Free Inquiry Week #3 – Down syndrome & Inclusion
This week I’m going to tackle a big topic. Inclusion. Kids who happen to have Down syndrome need extra support in school, that is no secret. What they don’t need is to be put in a special classroom by themselves, have a special desk separated from classmates at the back of the class or spend most of their day in a resource room. Kids with Down syndrome need community. They need friends, they need to be challenged, they need interaction with peers, they need opportunity. Dr. Shelley Moore has a new video that really highlights these concerns. It’s worth a watch!
The province of BC partnered with Shelley Moore, before she had her PhD and had her create a series of videos to educate us about Inclusive Education. These are short little five minute videos and very informative. I am very impressed that the province of BC is diving into this new way of thinking. From terms like “mental retardation” to “handicapped” to “disability” — from special education to inclusive education — the world of supporting our students who need extra support has changed significantly since I was in elementary school and even more so since the beginning of the 1900’s.
Dr. Moore’s Video Series…
Province of BC Inclusive Education Video Series
How do we encourage students to learn from each other?
Inclusion. Not assimilation. Inclusion. Not segregation. Inclusion. Not self-contained classroom. Inclusion. We do it by including ALL kids in safe, welcoming classrooms and schools. We accomplish this by focusing on strengths, not weakness or struggles. We’ve been talking about empathy, mindset and motivation in a lot of our courses this semester. Students with all kinds of diverse abilities need to be together in order to learn from each other. All students need an opportunity to be in community and to find their people in order to feel safe, included and comfortable to be exactly who they are. ALL students and teachers alike deserve to have this opportunity!
In order to learn from each other and be successful in their schools, students with Down syndrome need support. Unfortunately, in BC, have a diagnosis of trisomy-21 (Down syndrome) only affords a student about half as much funding as they need to have a Education Assistant. Just this year, a friend with a little girl in Grade 1 was telling me that the school didn’t have an EA for her on the first day of school. Since then she’s had different EA’s most days and one month in, they still haven’t hired a permanent EA for her daughter with Down syndrome. There has been a significant number of stories that highlights how students with diverse needs are told to stay home from school because the district doesn’t have support in place. That’s completely unacceptable when education is a basic human right in Canada. There was some news coverage about this issue, see link below.
An Interesting News Article…
BC Down syndrome supports in schools criticized – CityNews Vancouver
Can kids with Down syndrome learn at home?
Some families choose to educate their children at home. That’s an option to all families in BC, and across Canada. When families don’t get the support they need at public school, sometimes home education is the best option. On this website a homeschooling mom gives families who have kids with Down syndrome a ton of ideas about how kids learn. She provides strategies, ideas and programs that have worked for her child who happens to have Down syndrome. I support two little girls with Down syndrome who are both homeschooling. It’s a great option for families who have the support and resourcefulness to make it happen.
Let’s wrap it up!
I want to share with you a couple of images that I created that highlight some important aspects of Inclusive Education, Universal Design for Learning and First Peoples Principles of Learning. I learned a lot when I was researching these topics. I hope you find them helpful and challenging to teaching pedagogy.
Links from the presentation above…
Canadian Centre for Diversity & Inclusion
BC Inclusive Education Resources
A fun little photo shoot…
I had to share some out-takes from our little photo shoot to get the cover photo for this post. When I asked Annie if she’d help me get a photo with 3 of something, she said “Sure!” After I took these photos, we had the cutest conversation about her favourite things. Swimming, summer camp and jujubes (fruit snacks) are on the top of her list.
Reflection
I really tried to give an overview about Down syndrome and inclusion. Thankfully, the world is moving more towards inclusion for kids with diverse abilities but I think there is still lots of room for improvement. Dr. Shelley Moore is my go-to for these topics. The way she presents the topics is engaging, funny and informative. She has a great YouTube channel and lots of video series.
I wrapped up my post this week with a fun little graphic that I made in Canva. I really, really love Canva and have expanded my skills this semester by making new graphics, experimenting with background features and different ways that you can save creations, depending on their intended use.
