It isn't rocket science. It's basic decency. That's what inclusion means to me.’

References

Lee, H. (1973) To Kill a Mockingbird Pan, United Kingdom.

McKee,D. (1987) Tusk,tusk

Murdoch, K. (1998) Classroom connections: Strategies for integrated learning.
Eleanor Curtain, Melbourne.

Stich R. (director) (1997) The Castle (film). Miramax Film Corporation, USA.

Jane Elliot and the brown eyes, blue eyes exercise
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1132480 (accessed 15 June 2006

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