Love is a Classroom: Steps Toward Inclusive Practices with Andrew Goff ~ 1119

Tim Villegas
Hi everyone, it’s Tim, your friendly neighborhood inclusionist. Some of you know that I’ve been producing this podcast, Think Inclusive, since 2012. And since then, podcasting has evolved, especially in the last few years. Video podcasting is all the rage. And while this podcast for the foreseeable future will always be audio, we’ll be using video more and more as we plan for our next season, starting in September of 2024.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m not reading this from a script. This is exactly my process when I produce the audio podcast. All this to say, for this episode we’re trying out a video version, which will be posted on our YouTube channel. And by the way, if this is your first time hitting play on Think Inclusive, welcome. We are glad you’re here.

On Think Inclusive, we bring you conversations about inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. Are you a teacher in a special education classroom? Have you ever thought maybe there’s a better way to support learners with disabilities than to segregate them in separate classrooms? Our guest this week struggled with this exact question. If you want to hear his story of how love transformed his classroom and practice, keep listening.

Dr. Andrew Goff was an educator of children with and without disabilities for 12 years before transferring the knowledge and skills he developed as a teacher to work as a researcher, author, and college professor. He holds a bachelor’s in child psychology and a master’s in early childhood education, special education, from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He earned his doctorate in leadership for educational equity with an emphasis in early childhood special education from the University of Colorado Denver.

Every day, Dr. Goff learns more about how to advocate for the inclusion of children with disabilities in society. Love Is a Classroom, his first book, shares what he learned as a classroom teacher, but the lessons do not end with this story. Learning and sharing are lifelong endeavors for him.

This is what happens when you record on Wednesday at noon in Georgia—you hear the tornado sirens.

In this episode, we welcome Andrew Goff, who discusses his journey from supporting highly specialized class settings to embracing full inclusion in early childhood education. Throughout the conversation, Andrew reveals his insights on why the classroom should be a place of love and growth for all children, regardless of their abilities. He shares a powerful narrative centered around his experience with a student named Javan, illuminating the challenges and triumphs of creating a nurturing learning environment.

The discussion delves into the complexities of advocacy within an often rigid education system and the transition to leadership roles that can influence change. After a short break, my interview with Andrew Goff. And for free time this week, I want to take you on a walk with me as I reflect on this episode. Stick around, we’ll be right…

Tim Villegas
Andrew Goff, welcome to the Think Inclusive Podcast.

Andrew Goff
Thanks, Tim. It’s wonderful to be here.

Tim Villegas
Let’s talk about why Love Is a Classroom. What was the transformational moment that turned you around? You said at one point you were thinking maybe some kids really do need a special classroom with highly trained staff and intensive support. What changed your mind from that line of thinking?

Andrew Goff
To be honest, it wasn’t something that was an aha moment. That’s part of the writing process. When I went into writing this book, it was more for therapeutic reasons. I needed to process this experience. It had been two or three years since the passing of Javan, and I think I was just coming to a place both professionally and personally where I felt this was something I needed to talk about.

As I started to unpack it, I started to articulate the ideas. The turning point professionally—because I had said earlier that when I left the self-contained classroom, I did say it might be good for some children—came during the second half of the 2012–2013 school year.

As I saw how children without disabilities were growing and benefiting from this experience, and how appreciative parents were to see their children being inclusive, I saw the correlation between their child’s success and their child being kind to everyone in the class, creating a sense of belonging, welcoming Javan and welcoming the other children, whose names I changed in the book.

Seeing how beneficial it was to children without disabilities, to the families, to the children with disabilities—even children without IEPs who were disabled by the curriculum—it became clear to me that no child should be excluded. In my mind, it was neglectful in early childhood, of all places, not to provide children with the opportunity to thrive and grow.

Thinking back to my experiences in the self-contained classroom, in many aspects it was degrading—children at the end of the hall in a classroom. Nobody deserves that. It reinforces internalized messages parents have when bringing their kids to a self-contained versus an inclusive classroom. It creates a different level of energy for me as a teacher.

That turning point was in the middle of the school year as I saw everybody growing together.

Tim Villegas
If you’re listening to this conversation and you’re a teacher thinking, “Wait a minute, I teach self-contained and I don’t think it’s that bad,” I’ve been there. Andrew, I know you’ve been there. I think inherently educators want their students to succeed. They want their learners to grow.

I’ve met a few people who genuinely believe kids don’t belong, but out of a thousand educators, maybe one or two will say that. Most educators who think a student should be in self-contained don’t actually want to segregate kids in the negative sense.

It’s ableist—yes. Just like being racist, these ideas are baked into the experience of being an educator. We have to fight against that tendency. Absolutely. But there’s a lot of good intention going on, even if those intentions are actually harming kids.

Andrew Goff
Yeah. And I’d say kids and families. We think kids first. I sat down at transition meetings into kindergarten classrooms, and it was always, “How many minutes, and when are we going to mainstream them?” That felt good. That was the option. Everyone at that table who had any actual power agreed—“They’ll be with their typical peers X amount of time, and that’ll be great for their future.”

There weren’t other options. Or it didn’t feel like there were other options. That’s one of the challenges, especially early in my career when I didn’t understand advocacy or how to be an advocate. It was: here are our options, our least restrictive environments; let’s choose from them. There was never any questioning of why. Why are these the only environments?

It came down to philosophies held by administrators and by the district.

I always found it ironic how much districts talk about inclusion. It makes a great mission statement. But when it comes down to it, we’re still sitting at tables saying this child should go in this isolated classroom and that child should go in that classroom. It’s not inclusive.

As a teacher, I just sat back and said, “I want to keep my job. That’s the way it is.”

Tim Villegas
Yeah. Oh yeah. I know that that’s very relatable to a lot of people listening. The student you wrote about in Love Is a Classroom, Jovan—without telling us the whole book, of course, because there’s a lot in there—if someone said, “Andrew, what’s your book about?” how would you describe that? Give us your elevator pitch for people who are interested, because I think a lot of people would be interested in this story. So I’ll let you go ahead and speak.

Andrew Goff
Tim, I had to deal with this over the holidays. I went back to my family in Wisconsin. Huge supporters. They love me. “What’s your book about?” And I’m thinking, shoot, I’ve got to work on this elevator pitch. I’ve sat down and tried to calculate it. I’ve got it in writing, but actually talking about it is a little more difficult.

At the end of the day, what I want people to know is that we think we can understand what it means to educate children. We can have all the strategies and all the knowledge we think is out there, but there’s still so much to learn. And it’s not just learning from a textbook or from a training. Love Is a Classroom is about learning from children, learning from families, and learning from within—through reflection.

I learned so much from the principal at that school. She didn’t sit down and lecture me. She listened. I’d go into her office crying, and she listened. That taught me a lot. Javan’s mom and how she thought about his education, seeing the children respond to Javan—there’s so much you can learn by listening to children and reflecting on what they’re communicating. There’s often much deeper meaning than what’s on the surface.

That’s not an elevator pitch. Should I try to make that more succinct? Or can you cut that down?

Tim Villegas
We’ll see. Every interview is different. Sometimes I’ll load it into my editor and just start chipping away, and then all of a sudden it forms. I always have to take every conversation as its own unique thing. That’s one of the beautiful things about this medium. But it’s not always straightforward. You don’t just do ten steps and voilà, there’s a podcast episode.

As far as Javan is concerned, he came into the school system in preschool, correct?

Andrew Goff
Correct.

Tim Villegas
And Javan was a student with extensive support needs, some medical needs.

Andrew Goff
When he came in, the district designated him as “preschool with a severe disability.” He had a diagnosis from the children’s hospital—autism spectrum disorder. His documentation didn’t suggest he had needs beyond what we might provide for another child. He was having seizures when he came in, which isn’t unusual for our students. We have procedures. But that wasn’t the initial concern. Initially, it was: we’re working with a child with autism who has seizures.

It wasn’t until he started to regress in his development that we realized something else was going on. There were several red flags initially, but because of the nature of ASD, we were able to dismiss some of them. He was regressing—losing his ability to speak, losing his social engagement—but unlike autism, he was also losing gross motor functioning. He was losing his ability to walk and his balance.

As he started to regress and lose those motor skills, my teaching assistants and I sat down and said, “I don’t know if this is autism.” We looked at the other children on the autism spectrum and realized something else was happening.

Because his seizures were increasing, his mom already had him on the list for further evaluations at Children’s Hospital. She didn’t see him as a child with autism—he was her son. Whether he had that label or something else, she wanted to understand his symptoms. That’s what I gathered.

After evaluations, it became clear that this regression was something much more than autism.

Tim Villegas
Yeah.

Andrew Goff
The big challenge was adjusting to these constantly changing conditions. There were also other things going on in his family’s life. As teachers, especially early childhood educators, one of our essential skills is being able to adapt. We can create the lesson plan we want, but it’s never going to happen the way we planned. We’re always adapting on the fly.

That’s part of being an early childhood educator—or really an educator in general. But in most grade levels, you’re not worrying about what happens when one kid vomits, two kids need diapers changed, something spills, and you’re in the middle of trying to teach a lesson on “what lives in trees?”

Tim Villegas
Yeah, I’ve been there. What was the challenge as the student kept losing skills and having more needs in terms of inclusion? Was the team already committed to making this an inclusive learning environment for him, or did it take convincing? How did that go?

Andrew Goff
Status quo said this was no longer an environment for him. “He can’t be adequately served in your classroom, Andrew.” That was the thinking. Occupational therapists, physical therapists, school psychologists—they’re trained birth through death, so early childhood isn’t always their focus. Inclusion is more embraced in early childhood than in other age levels, but still, the team wasn’t saying, “We’re going to make this inclusive.” They were saying, “Andrew, whatever you think is best. You’re the teacher. If you want to do it, go for it.”

You asked about the challenges. We were in uncharted territory. His mom didn’t know all the resources he needed. Translating what he needed at home and from the medical community into what he needed in a school setting—that’s not the same thing.

We had to get the resources to support Javan in the classroom. I needed information from the physical therapist, from the speech-language pathologist. But it was more me going to them than them coming to me. That’s not unusual, but it made it challenging because I didn’t know what I was asking for.

Tim Villegas
Yeah. And so, I was going to say, I love your title, but love is in the title. So I’m trying to figure out how to say I appreciate the title of your book. So here’s my question. In the title, Love Is a Classroom, and having looked at the preview and reading your story, it seems like the love that you had for your student and for your classroom is what made the inclusive classroom possible. Everyone eventually had to pitch in, but the love is where creating the inclusive classroom came from, right?

Andrew Goff
Yeah. And I think that I came to recognize it as love later on. As a man in early childhood, you can’t say “I love you.” You can’t tell a child that. You can’t even think, “I love a child.” There are too many negative associations with men and affection, especially with young children. So to come to terms with—or recognize—love in that classroom, I had to step back ten years and say, that’s what it was.

At the time, I think it was more compassion. It was dignity. It was being supportive, never turning away because I was uncomfortable. But when you multiply everything that was happening, it all came down to love. It was love from the children, love from the families, love from me.

Not only does society reject or feel uneasy about men being affectionate toward children, society also doesn’t really have a universal definition of love. I wouldn’t necessarily say you have to “love your students” in order to create the classroom that came to be in the story from 2012–2013. It was more about compassion, understanding, respect, and embracing what everyone brought to the classroom. Not putting myself at the center.

Recognizing that children and families are at the center of the classroom. If I tried to drive everything, it wouldn’t be inclusive. And that’s a lesson I’ve carried with me—even into my college classes now. If I’m the center of the curriculum, it’s not going to be inclusive.

Tim Villegas
Yeah, that’s a great point. When I think about inclusive schools and common practices, the teacher being at the center—the one delivering instruction while the students are the receivers—it just doesn’t work that way.

Andrew Goff
Yeah. And I think in early childhood, in most cases, you don’t have anybody up there preaching. They’re not the sage on the stage. But they are the ones creating the lesson plans. They are the ones dictating what we’re going to be doing—here are the standards that will be taught, here are the IEP goals we need to accomplish.

Even if I walked into a typical early childhood classroom and compared it to a kindergarten or first-grade classroom, early childhood looks much closer to inclusion. The kids are interacting with each other, learning through experience. That looks like inclusion. But still, we tend to say, “Here’s the theme of the week. This is what we’re going to work on.” And that’s no different from the teacher being the center of the curriculum.

It’s much easier to bridge toward inclusion in early childhood, but it’s still the same structure: the teacher at the center. Definitely by the time you get to college, that’s how things work.

Tim Villegas
Yeah. How has the experience you write about changed your teaching practice after that experience and even now? Because I know you teach in college, or you prepare educators—is that right?

Andrew Goff
Yeah. I currently teach teachers how to teach. There’s a clear line from 2012 to 2023 in how my pedagogical perspective has shifted. That’s too long to get into fully right now, but something that often comes up when people read the book is this question: “Andrew, you had that great experience, but then you left the classroom two years later. Why would you have that experience and then decide to leave?”

The line is: I learned the importance of advocating. I learned the importance of leadership. From that time to now, when I work with professionals learning to become high-quality teachers, I’m always reiterating leadership—how to be a leader, how to be a follower, how to put children at the center.

What I learned in 2012 shaped the beliefs I hold now, what I teach, and the research I look at.

To answer the question of why I left the classroom two years later—that’s probably going to be the subject of my next book. But ultimately, I was trying to advocate. I was trying to lead. And when I sought support from leadership, it backfired. That’s not always the route to keeping your job. But I found a home for that work elsewhere.

I recognize the privilege I’ve had in being able to get to where I am now. I don’t know if I answered your question at all.

Tim Villegas
Well, you bring up a great point about the tension between being an educator and being an advocate. And by advocate, I mean recognizing there’s a problem with the educational system—it doesn’t matter what district. You pick a district and there’s going to be a problem.

The tension between “I’m an educator, they pay my bills, I support a family,” and “I want to change the system.” How do you walk that line? I worked in Georgia. Georgia’s an at-will state. There’s no union. They just fired a teacher in Georgia because they “broke the rules.” In the district where I worked, if you caused a big enough fuss, they’d find a way to get rid of you.

So how do you work in a system like that? You want to change things, but you also need to show up to your job every day. You have students, faculty, people relying on you. It’s a tough situation.

Andrew Goff
Yeah. I see that in my adult learners. Most of them work in childcare programs and are paid minimum wage. It’s about survival. They come into these classes, and I try to keep things realistic. There’s a leadership hierarchy. People aren’t trained well, especially in leadership.

But it creates that tension: “Andrew, you’re teaching us great things about including children and strategies for guidance. But when I get to my classroom, my teaching assistant doesn’t understand what I’m talking about. My administrator is pulled in every direction. The teacher next door says mean things about me because I’m pursuing my education.”

They ask, “How do I do this? How do I take what you’re teaching and what the research shows will work, and actually apply it?”

There’s never one simple answer. Fortunately, I know my students and I can understand the angles they’re coming from. But it comes down to remembering you’re not in this for yourself. Focus on the kids and the families.

Advocacy is a slow process. The changes won’t happen overnight.

And you can be an advocate in your own classroom. Teaching children how to create a learning space where they can be leaders and followers. Teaching assistants small pieces at a time. One of the difficult things about inclusion is we try to take big leaps. My students hear stories from my classroom and want to recreate that immediately. But it’s incremental.

Start with your own practices. Start with your teaching assistants. Start with your families. Start with your children.

Tim Villegas
Yeah.

Andrew Goff
The truth is, administrators—so long as they don’t have to be putting out fires in your classroom—usually aren’t going to care. Hone those skills and then become a director yourself, become a leader yourself, and put yourself in the position where you can make those decisions. It’s a lot easier to become a director in a childcare program than it is to become a principal or an administrator in public education. So I think there’s a little bit more power in that path.

Maybe I’ve just learned how to satisfy my own students, because they seem more satisfied with the idea of, “I’m going to get more education because I want to become a director,” and that’s inspiring to them. Advocacy doesn’t have to be about changing the whole system. If you try to take on the system—like you were talking about in Georgia—I was in Arizona before this, also an at-will state. I could be cut loose at any point, but nobody was going to cut me loose for what I was doing to advocate in my classroom to help children be more inclusive.

But there’s a lot more to that, because I know there’s a lot of scrutiny on what teachers are doing at the K–12 level.

Tim Villegas
Especially now. You referenced a book you wanted to recommend. Obviously Love Is a Classroom—go out and get Love Is a Classroom, read it, tell Andrew what you think of it. But you also have another book you want to plug, right?

Andrew Goff
Yeah. I’ve admired the work of many folks ahead of me. There are a lot of great people who have helped guide me in understanding my own practices. Love Is a Classroom is a story that helped me understand why this work is so important, but even when you understand your why, it can be frustrating: “I know why I want this, but how do I do it?”

I’ve been able to turn to the work at InclusiveSchooling—InclusiveSchooling.com—Julie Causton and Kristi Prentice-Fronsek. They do a phenomenal job. I love their work and how they answer the question of “Here’s what we need to do, and here’s how we do it.”

Their book The Way to Inclusion was released a couple of months ago. Along with all their other work, it’s a great resource.

Tim Villegas
We both have copies of it on our desks, apparently.

Andrew Goff
We’ll send this over to them and say “#inclusiveschooling.” Their work always looks at leadership—and not just administrators, but leadership around the entire school. I encourage listeners and readers of my book to set it down when they’re done and ask, “How do I want to do this? I’m inspired. I want this to happen.” And then know they can go over to the work at Inclusive Schooling and get guidance on how their district or school can make it happen.

Tim Villegas
After a quick break, the mystery question.
If you could install one piece of advice in a baby’s mind—like you’re placing the advice directly in their mind—what advice would you give? Maybe a child, maybe a young child.

Andrew Goff
In today’s modern era, what would that piece of advice be? So is this like planting a seed?

Tim Villegas
Yeah. That’s how I’d interpret it.

Andrew Goff
I have a thirteen-year-old now and a ten-year-old, and I’m a very active father. I thought I was instilling all these things in their heads as infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Now they’re hitting adolescence, and I’m questioning everything. Is the seed still there? I feel like it’s completely died. They’re lovely—don’t get me wrong—but I’m not seeing the fruits I expected.

Based on research I follow, I think it comes down to compassion. We are social beings, and no matter our skills, we all have the ability to be compassionate.

Tim Villegas
No, I know.

Andrew Goff
And you’re not giving me any time in advance to process this.

Tim Villegas
That’s the whole point, Andrew. Surprise!

Andrew Goff
Yeah. Compassion. I’d say that. And curiosity, too. There’s so much, but yeah—I’m looking back on what I tried to instill in my daughters, where they are now, and where there’s continuity.

Tim Villegas
Yeah. Let me give you an example. I was thinking a lot about this. I have three kids—one is seventeen, one turns fourteen tomorrow, and my youngest just turned eleven. My youngest, in the last couple of years, has started asking about my work. “What’s your podcast about? What do you talk about?” I don’t talk about work unless they ask, but she’s been very interested in inclusion, disability, all of it.

She joined this club called Helping Hands at school. She had to write an essay and asked me to look at it. When you’re talking with anyone about disability, there’s the helper-versus-helpee dynamic, but really, we’re just trying to be friends. So I walked through that with her. “You want to be friends with them?” “Well yeah.” That’s something I wish I could install in kids’ minds—not just babies, everybody.

If you see someone who’s different or who visibly has a disability, don’t automatically think they need help. Instead: how can we honor them? How can we just be friends with people because they’re human?

My daughter is still learning that—no judgment, we’re just talking through it. But I wish we could all suddenly have that installed, like bing—everyone sees each other as humans instead of “I’m up here, you’re down there.”

Andrew Goff
Inherently, children don’t see the world that way. I was reminded of this not long ago. I saw a child pick a dandelion and say, “Flower.” The adult said, “That’s a weed.” But it didn’t matter to the toddler. Botanically, a dandelion is a flower—but we’ve been conditioned otherwise.

Children don’t start with categories. They learn them. They hear the message over and over again.

It’s funny, because the seed we planted in my older daughter was: fight for what you believe in. If you feel something, speak up. Advocate. Push forward so everyone is treated fairly. Sounds great with a toddler. Does not work with an adolescent.

Tim Villegas
Yeah.

Andrew Goff
We taught her to advocate for herself, to speak up. That’s great—outside our home. But when she strongly believes she needs to wear a crop top and all this makeup…

Tim Villegas
She’s advocating for her strongly held beliefs, Dad.

Andrew Goff
She is. That’s not the seed I had in mind, but I remind myself it will pay off. It’s part of the journey. Ultimately, yes—the seed of compassion. See where that grows.

I see that in my younger daughter. And what you said—your youngest being curious about your job—that’s how mine is. I wrote stories and put them on YouTube. I don’t think they’re great, but I put them there because I wanted to share lessons before I wrote the book. They’re twelve-minute stories, and my daughter watches them in awe.

I said, “Do you like watching these?” She said, “Yeah, they’re interesting.” “Or is it putting you to sleep?” “No, they’re interesting. Can I read your book when it comes out?” Absolutely.

Tim Villegas
That’s amazing. Love that. Andrew Goff, thank you so much for spending time with us on the Think Inclusive Podcast.

Andrew Goff
Tim, it has been my honor. Thank you for inviting me on.

Tim Villegas
That chime means it’s free time. For free time this week, I’m taking you on a walk on the Noonday Creek Trail in Kennesaw, Georgia. This is one of my favorite places to run and walk, spend time with the family. It’s a beautiful sunny day, around 65 degrees. After I wrap up this recording, I’m going for a run.

I really loved the conversation I had with Andrew, because I can totally empathize with being a special education teacher and feeling torn about how vocal to be about wanting to bring inclusive practices to my school or district. That’s exactly how I felt. I spent sixteen years in public schools, and for the majority of that time, I was trying to bring inclusive practices to where I worked. And not everybody wanted to hear it.

For Andrew, I know he got to a point where he needed to do something else. Same thing for me. I eventually had to decide whether to go somewhere else, and that’s what I did in 2020 when I joined the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education.

If you’re a special education teacher in a situation where you want to bring inclusive practices to your school or district but you don’t know how, reach out. I’d love to chat. Every situation is a little different, but we need to talk to each other. If we keep it all inside and there’s nobody at our school or district to talk to, it gets really lonely. You feel stuck. And when you’re an educator, you don’t want to feel that way. You want to feel like you’re making a difference in the lives of children.

So reach out. Find me on social media or email me at TVILLEGAS@MCIE.org.

Okay, that’s it for this week’s episode. Think Inclusive is written, edited, sound designed, mixed, and mastered by me, Tim Villegas. Original music by Miles Kredich, additional music from Melody. Thanks for your time and attention. And if you liked this version of the video episode, let us know. On YouTube, leave a comment so we know you’re listening.

Have a great week, everybody. And remember, inclusion always works.

Andrew Goff
I was told—I have a friend who’s a librarian—and she said, “All you have to do, Andrew, is put something really controversial in your book, and then everybody will want to read it to see how controversial it is.” I don’t think there’s anything controversial.

Tim Villegas
Do you have something controversial? Well, maybe “inclusion is for all” and “inclusive education is for all learners” seems to be pretty controversial sometimes.