Drs. Rebecca Hines and Lisa Dieker, UCF Faculty members, share their philosophical ideas about the topic of inclusion. They share what it means from their personal and professional standpoint, but they also share practical examples of what it looks like to have high expectations for all students, while still empowering families and students to have access to the continuum of services outlined in federal legislation.
Drs. Rebecca Hines and Lisa Dieker, UCF Faculty members, share their philosophical ideas about the topic of inclusion. They share what it means from their personal and professional standpoint, but they also share practical examples of what it looks like to have high expectations for all students, while still empowering families and students to have access to the continuum of services outlined in federal legislation.
spk_0: 0:04
welcome to practical access. I am Lisa Dieker
spk_1: 0:07
and I'm Becky Hines and least I can't wait to hear what the question of the day is.
spk_0: 0:12
Well, we were twittered or tweeted, whichever one you'd like to pick a coach. Weston. What does it mean in an online environment? And I thought, Oh, boy, that's a lot of question to ask either one of us, So I can't imagine philosophically outward. Approach this together?
spk_1: 0:31
Well, it's everybody. Everybody who's been in the education world, you know, for the last 40 years knows that this is an inclusion is it's a philosophical belief. And so some people believe in it philosophically, honestly, and some people really just disagree with it. So recognizing from the start that everybody's gonna have different opinions, I think that this online environment actually gives us a great way to start thinking more inclusively, even about those kids who we normally would think belong, if you will, in another in another area, for some reason, and it's something that I've been tackling first and Lisa because, as you know, I work with one of the most inclusive schools anywhere, 50% of the kids are kids with disabilities and 50% are kids who are typical development developing kids. So we face this real time all the time. And when we came to build out our online system, it was actually much easier because we already were on board with the idea of giving everyone access to the same things. So that kind of thinking about this from the start, I can talk a bit a bit about some of the practical things that we've done, but least of philosophically kind of share. Wait, What? You're thinking about what this means.
spk_0: 2:03
Yeah. You know, I get asked this question all the time, and I find that historically we're arguing less and less about the topic of inclusion. Would you agree with that? I don't have to fight the fight of that. People disabilities deserve some equality in this planet that I used to 20 years ago. I hate to say I've been in the field that long, but, you know, 20 years ago
spk_1: 2:23
Come on, Lee. So you think this 20 years
spk_0: 2:28
I know 20 years ago, I would stand in front of a high school chemistry teacher and they'd be like, what? Any kid in my room that isn't, you know, an eight. But you know, I ve student and and so I think we've gotten to a different level. But I always use segregation versus inclusion as my platform. We segregated people, by color, we segregated people by gender. And a late latest NPR story Cash was a couple months ago says that it will take 256 more years for women's salaries around the world to equal men salary. And so what I think we do know is that, well, we segregate somebody when we try to include them later. It takes a long time to play catch up, and I'm not sure why we segregated people with disabilities to start with now. I truly believe in the continuum of service is I believe families deserve that support. But to the inclusion is that I believe kids should have the right to being the general and setting if that's what their team wants. And it is a philosophical purchase, not something we do it, something we believe. So I believe in a gut evidence from decades, for example, of specific school district. I work with has 12,000 tunes and for self contained, and they hitting it on the park in the state because it's in their DNA. As you said, it is part of their practical access. Their Ugo Universal, designed for learning components, are already there. And so students not only get what they need, but all the adults come in with them. And I think the biggest struggle we see nationally is what I call school district sitting on the fence. Well, I want this group in, but not that group well. But that group that is excluded has 8 to 12 adults attached to 10 kids, and so on. The other side, you see, don't have enough resources. So it's one of those shifts that I think of an online world that we have to think about. Did we really push our resource is that way, or did we create little, little self contained pods? That really is something that we have to battle and think about what what I find is miss districts were saying because this was so fast, we just opened it up to love. Everybody have access. It was like, Wow, isn't that interesting If you could do it online. What would look like when we go back to brick and mortar? And I think that's gonna be an interesting change. Good one. Stand back.
spk_1: 4:39
Well, in the case of this, this small, inclusive district, because it's not actually just one school, it's a it's a seven schools. Here's interestingly, as as one of the most inclusive organizations I know of. When it came to the online piece, the first thought was what we need to. We need to purchase a separate curriculum for kids with significant disabilities while they're home and we went a little bit round around about that in terms of whom, because I previewed some of this curriculum and and I think it's fine as you mentioned. If a family chooses that because they have a parent at home who can coach their child through it, that's great. So I do think District should make things available to kids when possible. For sure, however, when I've previewed some of the materials and the lessons are things like colors and this particular school system is offering, you know, really time synchronous chats. My question was well, why wouldn't you just give kids access to those chats and experiences at their own grade level within your organization. And when it's time for small group discussions, it's just the nature of what that teacher discusses with the kids. That's different because that teacher there were colors on that screen. So if the child is visually, I'm able to see the screen. I can liken screenshot that or I can hold things up in my real world environment and talk about color. I don't necessarily need a separate curriculum for it, and I think there's a good argument for this kind of real world learning anyway. So I just you know, the thing. I always encourage people to remember, because in my mind, this is how I think of it. Inclusion was never really about everybody getting the exact same thing from an experience. It was about everybody getting access to the very best we can offer and then supporting kids so they can get as much as possible from that experience.
spk_0: 6:50
Yeah, it's funny because, you know, we went around it around what's even call this podcast because we didn't want the word inclusion because we thought that would make it seem that it was about a specific topic and we really fell in the term practical access because that's what we believe. That Children and families well, we I will say I believe you can agree or disagree with, but we we I think most agree. And we love to bicker. If you don't know us well, just ask our doctoral students. Don't ever get us in a philosophical discussion because again, we love that banter. But when it comes down to, we truly do believe everybody deserves access. And we believe teachers deserve to get kids access in the easiest most practical way organically possible. And we both think that comes to a choice. And I do think that's what we're seeing in these online environments that are due going well is Teacher Seo. I gave my kids choices of things they could do, and they seem to be able to take that choice, whether they want to watch A or B or do C or D. And so I do want to remind us all, as we think about inclusion, that we do have access points in every state. But what's funny about our access points. They are different. So if colors aren't in the creek, women third gray color shouldn't be in the curriculum in third grade. For a kid with different needs, it should be about understanding the impact of color in artistic beauty or whatever it might be. Is this painting? Did they like it better? This one? That's what I think we gotta keep reminding ourselves, since we don't go back to first grade because you're in hate writer with a lower I. Q. We still give kids that experience align with what others air learning, but at a simpler level. And I loved your concept of simple language.
spk_1: 8:25
Yeah, I think what you just hit on their Lisa, I guess, is the thing that again, as a family member of a child with with significant needs, keeping things age appropriate, I think that is my biggest problem with a lot of the curriculums that I see. Is it just It literally makes me wanna cry to think of him on a computer doing something designed for a preschooler. Um, when I know he's a 16 year old young man and he he loves to connect with thoughts and ideas and people of his own age level.
spk_0: 8:58
Yeah, I think that's true for all of us. And I think people at 80 don't necessarily want to learn what two year olds are doing. I don't think two year olds are ready to learn what 80 year olds are doing, and I think we just have to really remind ourselves that in this time of change this whatever this new normal is supposed to be for however long it's gonna be, is that access and choice really should be the goal. And that's what inclusion is about his kids getting access to their peers to natural conversation. And not only that, but backing my pet peeve, but the secondary levels kids deserve conscience specialist. They deserve access. Just somebody who understands physics like no special anti temporal. Understand
spk_1: 9:36
That's exactly what I meant. Let's let everybody watch that great physics lesson. You know what? Don't presume to know what any child can get from that lesson. And even if they only noticed movement patterns or something soon, it'll at least year she had access, and we can talk about that in some small group discussions with them afterwards. But it is about everybody having the opportunity to get the very best instruction possible in helping them individually gain and learn what they can.
spk_0: 10:09
Yeah, and thank you to wrap this one up. I'm gonna put you on the spot. You've been having lots of these. What? We're gonna call alive sessions. Do you have an example of a life session that you might talk about? An inclusive way that has kind of been fun and entertaining that might help them understand what we mean by doesn't matter what the objective is. Doesn't matter. The age of the ICU. The student They should have access in an online environment. 70 examples from all the fun live sessions that you've already seen going on.
spk_1: 10:35
Well, I'll give you a very specific example because we just launched a live, um, 9 to 3 what we're calling a channel, but it's really just a stream of different specialists in this school district to all do movement and art and all of these things spell out
spk_0: 10:54
there, right? Mikey, it's us. Are you? Steve is integrated, they're correct.
spk_1: 10:58
It's integrated throughout. And so? So we haven't just what we're calling it. Arts and entertainment. And so it's a live stream for those kids who don't have something going on during their regular day. And what we try to do is to talk about things in a way that are you know, it's everyday exploration kind of things, some arts and movement kind of things. So there's 15 minute segments. So, for example, one of my favorite ones from Friday featured one of our students, Lisa who? She did hers by walking across the street to a state park and went on an alligator hunt. And she showed real time alligators. And in one of her look, please, okay, lets you do that was so good. So everybody of any age level is interested in these alligators, and she really did a great job of framing her shots. But she also had a field guide with her so she would put the book actually on camera and say, Wow, I found this in the book about you know, Florida. And here's what I read about alligators, so she kind of taught a little something factual about alligators. But if somebody couldn't read the book or see the book or here, which you know they could. They got something because there's something visually beautiful on there and there was something for everyone. And you're your highest level learners who were watching that particular segment. I guarantee you they opened a separate tab and were Googling alligators. But for the student who couldn't do that or anything else he was hearing and seeing something interesting that that he or she didn't have access to every other day.
spk_0: 12:39
It's a great example. And again, as you said, I Q age Elaine range almost isn't matter there, and that's that's a great example of universal design for learning. But I won't have you say the name of the student on camera are on the podcast, but we'll certainly follow up in and give kudos to her for that work. So,
spk_1: 12:55
yeah, there was lots of lots of great work bite everybody on their Everybody did a great job where we're continuing to stream and, you know, people will hear more about that as we have to rebuild this out.
spk_0: 13:06
Great. Well, suit just to kind of wrap this up. You know, we both believe inclusion is everybody getting what they need when they need it. and that it is a philosophical approach. And we truly do believe that we should be teaching high and giving kids opportunities that our age appropriate and all that they do. So we hope that answers the question to you, um, sent to us on Twitter and we encourage you to tweet us @access practical with questions that we can continue to talk about on our podcast. Thank you and have a great day.