INCLUSIVE TEACHING:

The Journey Towards Creating Effective Schools for All Learners

CHAPTER ONE

Towards the Celebration of Difference

InclusiveNet. Links organized by the different sections of the chapter.

Learning tools. Tools for analysis, discussion, and planning you may use in class, professional development, and in your own practice as a teacher.

• Dealing with difference: What have you seen and experienced? Use Activity Tool 1-4 and ask participants to consider their experience with the various forms of responding to people considered different - extermination, segregation, benevolence, and community.
• Segregated and inclusive services in your community. Activity Tool 1-5 asks respondents to make notes reflecting their knowledge of segregated and inclusive services in their own community.
• Segregated (and inclusive) education for students with special needs: An analysis. Use Activity Tool 1-6 to ask respondents to consider positive and negative aspects of both inclusive and segregated education for students with mild disabilities, moderate to severe disabilities, and students without disabilities.
• Where do students with disabilities go to school in your state? Activity Tool 1-7 is a blank chart that provides space which participants can complete indicating school placements by degree of inclusion in their state.
• Making it in general education. Activity Tool 1-8 provides a case study with recording form to have respondents work in groups to develop a plan for successful inclusive teaching with a specific student.
• Change for inclusive teaching. Use Activity Tool 1-9. Participants will discuss in pairs or small groups: (1) key problems/barriers related to effective inclusive education in that school; (2) changes they would like to see made to make the school an effective inclusive school (e.g., shifting the role of special education teachers to co-teaching and consultation); and (3) strategies for change (e.g., a school study team, visiting inclusive schools, etc.).
• Why inclusive teaching will not work. This is a great activity that can be used early on in class or at any time during the semester. Download activity forms here. Students in small groups are asked to review a common statement that posits why inclusive education will not work. They are asked to identify the theory or assumptions underlying the statement and then develop a counter-argument. This involves students in utilizing language and concepts promoting inclusive education.

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Artwork reprinted by permission of
Martha Perske from PERSKE:
PENCIL PORTRAITS 1971-1990
Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998.