Articles

Three tips for making sure your classroom is inclusive of students with a variety of abilities.

This teacher was worried about explaining her crutches to her class, but the third-graders taught her a lesson in acceptance.

A video of a moment in a high school basketball game inspired many, but this writer had a decidedly different interpretation.

Watching a television program featuring deaf and hard of hearing characters changed this teacher’s perspective. She wants to pass it on to her students.

Giving Gen Ed teachers the tools to realize the potential of inclusive classrooms.

Growing up, I remember the children in “special ed” seemed to live in an alternate universe within our school. Regardless of the distinctions in their challenges, they all were placed together in one class, shuttled around as one throng, rarely included in the activities the rest of us took for granted.

Jenny started the year desperate to make friends. She was new, immature for her age and starting seventh grade. Because of a learning disability, Jenny was reading and writing at a second-grade level. She tried to hide that from friends. But in the cover-up effort, she often badmouthed her classmates and created drama.

Grand Island Public School District (GIPS) in Nebraska wanted 3-year-old Hunter Spanjer to change his name because they said it violated the school's weapons policy. I am outraged. But more than that, I realize that students like Hunter need advocates.

A new literacy landscape has emerged that is whispering farewell to the clothbound books of my childhood. Classrooms today are moving away from traditional print-based texts to incorporate digital media, often referred to as “new literacies.” Elementary school classrooms now come equipped with Smart Boards, computers and even iPads.

Students with hidden disabilities should not be lost in the shuffle or ostracized.