Transcript

Hey teachers, welcome to the first episode of The Teacher Support Network, your go to podcast for helping busy teachers and educators like you create more inclusive classrooms, foster effective teacher collaboration, and focus on your own well-being in the process. I'm your host, Antoine McCoy, and I'm excited to dive into today's episode.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to create a classroom where all your students feel like they belong, especially as students with disabilities and special needs? Whether you're a Gen Ed teacher, a SpEd teacher, instructional assistant, related service provider, or somewhere in between, inclusion is the right of every student and the foundation of a thriving learning environment.

The foundation begins with having the proper inclusive mindset. In today's episode, I'm going to talk about two inclusion mindset shifts that really helped us build a solid foundation for all the students in your class, and specifically those students with disabilities and your struggling learners.

Now, why do I start with mindset? Because there are a lot of ways and strategies to help support students with disabilities in your classroom. But a lot of them won't work or won't be as effective if we don't come at it with the correct mindset related to it.

That's why we're going to start this episode and really tackle a couple of the inclusive mindsets and the shifts that you might need to have, or your colleagues might need to have. This relates to creating a very welcoming environment for students with disabilities. So let's just dive right into it.

So what's the first inclusion mindset or shift that I want to talk about? Well, it's this and you might have heard it before. It's not new, but it's not my students, not your students, but OUR students. I'll say that again. Not my students, not your students, but OUR students. And I start with this one because it's such a big, mindset shift to have when supporting students with disabilities, especially in a general education classroom.

I can remember when I was in the classroom always saying things like those are my students, or people will say, those are your students, Mr. McCoy. And it just kind of put this kind of division between these are general students and these are special ed students, and only the SpEd teacher can work with students with special needs. And only the Gen Ed teacher works with students who didn't have disabilities. And it just it just put this kind of like division, which wasn't helpful in terms of supporting the students, especially when they were in the mainstream classroom. So why is this mindset shift so important?

Some colleagues will still continue to say, those are your students or these are my students. But when we say our students, what it does is first, it creates a shared responsibility, showing that all teachers, all educators are responsible for the success of all students. And we just each have different roles and strengths that we bring to the table for the benefit of the students. So you could be a Gen Ed teacher bringing a certain level of expertise. You could be a related service provider. You could be an instructional assistant or support staff bringing your own strengths to the table. Or you could be a teacher bringing your unique abilities and expertise into the classroom. But when we say our students, no matter where they're at, whether in a classroom, whether they're in a lunchroom, whether they're in a community, they are our students and it creates a shared responsibility. Not only do we feel that as a staff, you'll alsofeelit personally, and the students will feel it as well.

The second reason why this is really important is it creates this inclusive language. When we refer to all students as ours, it reduces that stigma that sometimes comes with having a disability of any type. You know, sometimes students, especially when you get older students, they don't want to acknowledge that they might have a disability because they don't want people to to to look at them a certain way or believe something about them. But when it's our students, that stigma is reduced significantly.

It also forces the sense of community within the school, in the classroom. Because everyone is enjoying the success of the student. It not only helps the student with a disability, but it also helps their non-disabled peers really understand the importance of inclusivity and also the importance of the strengths that everyone brings to the table. I think about when I was teaching in Alabama and we started doing some inclusion with some of my students who were in sixth grade and they did come out to me for a resource room kind of type class. This is many, many years ago, we started getting their general ed instruction initially inside the gen ed classroom for math, reading and writing particularly, I would go into the classroom and one the students loved it. It also allowed for me and the teacher to work together to a point where we got to over the years, where we would share responsibility for the teaching, We'll talk about how that looks in future episodes. Sometimes she would do language arts and I would do the math instruction because I really liked math and she really liked doing language arts. It didn't mean that we couldn't both do either of those subject areas, but that's how we worked.

The students loved it. And when one of us was gone or had to go do IEPs or things like that, people were asked about it and it's like, you know, where's Mr. McCoy? And it felt good that we were just one family in that classroom. And so this notion that it benefits not just us as a team of educators working with students, but also the students within the class is super important. So the first inclusion mindset shift is looking at the students, all students as our students, not yours or mine.

The second mindset shift I want to talk about is this I want us to start looking at students, particularly students with disabilities, from a strength based versus a deficit based approach and why this important. As a mentor, often I would help teachers, and a lot of times what would happen is I would go and see how things are going. When I would do my weekly visits, one of the first things I would get a lot is all the things students could not do. You know, a lot of the areas where they struggle with which, you know, of course, if you have a disability, there's going to be areas that you're going to be struggling with, but sometimes I would have to stop and say, well, what's some things that the student is doing well.

And sometimes that was harder to bring out with some teachers, because we sometimes look at things from a deficit based approach. But when we shifted to a strength based approach, it does a couple of things. One, it highlights a student's abilities and not their limitations. I'll say it again, it will highlight a student's abilities and not their limitations. And that's super important if we want students to succeed.

Often students know the areas that they struggle with and especially as they get older, those things are more prevalent. And sometimes they're socially noticeable to their peers, so the limitations are out there, but when we can highlight a student's abilities. The emphasis is on what students can do well and we focus on their strengths.

So then we can use those strengths as a foundation for their learning, for the subject matter or the content that we're teaching, I think it also encourages productive struggle in students to better tackle areas of difficulty. So, for instance, let's say, for instance,  a student really doesn't have a lot of confidence in a particular area of subject matter. When we can highlight their strengths and just in general or even within that classroom and that subject matter, not only does it help them to feel a little more encouraged and they gain a lot of confidence. It produces a struggle where they're more willing to take a risk to do some other things that they might not have been able to do in the past or would have been hesitant to attempt. And so because we're now using their strengths to help bring out some things that can, as we help them with areas where they are particularly weak.

It made me think about another situation in the same classroom.

I was talking about the sixth grade classroom where I had some of the students being included into the classroom. There was a student who, in math particularly, that could not do numbers in operations. It was such a struggle for him. Sometimes he had to try to keep up and he would shut down. Math was always a challenge and it caused behavioral problems and things like that because he was trying to avoid the work with numbers and operations particularly.

I remember when we got to a geometry unit and things totally shifted for him. I guess the numbers were hard for him, but the abstract with the geometry and abstract concepts, he really took off! When we would do the work and do practice, he was the the kid in class who was getting it all the time and getting it right away, it just clicked for him. Not only was he staying caught up in class, but he was also raising his hand, asking to do some of the work which he never did before, to the point where now, when I was trying to work with one student and or the other teachers worked with another student and another student had his hand up, we would just say, hey, go to such and such. Can you go help that student over there? He went from always getting help to being able to help other students in his class.

They saw him in a different light and it boosted his confidence so much. That it's not to say he became an ace at math. No, not at all. He still had struggles, but capitalizing on his strengths and finding those areas. Sometimes it takes a while to find those areas, which is okay. That is what I'm talking about, using a strength based approach versus a deficit based approach. Having gone in with that mindset, I think really it's beneficial to not only the students, but also to the teachers as well.

We're going to start wrapping up this short episode and as we wrap up, let's review the two inclusion mindsets that would really help you lay a foundation, or you already may be in the process, and so help you to go further and begin creating a more inclusive classroom environment.

The first one is not my students, not your students, but OUR students. And the second one is to use a strength based approach versus a deficit based approach. As we end, let's make some connection to your own teaching practice.

Which of these inclusion mindsets is the easiest for you to grab and incorporate into your teaching practice. And really think about why.

Which of these mindsets is more challenging. Think about why that is more challenging for you.

The point of this is for you to really think about how our mindset around inclusion and students with disabilities in our classrooms really impact what we do. Right?

So really think about those things and the one that's more challenging for you, I would just say start seeing how you can shift your mindset around that moving forward throughout the school year.

Thanks so much for tuning in today. I hope today's episode was useful to you.

If you found this episode helpful or you know anyone who could benefit from the message, please share it with a fellow educator. And remember to go to my show notes to get a recap of this episode and links to helpful resources, along with links to my social media platforms.

That's it for now. Thank you for listening. Until next time, take care and be encouraged.

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