My paper on educating both sides

'The search for balance in educating both sides: 'students with and without disabilities in high school', including current limitations within the inclusive education space.

___________________________________________________________________________

Introduction

Amid a constantly changing school environment, it is important to remain students and needs focused. Such an endeavour requires a combination of equity and equality; an ongoing balancing attempt to meet the needs of both students with and without disabilities, made more difficult with high demands from all sides, resource constraints and human limitations. Throughout this paper, I will be exploring the discourse around the needs to educate mainly both students with and without disabilities, as well as teachers, parents, and the community, to create a pro-inclusive education environment. Indeed, every student has the equal right to education, the challenge is to find the right equitable means to support everyone holistically.

Understanding the environment

To begin the discussion, I began with some scholarly literature that delved into scenarios with young children, in this case, aged 8 to 12 years old with very limiting disabilities such as high intellectual disabilities such as an IQ range between 20 and 30 and highly limiting physical motor skills (Fotiadou et al, 2017). The article addresses how the combination of the interaction between these two disabilities within the school environment, naturally had a strong correlation towards the student’s wellbeing and subsequently their performance. While this study explored a Greek primary school context, the fundamental parallels of students’ desire for a strong sense of belonging within a school is universal. Interestingly, Fotiadou et al (2017) encourages the young students with a disability to learn more about themselves and their disabilities first, alongside educating other students without disabilities about the nature of disabilities. This prioritisation approach of encouraging and supporting students with a disability to understand their own disabilities at the forefront has been successful to minimise negative interaction between students with and without disabilities (Fotiadou et al, 2017), as they begin to understand that their circumstances are inherently different to some of their peers, thereby minimising ‘shock’ when they do feel like they receive ‘different treatment’. This approach to teaching students with disabilities about themselves is quite pre-emptive and coupled with tailored support to these students, alongside educating awareness and empathy to students without disabilities can be very powerful.

Armstrong (2013) explores some limitations to the inclusive education environment, which I thought was important to understand on a broader, introductory level before delving deeper into the discussion of balancing perspectives to both students with and without disabilities. Armstrong (2013) believes that every individual student in any school, have their own unique demands and needs, regardless of disability or not. To answer this fundamental need, he recommends viewing inclusive education as a “process of continuous improvement” rather than an “achievable end goal”. This highly pragmatic positioning focuses more on the learning environment rather than a single solution, acknowledging that education, like all things, is constantly changing. Indeed, Armstrong (2013) extends that inclusive education should be a recognition of diversity among all students, rather than a “narrow definition of normality”. This is in alignment with the above Fotaidou et al’s (2017) study, where there is a strong encouragement to educate and support both students with and without disabilities equally. I also recognise that since the publishing of this article, 10 years have passed, and the inclusive education space has dramatically shifted.

A more critical view of inclusive education by Hatcher (2015), explores how the inclusive education movement may be misconstrued by certain stakeholders, particularly management within schools who focus on monetary gains and public image. Hatcher (2015) argues how the inclusive education paradigm often fails to address broader macro issues within education and society, such as budget cuts and competing against privatised schools with greater funding. Hatcher poses that the focus to propel true inclusive education is to address broader concerns such as poverty, racism, and discrimination before disability as such barriers encompass all students with or without disability. While this may sound quite controversial or seemingly irrelevant initially, I believe it is in alignment with the above two journal articles as he is encouraging for true inclusive education, the elimination of ‘segregated education’ for students with disabilities and focusing more on holistic equality-driven education for all. Hatcher (2015) can be understood further by his criticism of often ‘privatised’ inclusive education settings such as ‘special education schools’. He argues that having such separation increases market competition and poses more accessibility and quality concerns. There is also an inherent barrier and disconnection between students with and without disabilities when there should be more synergy. Hatcher (2015) extends this argument by highlighting how students with disabilities who are not performing within the segregated learning units, will tend to gravitate towards privatised institutions to catch up such as tuition, therapy, and specialised support. While I do not believe Hatcher discourages the use of such equity-based services, I can appreciate the sentiment that the inclusive education environment should be more equality oriented for both to minimise sole reliance on extra support for all: students with and without disabilities.

Findings: Empowering self-advocacy for students with disabilities

My research significantly focuses on the education of self-advocacy for students with disabilities, an approach which thematically believes in prevention rather than intervention. Baecher and Connor’s (2019) research encourage students with disabilities, within a guided practice, to be introspective and reflective with themselves to come to terms with their own identity. This honest process allows students with disabilities have a stronger connection to their own disabilities, minimising any negative interactions between them and students without disabilities. Specifically, students with disabilities can understand that sometimes their peers without disabilities can be insensitive due to their inherent lack of understanding of disabilities. Baecher and Connor (2019) explore some instances where students without disabilities can judge students with disabilities, not because of any deep malice but inherently because “they only know what they truly know”. Self-advocacy can be seen as a preventative measure for students with disabilities to hold personal autonomy and empower themselves, while also minimising conflict with their peers in a school environment. It is important to note that this must be supplemented by ongoing training and awareness for students without disabilities, as well as staff, parents and even the community.

Kalyanpur (2014) explores more of the inverse of what the above Baecher and Connor (2019) did not, disability training and awareness for those without disabilities in a school environment. She defines disability awareness as fundamental to true inclusive education and reforming the environment, and that it is beyond mere understanding. She argues that often there is a one-dimensional ‘lecture’ about disability towards students without disability. Often this can be unengaging, particularly with poor delivery and potential lack of passion, and can inherently create unintentional by-products such as bullying (Kalyanpur, 2014). Disability awareness must be carefully delivered to maximise realism and empathy. Kalyanpur (2014) highlights how there is significantly incorrect pre-conceived notions about disability from those without disability in all contexts. Her findings only exacerbate the importance of students with disability’s self-advocacy to bridge the current gap between the two sides.

Whittaker and Garvey (2019) provide further research in a more anecdotal manner compared to Baecher and Connor (2019), but nonetheless argue similarly for self-advocacy in students with disabilities. Whittaker and Garvey (2019) identify how students with disabilities often face strong barriers to self-determination, which have a strong correlation to self-advocacy and ultimately directly impacts their positive sense of being at school and learning. This is due to students with disabilities lacking opportunities to make their own decisions and often have others, without disabilities in many cases, such as parents, support workers, teachers and even peers, make these decisions for them (Whittaker and Garvey, 2019). This research encourages all students to be able to make their own decisions as a matter of equality, but argues that initially, there must be more equity for students with disabilities, to be supported to make their own decisions more as an investment to true holistic inclusive education.

Findings: Bringing both students with and without disabilities together

To actively bridge this current gap between students with and without disabilities, it is evident that there needs to be more empathy. Gallagher and Connor (2015) introduce this concept of social competence, a mutual effort to understand one another. There is an increasing demand on teachers and students without disabilities to be more ‘inclusive’ and understand the experiences and lives of those with disabilities. Gallagher and Connor (2015) extend the need for efforts to also come from students with disabilities. This is an extension to the above scholars such as Baecher and Connor (2019), Whittaker and Garvey (2019) concepts of self-advocacy and self-determination as this concept is more about mutuality in effort. Indeed, effort is a two-way street as is socialisation. Gallagher and Connor (2015) endorse activities and exercises which involve both students with and without disabilities to ‘perspective take’, where they ‘try to live’ and role play the experiences of their peers to powerfully establish empathy through positive social interactions. This emphasis on the ‘human’ between students reminds participants including teachers, parents, and the community that everyone is human and to collaborate collectively to progress inclusivity forward.

Kelly’s (2013) research examined the attitudes of high school students without disabilities’ perceptions on their peers with disabilities. There was a significant number of students who felt a moral responsibility to feel sympathy and patience towards their peers, however the core identified issue was that ultimately, these students felt they were more ‘superior’ to their peers in some way. Rather than sympathy, Kelly’s focus is on empathy. Kelly’s study reveals how some of these common views from students without disabilities stems from their belief that those with disabilities may be inherently less competent or less social than themselves. This created more harmful by-products of interaction paralysis where students without disabilities felt more uncomfortable interacting with peers with disabilities, even with given opportunities (Kelly, 2013). Kelly’s research largely focuses on identification of issues and is limited in recommendations. The article ends with a broad recommendation to try and create more open-ended, curiosity driven, positive communication between the two sides to alleviate the students without disabilities’ feelings of ‘tiptoeing’ around students with disabilities.

Jordan (2019) explores a similar learning model to Gallagher and Connor (2015) for both students with and without disabilities in the physical education environment. I believe this research poses an answer to Kelly’s (2013) above concerns. This ‘co-teaching’ model in a very tangible environment such as sport, provides a unique, visual, and sensory opportunity for all students to learn more about each other. Like Gallagher and Connor (2015), Jordan (2019) argues that true inclusive learning environments are collaborative between both students with and without disabilities and hinges on empathy. However, Jordan (2019) goes beyond and asserts the powerful connecting ability of joint problem solving. Through the tangibility of sport and its demand for teamwork, Jordan (2019) captures how students with and without disabilities work together to identify their strengths and weaknesses to solve a problem and achieve goals. This process organically strengthens the bond between all students and sets a precedence and opportunity for future development in relationships, whilst simultaneously destroying any preconceived, incorrect assumptions about one another.

Lederer (2015) conceptually brings together the above three articles through her concept of ‘affective empathy’. This concept responds to Kelly’s (2013) concern about action paralysis between students with and without disabilities. This concept also summarises the intentions and outcomes of Jordan’s (2019) endorsement of sport to bring together students with and without disabilities. Furthermore, this concept affirms Gallagher and Connor’s (2015) assertion of empathy through role playing, perspective taking exercises, a more cognitive task than Jordan’s (2019). Affective empathy is the fostering of curiosity between both students with and without disabilities (Lederer, 2015) and is less nuanced and focuses simply on ‘human kindness’ through acknowledging and then being curious to the day-to-day struggles in everyone’s life. Much like anything, Lederer (2015) asserts that empathy must be trained on an ongoing basis with many likely interventions and is an investment for life beyond the educational institutions.

Inclusive education is an ongoing process. Dr Kathy Cologon, a renowned Australian academic and advocate for inclusive education and affirms that both students with and without disabilities need to be involved continuously to identify and address ongoing barriers to learning (Cologon, 2013). This is an eternal process of acting and balancing and involves an intensive unlearning experience for all stakeholders including students, parents, teachers, and society as a whole (Cologon, 2013). I reviewed this literature from Cologon (2013) and will begin to deviate towards challenges and limitations within the endeavour to balance perspectives for both students with and without disabilities, in the inclusive education space in schools.

Challenges, limitations, and my conclusions

Cologon (2013) highlights the high demands and pressure on teachers to be more inclusive in the classroom. For inclusive education to be practically applied, teachers need to be viewed as inherently human beings, who are the responsible forefront of education. Teachers face pressure from all sides, from students, management, the Government, parents and even society such as media outlets. To summarise, Cologon (2013) advocates for effective, ongoing training, support, and development for teachers. The below articles explore different perspectives on teacher limitations to progressing the battle to educate both sides: students with and without disabilities.

Kalyanpur and Harry (2013) explore inherent teacher bias as a limitation, which affects their attitude towards truly driving for inclusive education. Indeed, their innate attitudes have a strong correlation with how proactively they seek to further inclusive education and how committed they are to the cause over time (Kalyanpur and Harry, 2013). Through a series of interviews, they found that teachers and parents with a personal connection to disabilities were far more likely to view the efforts for inclusive education as truly valuable. For example, a teacher with a daughter who has autism, and a parent whose son has an intellectual disability were far more proactive in the inclusive education activity (Kalyanpur and Harry, 2013). This raises the question of how to genuinely raise more teachers’ intrinsic commitment for the push for inclusive education. Some of the previously explored articles would suggest focussing more on the ‘human’ and oblige to humanity’s moral obligation to help one another but I understand there are limitations and distractions to this in the minute day to day events.

Vaz and Wilson (2014) provide a broad answer to this limitation of teacher disposition. Rather than an answer, it is more of an adhering principle. Through their study, they had similar findings to Kalyanpur and Harry (2013), affirming that personal connection to disability in some way, was a “stronger predictor of positive attitude towards inclusion.” Indeed, such personal connections were far more powerful over any professional training on inclusivity. However, Vaz and Wilson (2014) found that a relentless, ongoing discussion about inclusive education in the school environment propelled progression in inclusive education regardless of a stakeholder’s personal stance on inclusivity. The broad answer to the limitations of teachers’ attitudes towards limitation posed by Vaz and Wilson (2014) is to keep the noise of inclusivity going through the forms of regular development and support for teachers.

Ayramidis and Norwich (2020) take teacher limitations in the inclusive education space beyond, encompassing the entire school culture itself as a potential limitation. The school culture comprises of all students, teaching staff, management, parents and the community and each node plays a part in the overall image of inclusive education (Ayramidis and Norwich, 2020). For example, schools with a low percentage of students with disabilities may have a lack of support available for them because of ‘supply and demand’, while on the other hand, a school with a P and C committee with a strong voice for inclusivity such as above-ground level, wheelchair accessible classrooms, will catalyse the school to consider such adjustments (Ayramidis and Norwich, 2020). Their research focuses not only on identifying the limitation as school culture but encouraging sustainable, long-term change. This is through the very arduous but no doubt rewarding long term commitment of incrementally changing the attitudes of everyone, particularly the relationship between students with and without disabilities using some of the above recommendations.

In contrast, McLeskey and Waldron (2018) argue that limitations within this space are caused by a lack of research on students without disabilities and their perception of students with disabilities. Students without disabilities statistically make up a much larger number than students with disabilities, although the number of students with disability is increasing (McLeksey and Waldron, 2018). It is important to understand how the majority, students without disabilities will respond to more equity-based actions as they misinterpret this effort by seeing it as unequitable for them to make inclusion acceptable by everyone. McLeskey and Waldron (2018) give some recommendations such as school student driven peer leadership including those with disabilities and those without but acknowledge the fundamental lack of specification and the need for further research.

Indeed, it is a difficult battle to balance as one side may inherently feel less supported than the other. McDonell and Hardiman (2013) examine this challenging attempt to balance, as the discourse is reactionary and both students with and without disability still consider themselves fundamentally different at large. McDonnell and Hardiman’s case study (2013) identifies how students without disabilities within high schools and their parents often argue that a focus on resources towards students with disabilities leads to deficiency in support for them. Broadly, an equity-based approach towards education has lead students without disabilities and their parents feel they are not treated with equality. While this may seem ironic to some, these occurrences reveal the great challenge of striving for balance between the inclusive education space. It also reveals the hidden, or not so hidden barriers within this space of parental conflict combined with resource limitations. To address this concern, McDonnell and Hardiman (2013) advocates for more involvement of all families, community members and school staff in the educational process. While this may seem like impending conflict waiting to happen, it is important to recognise that conflict and dissonance is inevitable for progress to occur and to not avoid it. Through heated and engaging discussion, a mutually respected and recognised consensus between students with and without disabilities along with parents and staff, will be more likely to be achieved (McDonnell and Hardiman, 2013).

Finally, there is the limitation of funding. Nichols et al (2016) explores how in particular, government funded schools have limitations in their funding which results in careful prioritisation which often considers the 'average' student at the heart of decision making. This is a similar examination to that of McDonell and Hardiman’s (2013), in the dichotomy between resource allocation and prioritisation between students with and without disabilities. There is no easy answer to resolve this discussion except to continue challenging the 'norm' and reassessing the paradigms (Nichols et al, 2016). Ultimately, as the above articles have aligned, this endeavour is a time taking investment which initially demands equity in mind to balance out the deficiencies, but ultimately with the purpose to create equality for all.

Further implications and insights

Van Kaayenoord et al (2014) asserts that we must remain evidence-based rather than opinionated to minimise emotionally driven arguments which often exacerbates misunderstanding and further division. Personal beliefs may remain untested whilst evidence-based practices ensure adherence to quantifiable and qualitative data and research, thus allowing for relevant stakeholders to make better informed decisions (Van Kaayenoord et al, 2014). Admittedly and to further complicate matters, the success of evidence-based practice also relies on another delicate balancing effort with allowing stakeholders to express personal beliefs and to feel heard.

A noteworthy consideration for further research in this field is the development for students with disabilities, particularly cognitive, to understand how their behaviour can impact others negatively. This recommendation is based off my above findings, particularly Jordan (2019), Gallagher and Connor (2015) on building students with disabilities, particularly cognitive, capacity to understand themselves and how it is important that they recognise how their behaviour can affect others. Gates et al (2017) recommends further efforts and investment into social skills training for these students with disabilities, such as behavioural, speech and occupational therapists. This unique combination of using specialised instruction, modelling and ongoing practice built upon organic, resource effective and holistic practices will be pivotal to making substantial and efficient leaps in the inclusive education space.

As the demand for inclusive education grows, there will inevitably be criticisms towards the efforts given. Kauffman and McGee (2021) affirm that there are two sides to any situations, and I believe captures my overarching advocation for an ongoing endeavour to strive for balance, to continue educating both sides and all sides but particularly, students with and without disabilities. Through mutual understanding and collaboration, the problems will begin to solve itself and answers may come from within by both parties (Kauffman and McGee, 2021) while parents, school staff and the greater community can continue working and supporting from the outside.