Welcome to our podcast learning pathway, designed for educators and stakeholders interested in fostering an inclusive mindset; here, you’ll find thought-provoking clips to help create a shared understanding of inclusive practices with your school team.
These clips are part of series of blog posts that align with our Mindset & Beliefs Podcast Learning Pathway.
See, Think, Wonder
See: When observing school systems that promote inclusive practices, we notice that all learners are educated alongside their age-appropriate peers.
Think: Reflecting on this, we understand that changing the mindsets of stakeholders—educators, parents, leaders, and staff—is crucial for the success of these inclusive practices.
Wonder: How we can foster a shared understanding of these mindsets and practices. What questions can we pose to school teams or any group to encourage deeper exploration and authentic inclusion of all learners?
Prior to viewing each video clip, preview the discussion questions for each video. Each video is intended to develop a shared understanding of the mindsets and beliefs needed for inclusion.
Sam Drazin Discusses Building Inclusive Schools with Changing Perspectives
Sam Drazin is the founder and Executive Director of Changing Perspectives, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering inclusive educational practices. In this episode, Sam, drawing from personal experiences as a teacher and student, explores why segregating students by ability or disability does a disservice to their preparation for real-world interactions.
What does inclusion mean to you?
Segregating students based on ability or disability is counterproductive and propose that inclusive education better prepares students to engage with diverse communities.
Read the transcript:
Tim Villegas: Sam, let’s talk about inclusion. Why is inclusion important to you?
Sam Drazin: Well, Tim, you really like to start with the big questions.
I think about both my experience as a classroom teacher, as well as my experience as a student in the K12 system. And reflecting on those experiences really led me to thinking about inclusion in a different way.
Um, I think inclusion is important because inclusion is our world. Right, it’s, it’s interesting in our schools, we segregate based on ability and or disability, but in the world, we don’t necessarily segregate based on ability and or disability.
I think it’s really important that our schools are essentially a microcosm for the real world to help our students learn about themselves, learn about others, be mindful of how other people experience the world, be mindful of how other people communicate and collaborate. In order to really prepare students today to be the change makers for a more inclusive tomorrow.
Tim Villegas: I love that example. Sam about. Our world is automatically, I mean, everyone is in it. And so we really do have to live with each other and you would think that 1 of the best places to learn that would be. Schools, especially because typically you go to school because it’s in your neighborhood. I know that there’s different ways of going to school, you know, some go to charter schools, some go to private schools, but it’s when we’re talking about public schools in the public space and sector, your neighborhood schools, you go to schools with, with your neighbors.
And so it’s the same sort of thing. You go to stores, uh, you go to the park and It’s just not feasible for everyone to have their own separate store or space. And it really, life would be much less interesting if we couldn’t all be together.
Sam Drazin: And I think what’s interesting is why do we segregate students for the first 18 years of their lives, right?
Most kids are in school for, you know, from the age of three or four up until almost 18. So, it’s actually a disservice. To not provide an inclusive experience, because why would we want to wait till a person is 18 to then put them in a situation where they are around folks who are different from them in any way, whether that’s a physical difference, communication difference, a language difference, an ethnic difference, um, you know, and I come to this work.
Through, um, students with, uh, through the lens of students with disabilities, but I really see inclusion as it’s a tier 1 intervention. It is to support all students, regardless of how they might be classified or diagnosed.
Discussion Questions:
- How can schools be designed to better reflect the diversity of our communities? Discuss how inclusion is a microcosm of what we hope to see in our communities.
- What are the long-term benefits of inclusive education for all students? Discuss why excluding some learners is a disservice to all students.
Working in an ableist educational system
In this clip Sam Drazin talks about the challenges and necessary mindset changes in creating inclusive environments within the public education system.
Read the transcript:
Tim Villegas: you work with a lot of educators. And for the most part, what I know about educators being a former public school teacher, nobody gets into this job wanting to segregate kids. Like, you know, you, you become a teacher because maybe you were inspired by a teacher when you were going to school, or maybe you have a teacher in your family, or maybe you just have this desire to help people.
Nobody goes in. With this preconceived notion of that everyone needs to be separate, but that’s the reality for so many educators, and I just wonder, like, how, how do we as educators push back against. A system that is by design meant to, uh, separate people, especially when we’re talking about general and special education.
Sam Drazin: That’s what I do every day. Um, and I have success in some schools and some districts than others. I think, you know, what you said is really true. Our, our public school system in this country is, is unintentionally a ballistic, um, you know, you think about the history of the public school system, right? It was designed.
Um, to push workers through during like the industrial revolution. So it was built to assimilate. It was how do we push students through? So we spit out as many like minded workers as possible. And so if you are not able to keep up, or you don’t move in the same way, or you don’t think in the same way, or you don’t act in the same way as the majority, we’re going to push you off to the side.
Because you’re kind of holding back this progress. Um, so the question of how do we move forward with it? Really? I think comes down to 2 things. it’s an acknowledgment of how ableistic our system actually is. And two, it’s about changing mindsets, uh, being saying that our system is designed to separate students is not something that I think a lot of superintendents or directors of special education or principals even want to say, right?
Because if we admit the faults in our system, we are kind of declaring that we’re going to do something to change it. And it’s really hard to make those changes. So I think the first thing is, how do we cultivate spaces and places and give especially leaders permission to list all of the faults of our system that are putting up constant barriers for creating more authentically inclusive learning environments, right?
Like, we have to start there. We have to say it. We have to name it in a way that is not judgmental in a way that doesn’t. Elicit any sense of, um, embarrassment, right? Like, we just need to, we need to name it. We need to name what, what’s going on in our system after that. The next step is changing mindsets because you can give teachers.
All the tools they want, right? Give us tools for our toolbox. Give us strategies. You can put as many paraeducators in a classroom to support teachers. You can give them as much professional development as you want or can, but if we don’t change mindsets, uh, we’re not going to utilize those supports, whether it be training or additional paraeducators, et cetera.
To really move the system forward. And so what do I mean by mindset? Um, one of the questions that I always ask when I go into a school to consult the first question I always ask to school leaders. What we need to look at is what percentage of your teaching staff view all students as their students, and you would be surprised him how low that number is in a lot of schools, 10 percent 15 percent 20 percent right.
Like that’s a huge glue into the lack of inclusive mindset within an individual building. So we really need to spend time we need to, we need to be less reactive. We need to spend a little more time building, um, and providing opportunities to cultivate inclusive mindsets before we jump in with the reactive responses of, oh, we’ll give you this training or, you know, we’ll throw another para educator in your classroom.
So naming it, focusing on building inclusive mindsets.
Discussion Questions:
- Why is it necessary to acknowledge the ableist nature of our schools to change mindsets?
- Sam Drazin says that we need to spend more time changing mindsets before being reactive. Discuss this with the group.
Reflection: What, So What, Now What?
What? Inclusive education practices focus on valuing learner variability and adopting strengths-based approaches.
So What? Addressing barriers to inclusion is crucial for creating supportive environments where all students can thrive.
Now What? Schools can promote changes in mindsets by implementing inclusive practices to transform education for all learners.
What is your biggest takeaway from these video clips? How can the insights you’ve gained move inclusive practices forward in your context?