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Tips from the Educator’s Playbook
6 Ways
EDUCATORS CAN CREATE INCLUSIVE CLASSROOMS
S
tudents bring different experiences, talents, and abilities into every learning environment, but not all classrooms are set up to welcome that diversity. Assistant Professor María Cioè-Peña, a former bilingual special education teacher and author of the award-winning book (M)othering Labeled Children: Bilingualism and Disability in the Lives of Latinx Mothers, has some advice to help change that.
Below, she offers six ways educators can embrace diverse learners in a single classroom, whether they are multilingual, differ in their mobility levels, are neurodivergent, or are otherwise differently enabled.
Assistant Professor
María Cioè-Peña
María Cioè-Peña
1.
Invest time in universal design for learning.
Develop curriculum in multiple formats, like text, audio, and video. Some students prefer learning with one modality over another, while others may require a specific modality. Let students choose what works best for them—without having to ask permission to use them. For example, a student with vision loss may feel embarrassed to ask for audiobooks if they are not readily available. If possible, provide materials in multiple languages.
2.
Don’t label kids.
Use “special-ed student” and “special needs” carefully. “Special education” describes services designed to support student learning, not the students themselves. People with disabilities are not broken or less enabled than others. Nobody is fully enabled; we all have needs. When you label a kid “special needs,” the label can stick far longer than they have the need for any special help.
A roadmap for teachers: a simple, fun way to “map out” how to help provide students with instruction that matches their needs over a school year. Illustration by David Connor.
3.
Recognize that your goals may not be their goals.
Your students and their families have opinions, ideas, and the right to determine their own goals, which may not conform to your views of success. For example, non-English-speaking parents may want their child to speak in the language of their community or home country, but they might need help to articulate or advocate for that need. When decisions need to be made for a student, engage families as full partners in the decision-making process.
4.
Ableism is a toxic addition to racism.
Students who enter special education are often kept out of gifted and talented programs or mainstream classrooms. That’s not fair to talented kids with disabilities. And it’s especially unfair when you consider that many children in special education programs are students of color. To make sure that all students have a chance to reach their full potential, design your learning environment to accommodate all kinds of learners.
Illustration by David Connor, professor emeritus of urban education at CUNY’s Graduate Center who wrote the afterward to Cioè-Peña’s book, (M)othering Labeled Children: Bilingualism and Disability in the Lives of Latinx Mothers.
5.
Be conscious of culture.
Kids will be more likely to listen to you if you listen to them. If your students come from different cultures, especially if those cultures are different than yours, be sensitive to their understanding of what is expected.
6.
Representation matters.
Incorporate disabled experiences into everyday lessons. When children hear stories about disabled people in the normal course of instruction (say, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man in a wheelchair who was president of the United States), they are more likely to understand that people with disabilities are part of everyone’s culture.
LISTEN UP
(We have a podcast!)
Listen UP
(We have a podcast!)
Learn more from Cioè-Peña and other Penn GSE experts in our new companion podcast to the Educator’s Playbook. Find all the episodes at penng.se/podcast or on your preferred podcasting platform.
