(bright music) - When a school is embarking on an effort to become more inclusive, it's very common for administrators, educators, and even other personnel in the building to have a number of questions about when are we going to do this? How's it going to work? What are my responsibilities? How are my students without disabilities going to react if they have a new student in their classroom?
So when folks bring these questions out into the open, whether it's in a one-on-one conversation or perhaps in a grade level team meeting, or a faculty meeting, people who are already strong advocates for inclusive education are tempted to respond with an inspirational speech and a listing of all the research that supports inclusive education. And I think that I would suggest that when those questions are posed, and maybe when people who were already supportive of inclusion are feeling a little bit defensive or like, you know, you have to be the champion for inclusion in your school, to step back a minute.
Take a deep breath. And first, respond to those questions through inquiry rather than advocacy. There's certainly a time for those strong advocacy voices. But first, I would suggest that you really strive to understand where those questions are coming from and what real concerns they represent.
So let me give you an example. A classroom teacher may say in response to her knowing that she's going to have a student with complex access needs in her class the following year, may say something like this. "Well, I've just never done this before. And I don't think it's fair that you're asking me to do something that I'm not trained to do," okay?
It may not be expressed in quite such a strident way, but I've definitely heard that concern and that question from teachers. Now, if we were to jump in and jump on that teacher's question by saying, "Well, too bad for you if you weren't trained to do that. This is year 2021 and everybody's responsible." So that's not the approach.
Because you could imagine that the reaction that that's going to bring is even more defensiveness, less willingness to enter into this new endeavor. So why not probe a little bit and say to the classroom teacher who says this. First, just acknowledge her concern. "Yeah, I can understand how this is really concerning you.
This is new for so many people. And many of us did not learn about inclusive education, particularly for students with the kind of complex support needs that some of our students will present. So I'd like to ask you a couple of questions that maybe will help respond to your concern, and also really just open the door to the dialogue that you and I will be having prior to when the student becomes your student and certainly afterwards. Just let me tell you, you are not gonna be in this alone.
We are going to be very careful to be sure that you and the students have a team of support around you." Okay, so that's kind of the beginning of the inquiry into finding out what is most concerning to this teacher. And as you begin to ask more questions and listen, and reflect back the teacher's comments, you will probably get a better picture of what the teachers, kind of like what the source of her concern is. Is it that she feels like she's gonna feel incompetent?
Is she worried that other people will be looking at her and thinking, you know, "Is this teacher gonna be successful or is she going to fail?" So it may be real concerns about her own efficacy as a teacher. She may be worried about the possibility that she does not, and has never had experiences with people who maybe don't communicate in the same way as her students. She may not know how to adapt her curriculum in appropriate way.
So as you begin to sort of ask more questions and listen to the teacher's response, it's going to give you that window into what her concerns are and enable you to then provide her with more information and with more reassurance. And I think the sort of final thing I would say about this is the importance of inquiry questions or an inquiry posture for opening up an open relationship and open paths of communication with this teacher. So think about how you would feel if someone, if an administrator was telling you you needed to have a new set of responsibilities. You would wanna feel as if you could come to that person with any question, that no questions were out of bounds.
So think about beginning to establish that kind of relationship with all the staff in the building.
