Hi, I’m Rée.
Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed. As a student with undiagnosed neurodivergence, learning disabilities, and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned.
In the decades following, I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies. I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy.
Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea, who like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me.
homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale. To speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems to rethink what schools can be. What it should be, when we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources.
In this episode, I speak with Tim—an educator, podcaster, and the Director of Communications for the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. We talk about his journey from considering a career in family counseling to becoming a special education teacher working with families and then schools for 16 years. We also discuss the shift in his educational philosophy about teaching students with disabilities, and why inclusion is always the answer.
Here is our slightly edited conversation.
Computer-generated Transcript:
Accessibility Disclaimer: Below is a computer generated transcript of our conversation. Please note that there are likely very many errors––including the spelling of our names––and may not make sense, especially when taken out of context.
00:00:03:06 – 00:00:28:04 Unknown Hi, I’m Ray. Growing up, I felt like the education system wasn’t built for people like me to succeed as a student with undiagnosed neurodivergent learning disabilities and anxiety, I struggled to learn in the ways my peers learned. In the decades following. I became an educator and taught in various classrooms around the world. I taught in public schools, private universities, large government funded programs, and even small academies.
00:00:28:06 – 00:01:02:04 Unknown I designed curriculum, measured student success, and even assessed teacher efficacy. Then, while teaching a group of English language learners in South Korea who, like me, hadn’t received adequate attention in school, I realized I was using the same methodologies as the ones that had failed me. Homeroom is my attempt to remedy this on an international scale to speak with as many people from around the world about their own education systems to rethink what schools can be, what it should be.
00:01:02:09 – 00:01:34:12 Unknown When we design systems and metrics which are inclusive of more diverse types of learners and thinkers with varying levels of family involvement and access to resources. In this episode, I speak with Tim, an educator podcaster and the director of communications for the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. We talk about his journey from considering a career in family counseling to becoming a special education teacher, working with families and then schools for 16 years.
00:01:34:14 – 00:01:51:17 Unknown We also discussed the shift in his educational philosophy about teaching students with disabilities and why inclusion is always the answer. Here is our edited conversation.
00:01:51:19 – 00:02:36:16 Unknown I was a very determined student. I went to private school, so from preschool to 12th grade, I was in some sort of private Christian academy school. I grew up in Arcadia, California, which is a suburb of Los Angeles, close to Pasadena, which is eventually where I landed. And my I’ve asked my parents this like, Well, why did you send me to private school?
00:02:36:18 – 00:03:13:17 Unknown And I think it was mainly because they we were a very religious family, you know, steeped in in the Christian tradition. And I think that they were concerned about the influence of public school, although they they wouldn’t really say this now. I think that I think their perspective has changed along with mine. But but it is what it is.
00:03:13:19 – 00:03:53:19 Unknown And that that is my experience. And so from early on, because I had this experience of being in private education and it was instilled in me that this is your unique set apart special and that you should not take this for granted, this kind of education, because not everyone gets the opportunity to do what you’re doing. And so I don’t know if it was really that influence or it was the influence of my parents or it was an aid.
00:03:53:21 – 00:04:28:16 Unknown But I took education pretty seriously and I also really enjoyed being a student. I still enjoy being a student. So my studies I took you know, I just I was very concerned. I wasn’t like overly concerned about necessarily grades, but getting everything done. And then doing a good job. Like, I had kind of this work ethic that I wanted to I wanted to maintain.
00:04:28:18 – 00:05:24:07 Unknown So a school always came pretty easy for me there. I’m not exactly sure if it was struggle, but there were like the math and like math wasn’t a strength of mine. Language, arts, science and social studies. Those were those were strengths of mine and my my dad actually was in went into computer science and is doing is still doing working in the field and that actually was really foreign.
00:05:24:12 – 00:05:46:12 Unknown Like it just I didn’t get it I didn’t get what he was doing. I still don’t get what he’s doing. Like if I was just talking with them the other day and he’s like, I was explaining like, I do not know how to explain your job to people. It’s like cybersecurity. Okay. Yes, but I had like, apart from that, that’s it.
00:05:46:12 – 00:06:17:16 Unknown And then, I don’t know, they keep computers safe. I don’t know. But, you know, he would always he would he like he had this insatiable. He still does insatiable like curiosity, which I think is I definitely got from him. But it would be like programing languages and like all this technical stuff. And it just completely has gone over my head.
00:06:17:16 – 00:06:54:10 Unknown But for me, my kind of special interests were, you know, science actually, You know, I did go to a Christian school. So reading the Bible, right. And like theology, philosophy, and then later on education psychology, because that’s that’s where that’s what my training was in college. So if there was a struggle, it was it was math and numbers.
00:06:54:10 – 00:07:14:12 Unknown And the more technical aspects of of that. And no, I, I mean, I don’t think I really struggled in school. Yeah, it was I’m very fortunate in that respect.
00:07:14:14 – 00:07:42:12 Unknown It was more I just really enjoyed the process of learning and I really enjoyed school. It might be the reason why I went into teaching, although I didn’t actually want to be a teacher, I wanted to be a therapist. that’s interesting. so that’s why you pursued, like, educational psychology? Well, I was actually wanted to ask you about that.
00:07:42:14 – 00:08:18:02 Unknown Like you just said, that’s probably why you went into teaching. But I’m curious if there was if it really was like that overall experience of enjoying learning in school and, you know, succeeding, being successful in that area, or if there were, you know, models like teachers or certain opportunity fees or those kinds of things that made you want to go into education.
00:08:18:04 – 00:08:23:19 Unknown I’m curious, like, what was the catalyst?
00:08:23:21 – 00:08:57:19 Unknown Well, although I really enjoyed school, I had no intention of of becoming an educator in a professional way at all. I, I got my degree in psychology and my intention was to become like a family counselor. And part of the reason why is because my my home life, my my parents did not have a great relationship. And I saw that play out.
00:08:57:19 – 00:09:24:04 Unknown I also have a sister. She’s 13 years younger than I am. And when I was college age, that’s when things started to really fall apart. And actually I knew by my senior year of high school that I wanted to be a psychology major. I was so excited about about going that route. I had I had started I had started reading like Carl Young and Abraham Maslow.
00:09:24:06 – 00:09:52:15 Unknown Maslow really early on and humanistic psychology was something that I really gravitated towards. And so I just was so excited to learn that and go down that path and and so as I was learning and growing, you know, I was looking at like, okay, where am I going to go to Master’s and where am I going to get my master’s?
00:09:52:17 – 00:10:46:11 Unknown Do I continue on with my college? And then because of my family situation and my parents getting divorced and the lack of funding and emotional support at the time, I was like, well, my long term plan of becoming a psychologist, like becoming a counselor, I think I may have to, like, hit pause on that. You know, I had to drop out of college for a minute and and then when I went back, I just I didn’t have I just didn’t have the momentum to continue to go look for a school, a psychology program for for a master’s degree.
00:10:46:13 – 00:11:18:03 Unknown So I’m like, I just need I need a job. I need a job right now. And I got a job as a behavior therapist for young children on the autism spectrum. And again, like this is in the this is in the tooth. Early 2000s. I had zero understanding of autism and it was like, we’re going to hire you and we’re going to teach you all about autism and teach of this thing called discrete trial.
00:11:18:05 – 00:11:47:02 Unknown And to teach you behavior is principles, and you’ll be able to you work with young children in their homes and provide therapy. I’m like, That sounds awesome because it’s a job and it wasn’t until, you know, it was probably a couple of years like I think I had that job for two years, but I learned really quick and I also learned that I really liked this job.
00:11:47:04 – 00:12:21:08 Unknown I loved working with the families. I loved working with the kids. And I could see progress. You know, students or children were, you know, just growing in communication in, you know, how they interacted with the world. It was a really positive experience. And so I’m like, hey, I think I’m I think I’m good at this. And my supervisor at the time was like, yeah, you’re you’re good at this.
00:12:21:08 – 00:12:49:18 Unknown And I think that they wanted me to continue on with the organization, but I was like, I think I want to be a teacher because part of the job was going into public schools and providing one on one support, you know, for very young children so that either preschool or in the early grades, early elementary. And I looked at the schools and I’m like, I could do this.
00:12:49:19 – 00:13:20:16 Unknown I think I could do this. And so I decided to go back to school and get my teaching credential. Yeah, I’m skipping that part where I try to be a musician, but that’s so that’s that’s another story. Okay? That’s with with the different insights. But I think the where I came back to was I, I’m like, this is something I’m good at.
00:13:20:17 – 00:13:45:02 Unknown I’m, I really enjoy this field. There’s so much to learn. I’m going to go down this road. And that’s when I, I went, I went and got my teaching credential. So you grew up in California. I’m also from California. I was born and raised in Los Angeles. And so when you said Arcadia, I was like, I totally know where that is.
00:13:45:02 – 00:14:11:20 Unknown Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s crazy. And I thought you were in Baltimore, which is I was there for a couple of years doing my masters, so that’s where I thought you were. But then I’m like, wait, no, you’re in Atlanta. No, I’m in Atlanta. We moved and we moved to Atlanta in 2008. I grew up in Southern California and yeah, I spent the first 30 years of my life there.
00:14:11:22 – 00:14:54:11 Unknown Yeah. So what brought you to Atlanta? Because it’s totally different. It atmosphere like politically temperature, just cultures like why Atlanta? It was it was really my my wife’s mom who who drew us out here. But it’s it’s not it’s not as it sounds like we were looking for it. It really wasn’t like that. Yeah. My wife always says that it was really.
00:14:54:11 – 00:15:17:13 Unknown It’s really my fault. It’s. It’s not like. It’s not like fault. It’s not like a bad thing. Right, right, right. But I had no desire, just kind of like teaching. I had no desire to visit Georgia. There was no reason for me to visit Georgia. You know, I had a lot of preconceived notions about what Georgia was is.
00:15:17:13 – 00:15:46:18 Unknown And look like and the people that lived in Georgia. So and also, I mean, I think you can understand this as from one native or one one California, you know, kid to another, there is like California supremacy on your mind. Yes. Okay. Like growing up, you thought like, okay, L.A. is the best place to be. We’ve got the Lakers, the Dodgers, the beach, the mountains.
00:15:46:19 – 00:16:20:04 Unknown Wonderful for weather. Who wouldn’t want to live in Los Angeles? You know, why would I ever leave all this stuff? You know, So like any other place in the country or the world was not as good as Los Angeles. So this is like what I grew up thinking. And so anyways, I mean, I’ve traveled enough to know that it’s not the best place in the world, But but I was I also did not realize is how great Georgia is.
00:16:20:04 – 00:16:48:12 Unknown And I, I love living here. So we so we visited my mother in law and and the family a couple of different times. And the second time was during like late spring early summer and I might have been summer, I don’t know. But I was like, this is so green, beautiful. There’s tons of things to do for the family.
00:16:48:12 – 00:17:23:10 Unknown And at the time we had, I think, a one year old and we could find affordable housing, we could find jobs, and me being a teacher and my wife being an R.N. and, and we’d have family here and it’s like, okay, let’s just step back and think about this, like, logically here. Yeah. And we when we went back, we just started going, like, what if what if we moved to Georgia?
00:17:23:10 – 00:17:51:11 Unknown Like, let’s just think about that. And we just couldn’t stop thinking about it and, and, you know, all the reasons like, well, why would you leave your family and stuff like that? It’s like, you know, that’s a loaded question because you know it. We were trying to make it right. We were trying to make it on our own.
00:17:51:12 – 00:18:13:22 Unknown And of course, we had family and friends, but we also were like thinking long term and going, I just don’t know where we could land that sustainable Pasadena’s is way too expensive. There’s no way we could buy a house and a teacher and nurses salary. No way we’d have to move out to the desert. I do not want to live in the desert, you know.
00:18:13:22 – 00:18:44:09 Unknown Neither of us did. And so it’s like, Well, that’s not an option. So do we just, you know, rent forever? Like, that’s not great either. So Georgia seemed like a a an exit strategy, and it was a big one and with lots of big risks. But it was potentially like really a big reward. And so and so we just did it.
00:18:44:11 – 00:19:17:03 Unknown You know, in 2008, we moved drove across the country, bought a house, you know, we got we got jobs fairly quickly. I started working in a self-contained special education classroom, which is I mean, I taught I taught in in special education, in special education classrooms in Pasadena. But in I got my job fairly quickly. And then, you know, we’ve been here for 15 years was 15 years last July.
00:19:17:08 – 00:19:44:06 Unknown So it’ll be 16 regulations. Yeah, and it is the best decision. And Georgia has been so wonderful to us, in the state has really changed over the last 15 years. So in a positive way, in my opinion, That’s awesome. I mean, it’s, it’s great when you feel like you’re supported in, you know, where you’re living. That’s really huge.
00:19:44:06 – 00:20:13:06 Unknown It takes a lot of stress off your plate. And so I kind of want to go back a little bit to, you know, your first job sort of, I guess I think I read that your first job was teaching a special education Day course. And I think that’s what you mean or special day class. Yeah, Yeah. Special day class.
00:20:13:06 – 00:21:04:12 Unknown Right. And I think that you were teaching students on the autism spectrum. And I think I also read that they were segregated from the rest of the students right? Yeah. And so, yeah. And so I kind of wanted to ask about your journey of I think you mentioned that you thought that that was the best for students and then you kind of changed your mind over your career and eventually talk a little bit about why inclusion became such a big part of what you do and your philosophy.
00:21:04:14 – 00:21:54:00 Unknown And so I guess I would really like to start, you know, so at the at the special day class, how what was that experience like? The and what did a typical day look like? I guess. Well, typical day. I’ll I’ll start by I’ll start by telling you about my first day because it’s so memorable. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I, I went into education, I went into public school thinking, yeah, there’s got to be like this special place for kids, you know, with autism, especially.
00:21:54:02 – 00:22:35:17 Unknown Especially kids with, like, more significant, you know, and more extensive support needs. So the students in my particular classroom were non-speaking or minimally speaking. Some some had assistive technology, but almost all of them had challenging behavior for various reasons, sensory, you know, lack of communication system. And so I did not meet any of my students until the first day of school.
00:22:35:19 – 00:23:07:17 Unknown I don’t know how that happened because, you know, I went on to teach for 15 more years, but it’s maybe the way I got hired or like the way that, you know, I actually I do know I do know in California, like the the pre-service days, like the the the leading up to the school year is very, very, very short.
00:23:07:17 – 00:23:45:09 Unknown At least it was when I taught when I moved to Georgia, like we had like over a week to like, plan and prepare that we were like on contract. But for some reason it was only like two days and so I there was like no time to visit with parents or visit with students or anything like that. So the first my first day was meeting my kids were then getting off of the bus, which seems so wild to me right now, but it is what it is.
00:23:45:11 – 00:24:09:11 Unknown And so there I think there was like five students and I was supposed to have a paraprofessional with me, but he was late on the first day, so it was me getting the kids off the bus and just the process of getting the kids off the bus, which they came later than everyone else. So they didn’t come like with, you know, everyone walking into school together.
00:24:09:12 – 00:24:37:19 Unknown They came after everyone had already gotten there. So it was just me and them getting them up to my classroom, which was like at the very top. It was on the second floor in the corner of the building getting into the class, and they’re they’ve never met me. They’ve never seen the classroom. And they all were having a difficult time adjusting.
00:24:37:21 – 00:25:02:20 Unknown And I was like, What am I doing? Like, I have no clue what I’m doing here. And I remember at lunchtime, like finally my paraprofessional came and we, you know, we’re doing some sort of mourning circle and we got to lunch and I called my wife and I’m like, Honey, I am so freaked out right now. I have no, no idea what I’m doing.
00:25:02:22 – 00:25:55:23 Unknown Like, pray for me. I am just I am just Yeah. So that was my first day. It got better. It got better because I did have support people that were, you know, helping me with my class. In fact, one of the people that was a specialist that supported my classroom, she is still a good friend and we actually kind of went on the same nut, not exactly the same, but we had a transformation in our mindset about inclusive education and so she has a a son with Down’s syndrome and is now affiliated with this organization in Pasadena called Club 21.
00:25:56:00 – 00:26:17:17 Unknown And I have also spoke at the conference and know many of the people that work for that organization. And so we connected later and it’s like, how amazing is it that, you know, we started I started my career and, you know, we knew each other so long ago and then we’ve made this kind of transformation. Yeah. At the same time, even in separate places.
00:26:17:17 – 00:26:51:23 Unknown So but yeah, like a typical day was we would have like morning meeting and this was four or five and six, the grades four or five and six. And then after morning meeting they would go into their schedules and the schedules would look like, you know, there’d be like a reading section of the classroom and a writing section in the classroom and like a leisure area, it varied.
00:26:51:23 – 00:27:27:16 Unknown I think at one point I had six or seven, but I might have started out with four or five. I don’t exactly remember, but because the because the student had some has had some real high support needs, I typically had one or two adults with me and the standards were like, modify it or alternate standards based on the California.
00:27:27:18 – 00:27:59:23 Unknown I don’t remember exactly what they were called, but whatever the California generally curriculum standards were, and for kids in the 1%, there’s like a 1% rule for public schools in different states. And so typically around 1% of the students are in modified curriculum, which will so they take an alternate assessment. So, you know, everyone takes their seat assessments.
00:28:00:01 – 00:28:26:21 Unknown But if you’re in that 1%, you take an alternate assessment. And that could look differently depending on what state you’re in. In California, it was a it was like a modified test where you, like present test items and then they would choose. And it was all modified based on the student need. In Georgia, it was a portfolio, although they’ve recently over the last like five years, moved more towards test items.
00:28:26:23 – 00:29:03:03 Unknown That’s a whole other thing about alternate assessment. But anyways, it was really structured. We used a lot of rewards of reward system edibles, praise, very, very focused on behaviorists, on a behaviorist model of, of supporting behavior, which again, it’s like considering where I am now too, when I started, it’s just it’s, you know, it’s wild to think that I’ve moved so much in that area.
00:29:03:03 – 00:29:30:18 Unknown But so what is so if that’s kind of the baseline of where you started and that was like your philosophy and that was the schedule and those were sort of the expectations, where are you now? wow. I want to keep I want to keep it brief. Okay, sure. Because that’s a that’s a big question. I know it’s a huge that’s a really big question.
00:29:30:18 – 00:30:13:11 Unknown I think. So where I started was that, you know, learners on the autism spectrum, especially ones that have real high support needs in and including learners with other sort of high support needs disabilities, you know, whether that’s physical or an intellectual disability. My original thinking was like, yeah, well, they have really like unique needs. So you need somebody with specialized training in a specialized room to be able to provide support for those learners.
00:30:13:13 – 00:30:57:08 Unknown And that made sense to me. Whereas if you’re typically developing and you have, you know, you’re, you’re progressing with the curriculum as it is, you know, you should be in a regular class. And what I realized was that when you separate learners based on disability and based on support needs, that the expectation is for those particular learners in special ed classrooms, like, like the ones I taught in are very low, very, very low.
00:30:57:10 – 00:31:37:07 Unknown Even the standards which were modified, you know, well, like we wouldn’t provide those standards for anyone else. We would provide them for learners in these particular special classrooms. And it wasn’t until I saw that in my experience with including a learner with high support needs and and challenging behavior in a general education class that I saw it in my perspective changed because as I went and got my teaching credential, I was able to get a job with a provisional credential.
00:31:37:07 – 00:31:57:10 Unknown And then part of clearing that credential was taking additional classes, and one was called like Positive Behavior supporters and things like that. And my professor was like, okay, well, you need to come up with an inclusion plan for one of your students. And I was like, No, no, no, no. You don’t understand. These kids cannot be in a general ed classroom.
00:31:57:10 – 00:32:30:18 Unknown They’d completely disrupt the classroom. How would they learn? How would they, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she’s like, Well, it’s an assignment and just go ahead and try it. Just just try it. And so the assignment was basically to take a student and to collaborate with the general ed teacher and, you know, look at the strengths of the student, look at what the student is interested in and the passions and interests of the student, and develop a plan so that that student could be included.
00:32:30:20 – 00:33:10:05 Unknown And so I found my, you know, my general Ed partner, and we collaborated on a lesson in this particular student. Let’s name him John Frank. Okay, John. John, I like to pick members of the Beatles. I don’t know why when I tell stories, I try to like says sometimes it’s Ringo, sometimes it’s Paul. Today it’s John. So John, John really enjoyed tearing up little bits of paper in front of his eyes and watching it, you know, fall down.
00:33:10:07 – 00:33:56:07 Unknown This, John was mostly non-speaking. He used some sign language to communicate it. A lot of sensory input needs. So like he would like hold his head and he would hold his chin because he wanted the input on his face and, you know, he just had a lot a lot of a lot of needs. And the the the general ed teacher, I think it was a social studies segment and they were learning about topography, maps like 3D topography, maps.
00:33:56:09 – 00:34:18:09 Unknown And so the activity was the students were creating these out of cardboard and something that John loved to do because it’s like all about the ripping of the paper is he would cut. He loves cutting. And he was really good at cutting. Like I could draw any sort of line on the paper and he could cut it like, no problem.
00:34:18:13 – 00:34:54:06 Unknown Wow. And and I was like, I know John can cut like he can cut the cardboard in the activity. And, you know, that could be how he could participate. And so the day came, we walked down the hallway and John sat with his peers cutting cardboard, and there were no behavior problems. You know, John had really, like loud and disruptive vocal stems.
00:34:54:07 – 00:35:28:08 Unknown And then plus, like all of his physical, you know, the physical sensory needs he needed, but he he required all that was like very, very minimized. And he sat in that classroom participating for it was a good 40, 45 minutes. I never thought that that was possible. And so after that experience, I, I said to myself, like all you need to do is plan like, you just need to plan for the student.
00:35:28:10 – 00:35:51:10 Unknown You can’t just expect John to go in a general class and be okay, you know, and not plan anything like, of course, he would not be okay in that situation. But if you plan for it and you know exactly what he’s supposed to do and how he’s going to interact and how you can facilitate interactions between students like, okay, you just need a plan.
00:35:51:10 – 00:36:25:08 Unknown So then I was like, well, I can do this with everybody. And so I was still learning, of course, at that at the time. But I kept learning more and more and more about how to include, about how to look at each students strengths, how to presume competence, you know, like how, how can I look at a student who is non-speaking and be like, well, they’re not going to get anything out of something because they’re not actually able to tell me what they’re absorbing.
00:36:25:10 – 00:37:11:04 Unknown And especially now with all of the non speakers who are have access to communication systems through assistive technology and what they’re able to produce, I’m like, I think we’ve got this all wrong. You know, we we put way, way, way too low of expectations on these students and that that really pushed me forward with with my thinking. So now, 20 years later, I, I, I think that well, all students are general ed students.
00:37:11:06 – 00:37:45:02 Unknown All students are just students, right. It just depends on the needs of the student. It doesn’t mean we could we can’t we can’t design something specifically for a student that’s specially designed instruction that is special education, but something that’s specially designed doesn’t need to be in a special place. And we’re talking in when we’re talking about the United States and we’re talking about the intent of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the intent of the law is really inclusion.
00:37:45:04 – 00:38:13:15 Unknown Like the more that you dig into why it is, it’s actually a phenomenal piece of legislation. It is. You know, I have gone back and forth thinking like we need to you know, we need to update it, we need to update the language and all this stuff. But considering what is in there, if we just did what it said, I think everyone would be better off.
00:38:13:15 – 00:39:06:23 Unknown All learners would be better off. I would like to see general and special education work together more. And so when you think about multi-tiered systems of support and how specially designed instruction fits in within that larger framework of like these tiers, you know, tier one being universal core instruction, tier two being, you know, targeted, maybe maybe some small group and I’m not talking about like pulling out and putting in a separate class, but like, you know, interventions that are based on groups and then that tier three really highly targeted, individualized, specialized support for individual learners, all of those things can coexist in a in a school system, in a school without without pull out in
00:39:06:23 – 00:39:39:19 Unknown the traditional sense of like, here’s the resource room or segregated disability specific programs. And the reason, you know, I mean, I’ve always thought that, but especially now working for the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, I’ve observed these settings in these schools in Maryland and in other states so that they do exist. There are educators and school leaders that are working towards these things all across the country.
00:39:39:21 – 00:40:12:07 Unknown There’s organizations just like mine that are supporting school districts doing this. So like on the the spectrum, I’m like way off the I’m like off the page on the other side where yeah, where I’ve, you know, not only if I do, I believe it, but I’ve seen it happen. And the reason why I’m here with you and, and the reason why I have a job is to tell people that it’s possible and that you can do it.
00:40:12:07 – 00:40:42:03 Unknown You just have to, you know, you just have to start. You got to start, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think one of the reasons why inclusion has been such a big topic for me over the past several years is I think when I was pregnant with my daughter and after I gave birth, I realized that I’m actually neurodivergent.
00:40:42:05 – 00:41:31:04 Unknown And, you know, I spent my entire life not really knowing that. And I and by that I mean I knew that there was something different about the way that I learned. And I had always felt so like other, you know, and when I looked at and like after around this time, you know, when I was pregnant, I was looking at all of my, like official academic records and like talking to people who knew me when I was younger and just kind of like sourcing all of the memories that from people that knew me and trying to understand my childhood from this lens of, the reason why you felt so inferior your entire life was
00:41:31:04 – 00:42:10:10 Unknown because you didn’t you didn’t know that you had learning disabilities, you had intellectual disabilities. And so I’m kind of in this Bermuda Triangle, as a lot of people are, of wondering, like, is it autism, Is it ADHD, is it complex? PTSD, you know, and it’s very hard to tell when you’re an adult. And so, you know, like I’m in therapy and like, you know, I have a lot of support and just kind of trying to, you know, and trying to understand what could have been helpful when I was younger.
00:42:10:12 – 00:43:07:12 Unknown And so when you talk about inclusion and you talk about, you know, having plans for for your high support, needing students, I kind of think about this, you know, not within necessarily the the perspective of people in special education, but just people as a whole, just like everybody. And I really think that you to every student should have an IEP, an individualized education plan for how they learn and to because, you know, another challenging piece of this puzzle is that my mother, a single immigrant mom, you know, me working so many jobs to make ends meet and, you know, multiple father figures in and out of my life.
00:43:07:14 – 00:43:33:08 Unknown Lots of challenging struggles inside the home. And so, like, the support that I had was very piecemeal and it wasn’t really stable, like who was going to help me with my homework, who was going to, you know, make sure that I was learning what I was needing to learn. That was sort of like, okay, you’re you’re with her this time.
00:43:33:10 – 00:44:13:07 Unknown This other person is going to be with you in a couple of months. It was kind of like that. And so when I look at the people with similar, I guess in similar situations or worse or more challenging, right. I just think about and then also thinking about this other piece of self-directed learning and student autonomy. And I’m just wondering, like, is there a way right to build in this concept of an IEP into general education for everyone?
00:44:13:09 – 00:44:45:18 Unknown And if that were to happen, what would schools need to look like or how would the plans like how how could that be support it? Right. And I’m just wondering, like from your perspective of being in this field for 20 years and having the experiences that you do, is that even feasible? And if it were like, what would need to happen for the support on a mass level for IEPs to happen?
00:44:45:20 – 00:45:34:22 Unknown I think I think early in my career I thought that IEPs for everyone was the right way to go. I don’t I don’t believe that is the right way to go, in my opinion. and here’s why. It’s not that you shouldn’t plan for individual learners, but the IEP, as it stands in the law, is like an individualized education program.
00:45:35:00 – 00:46:22:01 Unknown You have to meet certain criteria, right, and have like a categorized disability category. You know, disability category and all of that. So as far as an IEP, as it’s understood within Edina in that the US educational system, not everyone needs an IEP, but you can still plan for an individual student using their passions and interests, their learning preferences, their family context.
00:46:22:01 – 00:47:00:08 Unknown Like you can use all of that information that you have about a particular student to make curriculum meaningful. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to change how you are teaching each and every student. Because when teachers hear everyone needs an IEP like paper, like the paperwork that that is involved with, with all of that, it’s just it’s already overwhelming for the students who qualify.
00:47:00:10 – 00:47:43:06 Unknown So I think a different way to or a reframing of this is how we are structuring schools in special education in general and how we’re supporting, like all learners. And and so I’m going to, I’m going to namedrop somebody. Dr. Shelley Moore, Are you familiar with Dr. Shelley Moore No, I cannot Not familiar. So Dr. Shelley Moore is from British Columbia and she’s done a lot of research around supporting learners with disabilities and inclusive schools.
00:47:43:08 – 00:48:14:09 Unknown And she’s a she’s a friend and has been on a get, you know, as a guest on our podcast called Thinking Inclusive and she has this wonderful analogy. And I’m going to have to I have to share the YouTube video. She does these videos called Five More Minutes, and it’s one of her more well-known videos, but she talks about like supporting learners.
00:48:14:11 – 00:48:46:01 Unknown The parallel is like when you’re bowling, right? So if you’ve been bowling and it you when you’re when you’re bowling, if you just throw the ball down the center, you don’t always hit all the pins because it’s so straight, right? You have to come at it at a curve. And when you aim for the edges or when you plan for the edges, right, you end up knocking more pins down.
00:48:46:03 – 00:49:16:08 Unknown So the analogy is that when you plan in a classroom, when you’re designing lessons, when you’re hopefully collaborating with general and special education teachers in a classroom or in a school that you plan on for the students with the most support needs and the most like enrichment needs. So some kids they don’t necessarily need support because they are reading below grade level.
00:49:16:10 – 00:49:48:15 Unknown Sometimes they need support because they are reading at a high school level and they’re in second grade. Right. So how are we going to make the curriculum challenging enough for that learner? And also supportive enough for the learner that is reading to grades below. Right. And how you do that is by universally designing your lessons and by looking at the outer edges of the students in support.
00:49:48:17 – 00:50:19:00 Unknown And when you design the lessons for enrichment and for support, you end up planning it for everybody because everyone could use either that enrichment or support. Now if you plan it just for the student, that is typically quote unquote typically developing, then you miss out on those edges. And so that is a way that there’s like there’s more practical ways of explaining that.
00:50:19:02 – 00:50:44:07 Unknown That’s like, well, you know, that’s high level as far as philosophy goes. But when you get down to developing a a the lesson around planets, right. And you’re talking about I think that’s third grade A third or fourth grade and you’re talking about the number of planets, how are we going to enrich the lesson for those that need the enrichment?
00:50:44:07 – 00:51:14:21 Unknown How are we like, are we going to have them, you know, write more or are we going to have them, you know, are we going to have them use like select their own way of presenting right. So that way there’s some choice there. So the kids who want more challenge can choose the more challenging like, I want to present or I want to, you know, I want to write a paper, I want to make a video.
00:51:15:02 – 00:51:45:10 Unknown So I’m changing the way that I am, assessing what the learners know but still with the the maybe the ones who require more support, they’re also able to make a choice that matches up with their own strengths. So it’s not like, okay, everyone’s doing the same thing the same way, so it’s more flexible. So that’s really what I’m talking about is in planning for differentiation.
00:51:45:10 – 00:52:15:01 Unknown Yes. When you have a classroom with a wide variety of variety of needs, how can you plan for the students there in your classroom and how can you authentically assess and teach those students? So you have your curriculum, you have your standards, right? Everyone learns about planets, but how you go about that is going to change based on the students that you have in your class.
00:52:15:03 – 00:52:50:14 Unknown That is how I think we get to like the idea of individualized instruction, because while everyone is different, you can still you can you can still plan for your class, even if it looks a little different for groups or particular students. I hope I explain that. I know you explained it perfectly and I have like 50 more thousand questions, but I know I.
00:52:50:16 – 00:53:25:07 Unknown I want to be mindful of your time and we don’t have that much time left. So I guess I kind of wanted to ask a follow up by connecting it with this final question that I have for you, which is really I’ve been thinking a lot about intelligence and what it means and also what mastery is when we think of school.
00:53:25:09 – 00:54:14:06 Unknown And, you know, I think when I was younger, I kind of felt like society or school sort of puts you in one of two categories, which is either you are valuable to society and therefore you’re intelligent or you are not intelligent and therefore not valuable to society. And I always kind of felt like I fell into the ladder where I felt like a, you know, someone who is creative and someone who cannot think linearly and who cannot articulate herself used correctly or linearly or sequentially, or think sequentially.
00:54:14:08 – 00:54:56:14 Unknown I’m a very like bottom up thinker. I don’t really know what I’m thinking about until a lot later. I don’t know what I’m building until things have already been built. And so I’ve never really fallen into that category of this is a person who is able, capable, intelligent. And I was kind of curious, you know, when we do the differentiated learning and we have the different standards for different children or different students, it’s not that we’re changing our definition of what is expected of them.
00:54:56:14 – 00:56:09:12 Unknown And I know earlier we were talking about that we shouldn’t be having low expectations for people with disabilities, you know? Right. And so I kind of wanted to ask you this last piece of how should we be thinking about intelligence and how should we be changing or not changing expectations, but working with that, knowing that people and and that students come from so many different baselines and also with such varying degrees of talents and abilities and skills and interests, I think that I think we don’t know enough about intelligence, like to say someone’s intelligent, you know, like really how how we’ve how we’ve measured intelligence, which is, you know, like IQ testing and other sort
00:56:09:12 – 00:57:06:07 Unknown of psychological exams assessments. I think that is I think it leaves out a lot, particularly thinking about non-speaking individuals. You know, those tests were made for people who are who who speak, you know, verbally. And so we I don’t think we know enough about that yet. There’s so much we’ve learned about the brain and how we learn and how we process information that it’s so how I read, how I would reframe intelligence is just that every everyone is intelligent, you know, everyone’s intelligent in different ways.
00:57:06:09 – 00:57:50:17 Unknown But, you know, if you’re a human, even if you’re not human, but, you know, like, I think I so I think intel I think that’s I think there’s some misconceptions there as far as expectations go in school, since we’re talking about like teaching, you know, we should expect everyone to be learning the same thing. And but we also know that there’s there you know, students have various strengths.
00:57:50:17 – 00:58:27:20 Unknown So if a student isn’t, quote unquote, performing up to a certain grade level, I don’t think it is. I don’t think we should think of that as well. The problem is in the student. I think the problem is in our methods, in the environment. What is holding the student back from achieving. Now, that could be a lot of different things right?
00:58:27:22 – 00:58:54:20 Unknown But as a teacher, what can we do in order to support the student to move beyond that particular barrier? And again, that barrier could be a lot of different things. That could be neurology, right? It could be. It could be some sort of behavior challenge. It could be some sort of like family context. Right? It could be like all of these different things.
00:58:54:20 – 00:59:27:19 Unknown But how can we support the student to move past that barrier? I think I think that’s how we should be thinking about that. And it the reason why I say that we should still have high expectations is that when you have high expectations, students will like more than more than likely surprise you rather than, you know, not rise to the occasion.
00:59:27:21 – 00:59:52:01 Unknown Like in. The thing is, is if you don’t have high expectations, you just won’t know. They will rise to the level of expectation that you have. So if you have low expectations, they’re only going to rise to that level because that’s the only thing you’re presenting them. So in my opinion it is. And I didn’t come up with this term the least dangerous assumption.
00:59:52:03 – 01:00:21:21 Unknown I think Donnelly I don’t remember their first name. I hope I’m getting that right. But you can we can just Google it. We can just Google at least dangerous assumption. The least dangerous assumption is that if we have high expectations and they don’t rise to those expectations, then yes, we’ll have to figure out the barriers. We’ll have to figure out, you know, how it can support the learner.
01:00:21:23 – 01:00:45:12 Unknown But that is less dangerous than if we were to have low expectations and for them to not rise to them at all. That’s really great. You wrote in one of your blog posts you were talking about, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and they both had yeah, they had two children, Sally and Regina. Yeah. Well, okay, so here’s here’s the interesting thing about that.
01:00:45:12 – 01:01:40:05 Unknown So Sally and Regina, it is a modified story from a a friend of mine, Lou Brown, that past he when did he think he passed? In 2020 or 2021. And he was professor emeritus at University of Madison, Wisconsin. MADISON And again, I apologize if any of this is wrong, but Lou Brown was a co-founder of of the organization TASH, which is a disability rights organization founded by educators and advocates, you know, for inclusion, especially for students, people with significant disabilities.
01:01:40:07 – 01:02:13:21 Unknown And Lou, LeBron told this story. Now, I actually asked him if I could update the story to to have like more. He wrote it a long time ago. So I updated the story. But the idea is the there’s a family and they’re the twins and they’re essentially they have the same profile of one twin, one with the mom, one twin, one with the dad, and one grew up in an inclusive environment and one grew up in a segregated environment.
01:02:13:23 – 01:02:43:07 Unknown And so I think you’re talking about was Celie in the segregated environment? And Regina was in the in the. Yes, okay. Regina was in the inclusive one, Yes. So the idea it’s more of like a parable. So, you know, Sally was segregated for the majority of her career. So she was didn’t have access to typical peers. She didn’t have access to grade level curriculum and the low expectations were low.
01:02:43:07 – 01:03:20:02 Unknown So she did not achieve as much as Regina because, you know, where does a learner have access and like have physical presence with their peers other than school? You know, yes, You can go to your place of worship. Yes, you can go to the grocery store. Yes, you can be in your neighborhood. But the the intense the intensity and the amount of time that schools provide for those types of relationships, there’s nothing like it.
01:03:20:04 – 01:03:47:13 Unknown So and then also, after you’re done with school, right, where else can you find that you really can’t replicate that? So everything that Regina experienced, Sally could could never experience the same way. You know, when I was a special education teacher, I was always like, I want to make my room just like the regular class, you know?
01:03:47:13 – 01:04:27:03 Unknown But that’s impossible is absolutely impossible. You cannot do it. You’re in your special education teacher in a special ed class. You’re teaching multiple grade levels. You know, three or four or five grade levels. There’s no way you could cover all the curriculum. Something is going to get left. But if we if we were intentional about including learners in general education in their same age, peers, grade level in the classrooms, that they would go to if they didn’t have a label of a disability, all of those things are present.
01:04:27:05 – 01:05:04:15 Unknown You have high quality teachers trained in curriculum in third grade curriculum. Yeah, you have peers, you have the all of the invisible curriculum that is there. And it’s it’s just like if when you really think about it, if that learner is supported that class, they’re going to far out. They are going to develop so much better than being in a separate segregated classroom.
01:05:04:17 – 01:05:20:02 Unknown So Regina is Regina is thriving, is what I would say. Thank you so much for listening. If any part of this episode resonated with you, please connect with us on social media at the links in the show notes until next time.