When I started this blog I set a goal of one post a month and have never reached it. I am excited to celebrate that this will be the first time I have posted the next post within a month of my last. Yay! So in honor of celebrating that success, I have chosen to write about a successful inclusion story from our school.
Last year, on the very first day of school, I heard from two different teachers in the first two hours of school wondering if I had been in one of the kindergarten classes yet. Apparently there was someone I really needed to see. I made my way over to see what was happening.
I walked in and observed a tornado of a little boy swirling around the room touching everything, bumping into everyone, yelling, and generally displaying significant signs of overstimulation and stress. That was my first look at a little boy I ended up spending a lot of time with and meeting about the rest of the year. He had no English, had never been in school before, and had not had any experiences prior to arriving at our doors that would have prepared him to be ready to be at school. For him, it was as if he had landed on the moon. What were all these colorful and fun things to touch and play with and throw? Who were all these people to run into and climb on and yell at? Why did these adults keep trying to stop me from doing what I want?
A number of years ago, the conversation amongst our staff might have been that we cannot keep him. After years of expanding our thinking about inclusion, the conversation instead was, how could we modify his day so he can be successful? How can we make this work? I am so proud of how far we have come on our journey towards inclusion.
We pulled our team together and agreed to a slower start for him. He started coming only two hours a day and had extra support in class as much as we could. The goal was to help him begin to understand the expectations of the environment and to allow him breaks to play with play dough (his activity of choice) when the environment became to stimulating or the expectations too much. His class teacher and aide were very accommodating and adjusted their expectations. The learning support assistant, our counselor, and myself pooled our time to provide breaks and extra support in the class as much as possible. Gradually, over the course of months, he increased his time at school to half days and then he started full days just after Christmas. Even then, he had support in his afternoon specials classes until about April.
During the time we were gradually increasing his time at school, we also discovered that he was hearing impaired and he started wearing a hearing aide. He started working twice a week with an occupational therapist to support his sensory and motor needs and to help him learn to manage his movement, attention, and impulsivity. He started working with me to develop his understanding of expectations for school, work on his ability to follow directions in class, stick to a task, and manage his behavior. We started him on a clear and explicit work schedule with set breaks once tasks were competed and we set goals to increase his ability to complete tasks, follow directions, and sit at circle.
It was a long year and his class teacher and assistant certainly deserve purple hearts for the work they did and the patience they showed. However, with everyone working as a team, we began to see improvement. He began to look more and more like a child ready to be in kindergarten. Because last year was spent supporting him in being ready to be a student, we agreed with his parents to retain him. This would allow him the chance to start kindergarten with the skills in place to be successful. He arrived back at our door two weeks ago and has had a more beautiful start to the year than I could have imagined. We are all just bursting with happiness at the progress he had made.
These are the stories we need to share and celebrate when the work of including a larger range of students gets difficult. Each child deserves the chance to be successful. Some come to us more ready or able than others, but they all deserve the best we can give to meet them at their level and walk with them on their learning journey. Watching his start to this year has made my start more joyful than I could have hoped and that is something to celebrate!
Last year, on the very first day of school, I heard from two different teachers in the first two hours of school wondering if I had been in one of the kindergarten classes yet. Apparently there was someone I really needed to see. I made my way over to see what was happening.
I walked in and observed a tornado of a little boy swirling around the room touching everything, bumping into everyone, yelling, and generally displaying significant signs of overstimulation and stress. That was my first look at a little boy I ended up spending a lot of time with and meeting about the rest of the year. He had no English, had never been in school before, and had not had any experiences prior to arriving at our doors that would have prepared him to be ready to be at school. For him, it was as if he had landed on the moon. What were all these colorful and fun things to touch and play with and throw? Who were all these people to run into and climb on and yell at? Why did these adults keep trying to stop me from doing what I want?
A number of years ago, the conversation amongst our staff might have been that we cannot keep him. After years of expanding our thinking about inclusion, the conversation instead was, how could we modify his day so he can be successful? How can we make this work? I am so proud of how far we have come on our journey towards inclusion.
We pulled our team together and agreed to a slower start for him. He started coming only two hours a day and had extra support in class as much as we could. The goal was to help him begin to understand the expectations of the environment and to allow him breaks to play with play dough (his activity of choice) when the environment became to stimulating or the expectations too much. His class teacher and aide were very accommodating and adjusted their expectations. The learning support assistant, our counselor, and myself pooled our time to provide breaks and extra support in the class as much as possible. Gradually, over the course of months, he increased his time at school to half days and then he started full days just after Christmas. Even then, he had support in his afternoon specials classes until about April.
During the time we were gradually increasing his time at school, we also discovered that he was hearing impaired and he started wearing a hearing aide. He started working twice a week with an occupational therapist to support his sensory and motor needs and to help him learn to manage his movement, attention, and impulsivity. He started working with me to develop his understanding of expectations for school, work on his ability to follow directions in class, stick to a task, and manage his behavior. We started him on a clear and explicit work schedule with set breaks once tasks were competed and we set goals to increase his ability to complete tasks, follow directions, and sit at circle.
It was a long year and his class teacher and assistant certainly deserve purple hearts for the work they did and the patience they showed. However, with everyone working as a team, we began to see improvement. He began to look more and more like a child ready to be in kindergarten. Because last year was spent supporting him in being ready to be a student, we agreed with his parents to retain him. This would allow him the chance to start kindergarten with the skills in place to be successful. He arrived back at our door two weeks ago and has had a more beautiful start to the year than I could have imagined. We are all just bursting with happiness at the progress he had made.
These are the stories we need to share and celebrate when the work of including a larger range of students gets difficult. Each child deserves the chance to be successful. Some come to us more ready or able than others, but they all deserve the best we can give to meet them at their level and walk with them on their learning journey. Watching his start to this year has made my start more joyful than I could have hoped and that is something to celebrate!