Notes compiled by Barbara O’Grady from the speech given by Norman Kunc at Bishop England High School March 27.

Inclusive Education – Rediscovering our need to belong.

In general, the public believes in inclusion. IE, a high school student who happens to be in an auto accident with permanent physical or mental damage is welcomed back with open arms by students/teachers/school administrators.

So the actual debate is the line between includable children and non-includable children. Sometimes this line is based upon the differences among schools abilities to handle diversity.

Inclusive education is an environment in which the person is valued and they feel they belong, whether it is the student and how he/she performs, or the teacher in how they teach or the principal of the school.

• Do you believe in inclusive education?
• Are your practices and policies contributing to inclusive education or eroding inclusive education?

Case in point – Musical Chairs

A game that starts with 7 kids, 7 chairs – remove a chair and then laugh at them scurry to find a chair at the music’s end. One child without a chair is banished from the game. Sometimes this child cries, and we minimize his/her feelings by saying it’s just a game, don’t be a sore loser and big a good sport. And then the last person with a chair at the end of the game has this sense of being better than the other 6 children.

The better approach – using ideas from Terry Orlick’s book The Cooperative Sports and Games Book: Start with 7 kids, 7 chairs – remove a chair, forcing 2 to have to share a chair however they have to, to both be sitting in chair. Keep removing chairs until down to 1, and then all 7 kids have to be sitting in that chair somehow. Kunc stated that this really promotes sense of teamwork and problem solving, especially if one participant happens to be physically or mentally disabled.

The difference between mainstreaming and inclusion: Mainstreaming is trying to get the disabled kid into the competitive version of Musical Chairs. Inclusion is changing the rules of the game so that all kids can belong.

Kunc spoke a great deal about Abraham Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid of as detailed at http://www.normemma.com/armaslow.htm. He mentioned that Self-Esteem is dependent on a sense of belonging where we are valued and wanted. He pointed out as an example, the event of a barn raising as done in an Amish community – That everyone, young and old, male or female, etc does what they can do to help. Everyone belongs to the event! Consequently, feelings of “This community needs you!”, “Your contribution is important”, and “You belong” results.

All through life, we are always looking for acceptance and worry about what others may think of us. We feel pressured to maintain a perfect state. When society loses rituals, some people join up with groups that have a common bond to share a hatred or dislike of another group of people. IE GANGS, or even an allegiance to a sporting team. This common bond, however, does not replace the feeling of belonging. It seems more and more that the only time we feel we belong is with a common enemy. Somehow this builds a sense of cohesiveness, pride, and identity.

WHY?

HOW DO YOU BUILD PRIDE WITHOUT THE USE OF A COMMON ENEMY?

That’s for us to ponder . . . Not for an answer to be dictated to us. But we do need to ask the question.

Homework assignment: Write/type the following into our daily calendar:

1. How does belonging get eroded (at my school)?
2. What can I do to repair this?

You will notice that you will become more observant and more aware of erosion and their repercussions.

Ideas on Inclusion:

Life Skills:

One would think that in a self-contained class, that skills would be taught to prepare disabled students for community. NO!

Despite the hard work and nurturing, there is not a whole lot of learning going on. There is little motivation to learn. There are not pass/fail targets within these classes. Mr. Kunc cited several examples of how students who were not thriving with toilet training, talking, etc within self contained classes, started blossoming within a regular school when inclusive education was initiated.

Mr. Kunc feels that students are segregated not because it’s the best for the student, but because it’s administratively convenient. Self Contained classes are not serving needs of disabled children.

How are we going to educate disabled children when there are social biases about capabilities of disabled children and about whether they are worth the effort of education?

No matter how great a swim instructor is, they can’t teach a child to swim in the parking lot at the pool. We are removing these kids from life skills of their communities.

So instead of schools giving disabled students the skills to prepare them from their communities, schools should be giving students their communities to prepare their skills. You cannot replicate opportunities in regular school while in segregated schools.

Mr. Kunc cited a passage from Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man. The passage he quoted spoke to the fact that the use of testing IQ records little more than social prejudices.

Mr. Kunc cited that most schools are concerned that inclusion undermines standards and scoring on mandated external testing of students. He cited one school that adopted inclusion for two years, with its continuation based upon scores remaining level. Such scores improved greatly. The principal felt that teachers were being creative in using a variety of teaching methods, tools, available resources, etc for the disabled student. Such efforts reached not only disable students at a wider range, but also all students benefited from these efforts.

Mr. Kunc ended the night with a story of an event that happened when he went to World Congress Down Syndrome in Atlanta this past year. He was staying at a hotel in Atlanta (he might have said the CNN OMNI). He went to get dinner, and everything was closed except a posh Italian restaurant. He went, and the host took great lengths to sit him, place his napkin, made his recommendations for food, bread, wine, etc. He went back to his post, and proceeds to sit a family who had a 6 year old child (with DS), and the child proceeded to grab flowers out of vases on the way to the table. The host collected the flowers and put them back, and suggested to the family that they try the veal. He went back to seat the next family, who had a 10 year old child (with DS), and that child decided that he loved the host and was hugging the host, while the first child was snatching flowers again. He recommend for them to have whatever they wanted to eat. He went back and more and more families were showing up. Mr. Kunc noticed a change in the host.

The host gave up his posh ways, and put on his Italian Grandfather hat. He proceeded to have fun with all of these families and played with all of the kids, and everyone had a blast!

The host prior to the children showing up was under a lot a pressure to be perfect and predictable. And then when Down syndrome showed up, chaos occurred. Life is supposed to be messy and ambiguous. If we can trust messy and ambiguous, we will have great magical moments of life and humanity. Please rediscover the Italian Grandfather within you.

Resources

Video shown at Kunc's seminar on March 27, 2007 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wunHDfZFxXw

Norman Kunc's website -- http://www.normemma.com/

His scientific discussion of what he discussed March 27, 2007:

http://www.normemma.com/arrlstc.htm

http://www.normemma.com/armaslow.htm

http://www.normemma.com/arhellbe.htm

About Norman Kunc -- http://www.normemma.com/nkevbio.htm