Overview: Inclusion in perspective

According to Global Diversity Practice (GDP@globaldiversitypractice.com), “inclusion is an organizational effort and practices in which different groups or individuals having different backgrounds are culturally and socially accepted and welcomed, and equally treated…. it’s a sense of belonging.” It’s the school’s role to provide good enough conditions so that students’ social development can happen progressively.

If we go back in time to the seventies, for instance, inclusion used to be a taboo subject in Brazilian society. The South-American nationused to have at least one inclusive classroom (classe especial) for students with special needs. The prejudice students with disabilities faced was significant, as their peers would perceive them as unapproachable and useless people, the only exception being blind and deaf students. As a result, students with special needs never participated in other activities and were socially isolated.

In 1960 our country started discussing special education policy, but only in 1990 the World Declaration of Education for All in 2016, a new Law in Brazil (Lei Brasileira de Inclusão da Pessoa com Deficiência: 13.146/2015) was proclaimed. It guaranteed an inclusive education system for all students regardless of the special needs they might have. Despite being proposed in the year 2000, inclusive legislation for education was only announced 16 years later.

In the meantime, teachers tried to work on an embracing learning environment. Due to the complex integrating process, educators were overwhelmed and intimidated by classrooms. Teachers and coordinators didn’t know exactly what to do, and perhaps nowadays many teachers in Brazil still don’t.

Why is that? The main issues are lack of preparation, academic expectations, curricular adaptations, etc. Inclusion is a subject taught at Pedagogy and other courses, but it’s clearly not enough to guarantee a cohesive environment. We need more forums, committees, and opportunities for teachers to exchange experiences and look for better strategies to use in class.

If we take for granted the fact that each student is different, we should make use of the available resources to reach them. Considering critical pedagogy, in order to achieve an effective learning process, classes must be meaningful, motivating and inclusive. Unfortunately, capacistism, referred to as the unequal treatment that people with functional diversity receive, many times stigmatized on account of the prejudices inherent to being considered disabled.

Abled people tend to see disabled people as “broken”, incomplete human beings. At school, they tend to call them ‘poor thing, that Down kid, that lazy boy’, etc. Put yourself into their shoes when they try so hard to do things right but they just don’t and can’t understand why. There are several years of suffering until the child can figure it out and deal with their own characteristics. Make sure to use words that define students better: caution, enthusiasm, persistence, selfconfident, energetic, and so forth.

Brazilian legislation guaranteed with a Decree in 1999 and another in 2004 that students with disabilities should have adapted assessment through different strategies such as printed tests with larger type styles, reader, transcriber, Braille versions, Brazilian sign language, extra time, use of technology, quieter classrooms, etc. Inclusion will always be an ongoing discussion, but there are schools all over our country whose staff was open minded and cooperative enough to come up with adaptive solutions. They used inclusive materials, assessment, integrated students into the group and, by doing so, allowed them to succeed.

With the intent of sharing such ideas, Juliana Dias and I wrote a book about Inclusion Practices. Amongst our suggested activities there are tips for games for Lower, Middle and High School, films, books, songs and also a curatorship with tools, platforms, sites that are constantly updated. We can make a difference in every single class, for diversity is about empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different.

Let me show you some ideas presented in the book.

Adapting materials

There are three steps to adapt materials. First the teacher needs to access the student’s previous knowledge to understand what he is capable of producing, understanding, and associating. Second, based on this assessment the teacher should come up with different strategies so that the student can be part of the group, participate in the classes, develop autonomy. And third, the teacher ought to adapt the assessment criteria for this student. It’s important not to compare him to the group but to himself.

The teacher expectation is one of the main aspects to be considered as far as assessment is concerned. Sometimes what is offered to the student is not enough to evaluate his performance. That’s the perfect time to keep an open mind. Perhaps you’ll use oral evaluation, or a reader during the assessment and even a computer or Ipad to help the student express his knowledge. Be creative. Don’t be afraid ofbranching out.

The truth is every single student is different and they all should be included in a class, although it’s not an easy task. Here are some general suggestions to motivate and engage students with learning disabilities:

a) Use different methodologies to reach students considering their learning styles.
b) Guarantee cooperation is ongoing among your students when performing a group task.
c) Offer activities with different levels of complexity so that students can work together, no matter the content.
d) Give autism spectrum disorder students the opportunity to choose topics and characters they prefer so there’s better connection with content.
e) Offer activities that stimulate sequence, intuitive reading, and memory stimulation. That can benefit students to write using their memory.
f) During assessment students with learning issues shouldn’t have any surprises. The more familiar they are with the kind of exercises, tasks, listening activities, the better they will do.

Adapting Assessment

Here’s an example that was used with a T-21 student.

3º. Ano Fundamental Anos Iniciais- Down Syndrome
Conteúdo da avaliação:
Gramática: Presente contínuo.
Vocabulário: Clima, brincadeiras infantis.
Objetivo da avaliação: Reconhecer a produção de presente contínuo com base na imagem e identificar as ações nela representadas.
Professoras: Flávia Amaral e Juliana Dias
Adaptações:
Conteúdo: Não precisou de adaptação.
Ledor: Faz-se necessário o uso de ledor e eventuais explicações de consignas.
Espaço: Não há necessidade de flexibilização de espaço para esse aluno.
Tempo: Não há necessidade de flexibilização de tempo nesse caso. A prova foi projetada para 30 minutos em média.
Estratégia do exercício: Uso de banco de imagens, tamanho da letra.
Nota: não precisou de flexibilização.

4º. Ano Fundamental Anos Iniciais
Caso de aluno com dificuldade de leitura, diagnóstico em andamento
Conteúdo
Gramática: Verbo to be, seu uso no presente e no passado.
Adaptações:
Ledor: Faz-se necessário o uso de ledor e eventuais explicações de consignas, apenas.
Espaço: Esse aluno realiza as avaliações em outro espaço.
Tempo: Não há necessidade de flexibilização de tempo nesse caso.
Nota: Não houve necessidade de flexibilização da nota.
Professora: Vanessa Greenson
Estratégia do exercício: Uso de banco de imagens, tamanho da letra.
Nota: não precisou de flexibilização.

Fill in the blanks below to complete the sentences.

1. ________________you at home yesterday?
   (was, are, were)

Yes, I _______________
(wasn’t, am not, were, was)

2. They _______________really happy after they won the
   football game.
   (are, were, was)

3. _______________ Rebecca tired after she finished work?
   (is, was, were)

No, she ______________.
(isn’t, wasn’t, weren’t)

Realia is very helpful. For this reason we selected different references to share:

Movie references

To approach learning disabilities, syndromes, disruption. They show how students face their issues, as well as teachers and families always trying to overcome the obstacles on the way.

E.g.: Like Stars on Earth, India; Radio, US; The eight day, Europe; Partly Cloudy, US, so on and so forth.

Book references

To learn more about the topic or to use with students: Dr Stephanie Margolese books: The tiger in my chest (dealing with anger); When monkey lost his smile (his special tree is gone and so is his smile); The curious incident of the dog in the night-time (a story with a teenager with Asperger syndrome), menina que esquecia de levar a fala para a escola. (selective mutism).

With the COVID 19 pandemic teachers had to learn everything they could about technology to cope with the situation the whole world has faced. Online classes and hybrid teaching became the only possibility for quite some time. The truth is teaching will never be the same after the pandemic. I’ll share some of the good tools we found along the way:

Wordwall – wordwall.net – teachers and students can create their own teaching and learning resources

Quick, draw! – quickdraw.withgoogle.com – It helps the teacher by adding drawings to doodling data set

ClassDojo – ideas.classdojo.com – It helps the teacher to work with social and emotional learning using

Nearpod – nearpod.com – platform with real-time insights into student understanding through interactive lessons, videos and gamification

Iatefl YLT – yltsig.iatefl.org – blog about pronunciation

Little THINGS – littlethings.com – social emotional blog

Useful references

• FIGUEIRA, Emílio. Educação Inclusiva- Teoria e práticas pedagógicas. São Paulo, 2016.
• GIROTO, Claudia. As tecnologias nas práticas pedagógicas inclusivas. Cultura Acadêmica, Marília, 2012.
• Manual Diagnóstico e Estatístico de Transtorno Mentais. Editora Artmed, São Paulo, 2014.
• POKER, Rosimar, MARTINS, Sandra, GIROTO, Claudia Educação Inclusiva: em foco a formação de professores. Editora Cultura Acadêmica, São Paulo, 2016.

Some very helpful websites

• <https://www.special-education-degree.net/top-12-websites-children-learning-disabilities/> Published by SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Storyline Online is an excellent choice for children with dyslexia
• <https://cutt.ly/yk1ee0S> Educational games to help with focus and brain workout.
• < https://www.sunshineandhurricanes.com/dyslexia-apps/> Apps to practice with dyslexia and dysgraphia.
• <https://diversa.org.br/> Portal with case studies, inclusive education and book references