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ASSIGNMENT 1 INCLUSIVE EDUCATION ESSAY

DUE DATE: 3RD APRIL 2017

LENGTH: 2000 WORDS

As Australian society becomes increasingly diverse, so do our school student

populations. Similarly, as fewer and fewer students with additional needs seek
enrolment in special, or alternative, education facilities, we see an increase in
numbers of students with disabilities, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), in
mainstream schooling. While policies and legislature prohibit these students
exclusion from schools, and indeed endorse inclusive practices, legislation so rarely,
if ever, translates to a shift in cultural attitudes. Thus, students with disabilities, such
as ASD, continue to be victimised and discriminated against, both at a macro,
institutionalised level, and a micro, face-to-face, classroom level. As individual
teachers, the best we can do for the inclusion of students with disability in our
teaching practice, is aid a shift in attitude within our classrooms by using culturally
responsive pedagogy and teaching social emotional learning.

As of 1992, it became unlawful in Australia to discriminate against any individual, or

their associates, specifically on the basis of disability (DET, n.d.). The Disability
Discrimination Act (1992) prohibits the unfair treatment of individuals with physical,
intellectual, psychiatric, sensory, neurological and learning disabilities by any
individual person, group or institution (DET, n.d.). This emphatically extends to the
sphere, and institution, of Australian schooling. As such, all Australian schools are
mandated to treat students with disability on the same basis as any other student,
and must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that their learning opportunities
are of equal standard (Commonwealth of Australia, 2006, p. 11, 13). This includes
protecting students with disability from discrimination within the school
environment. Though disability discrimination cases in the past have often fared
poorly in the court system (OConnell, 2016), schools can, and have, been court-
ordered to make settlements, pay damages (Novakovic, 2015) and public apologies
(ABC News, 2010) in reparation for their discrimination against students with

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disabilities and their families. Thus, all Australian schools must be inclusive of all
students and make efforts to address students diverse needs, regardless of their
disability.

Inclusive education enables all students to learn to the best of their abilities, despite
their differences, without segregation or humiliation. As an issue of equity rather
than equality, it entails giving each student the tools they need to reach the same
outcome, even if the tools that each student needs to get there are different, and
more or less than their peers. Thus, at its best, inclusion involves the full
participation of all students in all aspects of schooling (Loreman, Deppeler &
Harvey, 2011). As mentioned above, students with disability are treated on the
same basis, meaning that they have the same, or similar, opportunities and choices
in enrolling in educational institutions, decision-making about enrolment and
treatment by an education provider, and participation in courses or programs, and
use of services and facilities, as any other student without disability (Commonwealth
of Australia, 2006). Where necessary, this must be achieved by making reasonable
adjustments, that is, the school must take action to remove or reduce the barriers
that hinder students disabilities. These are deemed reasonable so long as the
needs of all stakeholders are considered and addressed (Commonwealth of
Australia, 2006). So, for example, it would be a reasonable adjustment for a school
to install an elevator to accommodate a student in a wheelchair reaching the second,
or subsequent, floor, provided it had the funds to do so. It would be an unreasonable
adjustment to install a wheelchair lift attachment to a narrow staircase, for it may
impede other students. However, there is more to inclusive education than merely
the presence of students with disabilities in the school, rather it involves positive
attitudes of all involved parties.

Despite relevant anti-discriminatory and inclusive legislation, and the emphasis on

inclusion in teacher education and professional development, cultural and
institutional attitudes towards students with disability are not necessarily improving.
From the late nineteenth and throughout out the twentieth centuries, students who

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were deemed ineducable due to disability were excluded from mandatory

mainstream schooling, and instead attended alternative special education centres
(Loreman et al., 2011, p. 38). What with the Disability Discrimination Act (1992) and
the Disability Standards for Education (2005), the turn of the twentieth century has
an seen increased presence of students with disability in Australian mainstream
schools. However, these students continue to endure discrimination on the basis of
their disabilities (Children with Disability Australia, 2015; State of Victoria, 2012).
Though initial teacher education can positively influence teachers attitudes towards
students with disabilities (Woodcock, 2013; Carroll, Forlin, & Jobling, 2003),
numerous teachers and administrators seemingly lack the shift in attitude necessary
to foster inclusive education in their classrooms and schools. For example, Karen
Jones daughter was refused accommodation at Melbourne Girls Grammar after she
was diagnosed with learning difficulties by the schools speech pathologist, one of
the five hundred similar complaints and reports made to Children with Disability
Australia annually (Cook, 2016). Unfortunately, students with disabilities are also
being discriminated against in the classroom and playground.

The exclusion of students with disability, such as ASD, by institutional authorities

from mainstream schooling is reflected in the classroom (or playground) microcosm
of society, in that these students find difficulty being included in social groups and
friendships. That is, if cultural attitudes cannot be shifted at a macro level, we can
hardly expect a standard of inclusion at a micro level, certainly not without particular
effort of school staff to foster positive attitudes in students without disability.
Research findings indicate that students with disabilities, such as ASD, tend to have
fewer friends, poorer friendship quality, and experience more loneliness, than
students without disability (Locke, Ishijima, Kasari, & London, 2010). Furthermore,
students with disabilities reportedly experience more bullying and victimisation than
students without disabilities (Sentenec et al., 2011; Rose et al., 2015). For example,
one student from a Catholic mainstream school reported:

One time we were doing painting and one girl got some paint in my hair. She and her friends
told me to go into the bathroom so they could help me get it out. They locked the door and

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shoved my head into the sink under some boiling water. I have always been bullied at school
because I am different and I can sometimes say things in a way I dont mean (State of
Victoria, 2012).

Such treatment and victimisation of students with, or without, disability constitutes

a significant risk to their social and emotional wellbeing, which every teacher has a
responsibility to positively influence to the best of their ability.

One of the more important things individual teachers can do for students with ASD
or other disabilities is foster social emotional wellbeing, including the
encouragement of positive social interactions and relationships with other students.
All students need to feel like they belong and are supported by those around them.
Provided that they themselves possess skills of social emotional competency,
teachers can support students with disabilities, and it is certainly a reasonable
adjustment, by teaching them the social skills necessary to forge and participate in
social networks, as positive relationships foster connectedness and feelings of
belonging and are essential for wellbeing (NSW DEC, 2015, p. 3). This is particularly
important for students with ASD, as per their tendency towards difficulty in
interpreting and sustaining socially appropriate verbal and non-verbal
communication, which undoubtedly impacts their ability to form friendships (Boutot,
2007; Positive Partnerships, n.d.). For example, in Locke et al.s (2010) study,
students with ASD could indicate what characteristics a friend should have; patience,
helpfulness, dependability, tolerance and resilience, yet they could also acknowledge
and lament that themselves lacked these skills. All students can benefit from
learning social skills, as social emotional learning is linked to academic improvement,
emotional wellbeing, resilience and coping with stress, and positive behaviour
(Sparks, 2011). Social emotional learning can also dramatically reduce bullying,
fighting and victimisation for students with disabilities (Espelage, Rose, & Polanin,
2015). With careful planning skills on the part of the teacher, social emotional
learning can be incorporated into content area instruction using culturally
responsive pedagogy.

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Culturally responsive pedagogy provides a valuable stepping stone to teaching social

emotional skills, as it values the strengths and narratives that individual students
may bring to the classroom, places high expectations on students, and fosters
student socio-cultural literacy. For teachers, it involves first examining ones own
cultural attitudes and reflecting upon how they impact their treatment of students,
thus reflection and self-honesty are necessary skills (Richards, Brown & Forde, 2006).
Doing so enables teachers to place the same high-expectations on all students.
Culturally responsive instruction also involves sharing, acknowledging and validating
the diverse cultural experiences of all students, so that the students will value and
respect each other, despite any differences (Richards et al., 2006). In order to do so,
teachers must be skilled at classroom management and open communication, highly
observant, so as to squash negative communication immediately, and they must be
firm but fair negotiators. Teachers must also foster, and model, deep listening for
students, so that they will learn to truly listen to each other.

Story sharing is one strategy that can also help students to learn social skills,
especially those with ASD, or other disabilities. Particularly, social stories allow
students to address their own socially unacceptable behaviours (Ben-Arieh & Miller,
2009). It could also be easily incorporated into an English class, with a focus on
descriptive or figurative language, or similar. Students first isolate the chosen
behaviour, then, rather than write a story about the misbehaviour, instead write one
in which the student behaves positively and appropriately, and the resulting
benefits. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) may be incorporated into this activity
(Gordon, Meyer & Rose, 2016): students are provided with multiple means of
engagement and self regulation, as they focus on their own behaviour that
dissatisfies them; students are provided with multiple means of expression, as they
may construct their story in a written, auditory or visual, digital or non-digital,
singular or multi-modal, format of their choice. The activity may be scaffolded to
further support students, for equitys sake. Sharing these stories with the class may
help students with and without disability alike to understand each others
behaviours and encourage social interaction.

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The Drama classroom also offers unique opportunities for teaching social skills to
students, with or without disability. Studying Drama may be of particular benefit to
students with ASD and other additional needs, as the experiential and interpersonal
nature of Drama allows students to build upon their social skills, needs and
relationships, which may have been neglected in other, and previous, areas of their
schooling. This is because:

The collaborative nature of this artform engages students in a creative process of sharing,
developing and expressing emotions and ideas. It is a form of action in which students take
on a role as a means of exploring both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of their world. They
portray aspects of human experience while exploring the ways people react and respond to
different situations, issues and ideas (Board of Studies NSW, 2003, p. 8)

As such, narrative pedagogy (Peter, 2009), which utilises a narrative framework called
Prescribed Drama Structure (PDS), can be used to help students with ASD better
understand a prescribed text for study (e.g. play script), or a current social, political,
or cultural, event. PDS involves a predictable narrative, a shared interest, taking
turns, fantasy play interaction, dramatic simulation and mimicry, and socially
acceptable reciprocation. It may help students to better understand social action
and reaction, as the predictable structure [affords] opportunities to consolidate
their understanding of this basic social narrative (Peter, 2009, p. 12). The three
dimensions of narrative pedagogy and drama work, which together distil into
meaningful experience (Peter, 2009, p. 10) include: (i) affective engagement
feeling good from participating with others and learning about themselves; (ii)
providing a learning experience that is at an appropriate cognitive level for students,
that is, neither too easy or too difficult, and is adequately scaffolded; (iii) complex
nature of teaching the play narrative, which affords opportunities for quality
teaching moments, for example, pivotal moments that impel further action, which
involve tension, and consequences, these moments may be explicitly revealed and
talked through (Peter, 2009, p. 11). Thus, coherent, meaningful, contextualised
learning may occur through imagined experience (Peter, 2009, p. 13), that is,
through creativity, sensitivity and communication to achieve social understanding.

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The inclusion of students with ASD or other disabilities in the mainstream classroom
requires careful planning on the teachers part. It is important to teach students
both with and without disability how to socialise with each other and be inclusive of
each other despite their differences. True inclusion at a micro level cannot occur
with a class segregated into groups categorised by ability or disability. It must be
acknowledged that the strategies described in this paper are but examples which
indeed have their limitations, and that there are many more strategies and
pedagogies available for teaching in an inclusive classroom, as related to social
interaction, cultural competency, or more academic ones. It must also, however, be
reinforced that a focus on improving social emotional skills will lead to improved
academic outcomes and general school success. Most importantly it will help to
secure the wellbeing of our students, with or without the additional learning needs
associated with disability.

References

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ABC News. (2010, December 21). Private school loses autism discrimination case
[online article]. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-12-
21/private-school-loses-autism-discrimination-case/2381838

Ben-Arieh, J. & Miller, H.J. (2009). The educators guide to teaching students with
autism spectrum disorders. USA: Corwin.

Board of Studies NSW. (2003). Drama years 7-10 syllabus. Retrieved from
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/pdf_doc/drama_710_sylla
bus.pdf

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guidance notes). Retrieved from
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Cook, H. (2016, January 21). Disabled children shut out of private schools. The Age.
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discrimination act 1992. Retrieved March 27, 2017, from
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dda_0.pdf

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Espelage, D.L., Rose, C.A., & Polanin, J.R. (2015). Social-emotional learning program
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with disabilities. Remedial and Special Education, 36(5), 299-311. Doi:
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Gordon, D. Meyer, A., & Rose, D. (2016). Universal design for learning: Theory and
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Locke, J., Ishijima, E.H., Kasari, C., & London, N. (2010). Loneliness, friendship quality
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Novakovic, C. (2015, September 3). School ordered to pay $8,000 in damages to

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OConnell, K. (2016, February 2). What are your rights if your child with a disability is
denied a school place? [Online article]. Retrieved from
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Peter, M. (2009). Drama: Narrative pedagogy and socially challenged children. British
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eet%2010_DSM-5_Nov13(1).pdf

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Richards, H.V., Brown, A.F., & Forde, T.B. (2006). Addressing diversity in schools:
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Educational Systems (NCCREST). Retrieved 16 December 2016, from
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Rose, C. A., Stormont, M., Wang, Z., Simpson, C. G., Preast, J. L., & Green, A. L.
(2015). Bullying and students with disabilities: Examination of disability status
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Victorian schools. Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
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