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Expert implores educators to look at a disability as an attribute

An United States expert witness in legal cases involving inclusion in the classroom had the ear of 680 teachers, principals, support staff, administration and trustees from the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools on Thursday.

An United States expert witness in legal cases involving inclusion in the classroom had the ear of 680 teachers, principals, support staff, administration and trustees from the Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools on Thursday.

Julie Causton-Theoharis, an assistant professor in the Inclusive and Special Education Program in the Department of Teaching and Leadership at Syracuse University, delivered her message of rethinking schooling for students with disabilities or marginalized students to create better schools for everyone.

Causton-Theoharis said the first step is to rethink normal and to look at a disability as an attribute, not a deficit.

“There is no normal,” she said.

“Students learn to read in various ways.

“They have academic ranges, behaviour ranges and we need to really see all students’ behaviour and all students’ learning ranges as OK and appropriate.

“Our job is to support those in new ways so they can be successful.”

In the United States, students with disabilities have a legal right to be in the regular classroom so it is not uncommon that cases will go before the courts.

“We’re winning every inclusion case — it is because legislation supports it,” said Causton-Theoharis.

She said when you put students with disabilities in your classrooms, you create environments that are more accepting and socially just, and give everyone access to the goal of schooling for “brighter futures.”

Schools in the United States that are successful have done so while involving co-teaching and co-planning between a general education and special education teacher in the classroom.

“It’s a shift for the adults but the results we have are huge academic gains for students with disabilities and for students without disabilities in inclusive schools,” she said.

“Part of it is because there are two teachers teaching the group.

“They are more creative in the instruction.”

Sally Deck, director of special education for Red Deer Catholic, said the school division continues to find new ways to make inclusion work for all students.

Causton-Theoharis said she is encouraged by the direction Alberta is taking with Action on Inclusion, the provincewide inclusion initiative, because it has a clear distinction.

“We have a history of being wrong about students,” said Causton-Theoharis.

“We often think students who do not speak, for example, are not smart. We have been wrong about too many students. We have to re-think that.”

Causton-Theoharis’s work has appeared in such publications as Journal of Research in Childhood Education and International Journal of Inclusive Education and Behavioral Disorders.

crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com