Special Education and Teaching Commons^™

Taking Flight: Giving Up The Things That Weigh Me Down, Karina Malik

Occasional Paper Series

From the perspective of a Latinx, dual-language, special education, public school teacher, I explore and detail what an equitable and just education could look like in our future. I begin by envisioning a future that:

• Values collaboration in teaching and learning

• Allows for spaces of ongoing teacher learning where we teachers decide where we want to grow and how we want to learn.

• Invests in our growth and development as educators.

• Consists of a solid understanding that there is more expertise across communities than in any one person.

I continue by explaining that in order for this to be a …

Including Autism: Confronting Inequitable Practices In A Toddler Classroom, Emmanuelle N. Fincham, Amanda R. Fellner

Occasional Paper Series

As co-teachers in a toddler room, we share a personal narrative about our experiences working with a child diagnosed with autism while in our care. Framed within the competing discourses of the medicalized perspective on disability and the individual, child-centered philosophies of early childhood education, we investigate the inequities we felt in the classroom and make connections to the field of early childhood inclusive education at large.

High-Needs Schools: Preparing Teachers For Today's World

Occasional Paper Series

In the second decade of the 21st century, some schools are in trouble and some schools are not. The subject of this Occasional Paper is the preparation of teachers for schools that--lacking sufficient resources, effective leadership, or vocal advocates--are failing to educate their students by any reasonable measures. The teachers and teacher educator contributors to this volume offer a more variegated set of responses grounded in a diversity of local experiences. Their approaches to researching and understanding the immediacy of becoming a teacher are based on decades of working in hard-pressed urban schools and the institutions that supply them with …

Inclusive Classrooms: From Access To Engagement

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Life In Inclusive Classrooms: Storytelling With Disability Studies In Education

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Talking Tolerance Inside The “Inclusive” Early Childhood Classroom, Karen Watson

Occasional Paper Series

Provides an inside look into what the Australian government calls “inclusive learning communities.” This term emerges from a national early-years learning framework that highlights ability and disability as diversity. Following the course of a six-month period in three “inclusive” early childhood classrooms, Karen offers an account of the transformative potential of inclusion in contrast to the harmful effects of teaching tolerance. Tolerance, as Karen’s study reveals, preserves the dualism of normal versus abnormal (or Other) and hinders critical reflection about ableist assumptions.

Inclusion: What Came Before, Judith Lesch

Occasional Paper Series

Judith Lesch’s firsthand account of her teaching experiences from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s takes us on a journey through the evolving approaches to inclusion.

Front Matter And Introduction, Valentine Burr

Occasional Paper Series

The writers in this issue of Occasional Papers advocate for models of inclusion that support children’s capabilities and challenge systemic inequities based on ableism and cultural biases. They examine the complex and changing nature of collaboration between general and special educators in inclusion settings. Underlying these essays, though not always explicitly stated, is recognition that the fields of special education and disability studies can deepen and inform each other.