I have recently written a few posts related to the Disability Royal Commission currently conducting hearings in Australia and that, as part of its remit, is investigating young people with disability in different education settings.
As a result, I have been contacted by a several teachers who feel I have given voice to opinions they share but are reluctant to express. It seems that teachers do not always feel comfortable discussing the issues around including students with disabilities and disorders in the classroom. This is reflected when you look at the Commission’s hearings. Quite rightly, the Commission has sought extensive evidence from people living with disabilities and disability advocates. However, there is less testimony from teachers.
As a result, I have decided to make a submission and for that, I need your help. I need to know about your positive and/or negative experiences working with the inclusion of students with disabilities and disorders in mainstream educational settings. In particular, I am interested in the systems schools set-up, the adjustments used in classrooms and relationship of these systems and adjustments to evidence. However, I am also keen to hear any other comments that are relevant to the deliberations of the Commission.
You have two ways of contributing. Firstly, this post is open to comments from everyone. If you feel comfortable commenting on this thread, either because you do not feel the need to comment anonymously or because you are able to comment under a pseudonym that hides your identity, then please feel free to do so. I will receive your email address when you comment and may follow up with you to ensure comments are from teachers.
Please provide a context to your comment. Are you in Australia or elsewhere? Which state do you work in? Are you in the government, Catholic or independent sector? Then, please describe your experiences — feel free to post illustrative anecdotes but nothing that would identify schools or individuals.
If you don’t feel you can comment on this thread, then I have created a contact form here that will enable you to send you comment directly to me.
Depending on the responses I receive, I will compile a submission for the Commission with names removed.
Thanks in advance.
Starting the semester by showing what's good for the students about attending my classes is a good start. Allowing them to do their own projects comes next. "Unlimited" rewrites/corrections allowed is the only way to make sure not most students fail.
This way, about 40% of my students managed to pass my classes at the community-college level. The rest of them were either junkies, foreigners with insufficient command of English, or people for whom it would take a few years to pass a class fairly.
When I was teaching for UMASS in the early 90s, I received a letter from one of the offices that probably should have never existed, telling me to provide for students with "learning disabilities."
I went to the office and voiced my opinion that there is nothing wrong to be learning-disabled, but such people might want to find another vocation, where their activivites are not hampered by their condition. After all, who wants to watch one-legged ballet-dancers.
A week later, I received another letter from the same office. The letter included a newspaper-clipping with people in wheelchairs acting out as "ballet-dancers."
I never returned to the office and, considering the intellectual/educational levels of my students (I used to call UMASS a "peasant university"), I never had to care for "students with learning disabilities," because they were indistinguishable from the rest...