Ana Celia Zentella, Ph.D., was born and raised in the South Bronx by a Puerto Rican mother and Mexican father, taught at City University of NYC for several decades before moving to the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego, where she is now Professor Emerita. Zentella is an anthro-political linguist, well known for her research on U.S.Latino varieties of Spanish and English, language socialization, bilingualism, “Spanglish”, and “English-only” laws. Zentella is presently the Lang Visiting Professor for Issues in Social Change at Swarthmore College (2009-2010), where she is working with her students on the publication of Multilingual Philadelphia: Portraits of Language and Social Justice

I am a proud product of New York City’s public schools in the Bronx where I attended school from kindergarten through high school, as well as college.. It wasn’t a safe or easy journey from my Puerto Rican and Mexican home in the South Bronx to completion of a graduate degree and a Phi Beta Kappa key.  I am eternally grateful to the teachers who helped me along this difficult journey.  But that was decades ago, and in many ways the journey for the children of immigrants and other linguistically and racially different groups has become even more dangerous.

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Wendy W. Murawski is an Associate Professor of Special Education at California State University, Northridge. Her research and publications focus on co-teaching, inclusive education and teacher preparation. Her two recent books are available through Corwin Press and are entitled “Collaborative Teaching in Elementary/ Secondary Schools: Making the Co-teaching Marriage Work!” In 2004, she was honored as California Teacher Educator of the Year and received CEC’s Division of Research early career publication award for her meta-analysis on co-teaching. Dr. Murawski is frequently asked to keynote conferences, consult with school districts, and present for the Bureau of Education and Research and other entities. She is the CEO of the educational consulting company, 2 Teach LLC (www.2TeachLLC.com).

What is co-teaching?

Co-teaching is when we put two professionals (most often a special education and general education teacher, but this can vary) together in the classroom to share in the planning, instructing, and assessing of a group of kids. While Cook and Friend made this relationship popular back in 1995¹, its use and success have waxed and waned over the years, but recently, it has become more popular in schools as a way to ensure differentiation and standards-based instruction in the general education classroom.

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Kimberly A. Scott is an Associate Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Graduate School and Institute of Education at Arizona Sate University in the Division of Advanced Studies of Education Policy, Leadership, and Curriculum.  Her research interests include urban education issues related to technology equity.  In addition to being the Executive Director/Principal Investigator of COMPUGIRLS, Kim is also Executive Editor of The State of Black Arizona.

Despite the presence of the first Black in America’s highest political position, this success does not necessarily cross gender and/or social class boundaries.  For example, women of color are less likely to enter technology fields than White females (see Goode & Margolis, 2004; Margolis & Fisher, 2003; NSF, 2006)  To explain this phenomenon requires consideration of how a girl’s race, gender, social class, context, and community involvement work together to create their real-time and virtual experiences with digital media.

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Kate Scorgie is a professor in the Department of Advanced Studies in Education at Azusa Pacific University where she teaches courses in educational psychology, research for educators, and adult learning. Her research interests include families of children with disabilities, self-determination of persons with disabilities, participative case study pedagogy and transformative learning.

A father drops his child off at school. He lingers to watch as he crosses the playing field and enters a bungalow classroom at the back of the school ground. “Each step,” he confides, “is an ache in my heart. With each step my child is announcing to all who care to notice, ‘I’m special ed. I’m special ed.’”

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Robert Rueda is a professor in the area of Psychology in Education at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. His research has centered on the sociocultural basis of motivation, learning, and instruction, with a focus on reading and literacy in English learners, and students in at-risk conditions, and he teaches courses in learning and motivation.  He recently served as a panel member on the National Academy of Science Report on the Overrepresentation of Minority Students in Special Education, and also served as a member of the National Literacy Panel (SRI International and Center for Applied Linguistics) looking at issues in early reading with English language learners.

When I was growing up, I ended up bedridden for a period of time. After endless days of watching cartoons, I was bored. Thankfully, a friend’s mother brought over a box of books which had been sitting in the attic which she had just cleaned out. I picked it up, and for the first time, was interested in reading without being required to. While I had the skill and knowledge to read, I had no reason or interest to do so.

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Chris Forlin is Professor of Special and Inclusive Education at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Her research and publications focus on change paradigms in special education; inclusive education policy and practice; along with curricula and pedagogy for teacher education, with innovative research in working with systems and schools to establish sustainable inclusive education. She currently advises to the Hong Kong government task force on developing a New Senior Secondary School Curriculum for students with intellectual disabilities and is a consultant to the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training on developing curricula for preparing teachers for inclusion.

When asked to blog I initially thought I would talk about teacher education for inclusion which is one of my specific areas of interest. We have been actively promoting inclusion and ‘education for all’ for nearly four decades now but has teacher education for inclusion really kept up with this change? Can we claim as teacher educators that we are meeting the needs of adequately preparing teachers for inclusion? I have taught pre-service (or pre-surface as one of my undergraduates wrote about it in her assignment – Freudian slip or a simple spelling error? – not sure which is worse!) and in-service teachers for the past 18 years so it seemed a natural topic to select. Then I read the posting on this website from May 13, 2009, when President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address to the 2009 graduates of Arizona State University (You can access the full speech via http://www.niusileadscape.org/wk/). During this speech he asked the following questions:

“Did you study education? Teach in a high-need school? Give a chance to kids we can’t afford to give up on – prepare them to compete for any job anywhere in the world?”

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Lisa Tolentino is a doctoral student pursuing a Media Arts and Sciences PhD through the School of Arts, Media and Engineering (AME) at Arizona State University. She works in the Embodied and Mediated Learning Group, working closely with high school special education teachers, designers, artists and researchers to develop digitally mediated environments to support social interaction, exploration, community and creativity in learning for students with autism.

When I think back to the years when my sister and I were children, I remember a time when I could still fully relate to her. In her youth, she was a lot like me: a very shy and sensitive child who was acutely in tune with the emotions of others. We both experienced complex feelings but lacked the words to express ourselves. We empathized on-demand, giggling uncontrollably at curious coincidences or weeping quietly while adults whispered of serious matters. And we both knew when someone was talking about us.

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Phyllis Jones is an associate professor in Special Education at the University of SouthFlorida. Her research interests include inclusion, insider perspectives, andthe education of teachers of students with low incidence disabilities. She iscurrently Principal Investigator of a project that supports meaningful accessto general education for students with low incidence disabilities.

When I was a young girl living in the North East of England, our main form of transport out of the small town was a public bus. My family and I would sit in the bus shelter waiting for the bus to arrive with a sense of positive anticipation of the trip we were going to take. However, on occasion we would wait and the bus would not arrive at the scheduled time; sometimes the bus was late and sometimes it did not come at all. On many of these occasions, we had to return home or change our plans for the day. We never knew if the bus that was late would actually come, and I remember vividly, the sense of worry I had about whether the bus would ever come at all.

This feeling of worry is something that I currently experience as I work in the South West of Florida. The focus of my concern is about how far we have actually come as a community to develop and support meaningful inclusion opportunities for students with severe and complex disabilities. Two recent experiences have brought this unease to the forefront.

In a recent conversation with a mom, I was told about her 3^rd grade son with Down Syndrome, Sean. In his school career so far, Sean has had a series of schooling experiences that have been both inclusive and self contained. As his mom relayed his story, it illustrated to me the sketchy nature of inclusive provision in the state. For two years Sean was able to take advantage of a co teach inclusion classroom. The next year he was placed in a general education first grade classroom with the constant support of his mother. Going into 3^rd grade, he was placed in a segregated class for younger students, because he was not able to read and was not seen to ‘fit in’ academically with his age appropriate Varying Exceptionalities (VE) classroom. This story showed me how tenuous inclusive opportunities are for families and children alike. It illustrates how professionals can look at a young boy, and with the ‘best professional intentions’; adopt the most dangerous assumption, leading to segregation. The stumbling block for Sean is that he cannot read, Mom notes that he has not actually received reading instruction so far in his school career. In order to be included it appears that children must read and therefore Sean must earn his way into the general education classroom by becoming a reader.

I was reminded of another family in a similar situation in the North East of England over ten years ago. Nadia is a sister to four siblings and a vivacious daughter to Katie and Andy. She is deaf and has Cerebral Palsy. Nadia was six years old when I first met her. At the time, the family lived in a small village and Nadia attended a kindergarten class that was attached to the elementary school her brother and sisters attended. All the children walked to school together. Nadia made lots of friends and was a central part of the school community. Unfortunately, at the end of her kindergarten year the school began a conversation about a separate 1^st grade provision for Nadia. Professionals believed Nadia had severe intellectual disabilities because of the complexity of her cerebral palsy and deafness. They believed the general education setting was not an appropriate placement for her. Again a ‘most dangerous assumption’ was adopted and it was suggested that Nadia attend a segregated center school many miles away from the village. I had the pleasure of meeting Nadia who indeed presented as a very complex little girl. Mom and Dad believed she was bright, but the assessment processes administered did not represent her ability, just her disability. When I met Nadia, I indeed encountered a very bright and alert young girl who enjoyed playing and teasing her brothers and sisters. She was a beautiful communicator, especially with her friends, but alas not in the formal communication systems we share as a community.

The family believed strongly that they wanted all of their children to attend the same school, so they began a search around the UK for a school that would welcome them all. They found one, over 300 miles away and decided to relocate the whole family. Ten years later, last week, I received an email giving me a progress report on Nadia. She has enjoyed a successful school career and just passed her exams that allow her to attend college. She is an active member on the local community council and is working towards a career in the health services. She has sleepovers with an array of friends, has a penchant for black nail varnish and appears very ‘up’ on fashion trends! School has clearly been so much more than academics for Nadia and illustrates the powerful impact of the hidden as well as explicit curriculum experiences in a student’s school career. I wonder what Nadia’s story would be if Kate and Andy had acquiesced to professional advice and sent Nadia to the segregated special school.

In order to remain in general education successfully, Nadia received a tremendous amount of support. Her schools have been creative and open to learning about Nadia with the strong acknowledgement that Nadia belonged in the school. The use of Assistive Technology showed Nadia has many more abilities than her obvious impairments. As professionals, it is apparent in research, professional literature and pockets of practice that we appreciate that meaningful inclusion is complex. We appreciate it requires a systemic approach to change that acknowledges Universal Design for Learning. We also are aware of the role of positive professional attitudes and the need to believe that all children can learn.

However, I feel as if I am waiting at a bus stop and that the bus is just not arriving. In my twelve years as a teacher educator my approach to professional development and systems change has been an optimistic one, believing that we will build effective inclusive schools. I trust that I am contributing to the building of such schools slowly and strongly as I impact professional attitudes, policies and practices through my teaching, service and research. In August of 2009, I am troubled that in a few weeks, when school resumes, there are many children, like Nadia and Sean; who are waiting at ‘bus stops’ around the country for a bus to take them to their neighborhood community school. But, that bus may never come, or if it comes, as in the story of Sean, it has frequent breakdowns. I think about how many children we deprive of a rigorous and relevant general education because we use particular systems and processes of assessment and then the children do not ‘fit in’ to the status quo of current general education provision. All of this pondering poses many questions a couple of which keep coming to mind:

• As professionals, in the field of developing greater inclusion, how do we ensure more immediate positive change in attitudes, policy and practices?
• Where is the sense of urgency for change that will enable future Seans and Nadias to belong and be valued in their local school, and go onto enjoy the hidden and explicit curriculum of the school?

Umesh Sharma has been working as a Senior Lecturer in the area of Special Education and Psychology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia for the last 8 years. His research focuses on teacher training for inclusive education, attitude measurement, and positive behaviour support. He has been organizing and conducting training activities for trainers, teachers and researchers both nationally and internationally on inclusive education.

The topic of my blog is the role of school leaders in enhancing inclusion of children who display disruptive behaviours. I want to share a true case study that has led me to raise some questions in the hope of initiating substantive, honest dialogue about what it means when we call a school “inclusive.”

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Rebeckah Winans is the Principal of Fuller Elementary School in Tempe, Arizona. She is an active member of the NIUSI-LeadScape community of inclusive school principals, as well as a founding member of the Urban Professional Learning Schools Initiative to develop effective, dually-certified teachers to work in culturally responsive, urban school communities.

Ever walk into a classroom during a walkthrough or walk-by and immediately felt compelled to sit down?  A masterful teacher has just engaged you!  You already know the content; you can even guess what sub-objectives are about to be laid out in front of you – but because of the strategies being demonstrated– you must participate.  This is rigorous learning; urgency at its best – and this is what professional developers must use to change teaching.

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