Hi, my name is Shelly Moore and I'm a
third year PhD student at the University
of British Columbia in Vancouver. As
Canadians we have a reputation for
finding and embracing the strength in our
diversity. This value however hasn't been
reflected in our classrooms which still
segregate students by ability, especially
students with developmental disabilities.
There's a gap in our understanding about
what we know inclusive education to be
philosophically versus what we
understand, and the importance of
understanding inclusion in our practice.
This is the question I'm trying to answer
my research, is how can we find value in
the day-to-day practice in our
classrooms in terms of inclusive
education. So how am I going to explain this to you? Now I can sit here and try and
describe this or we can have a little bit
more fun. Why don't we go *bowling*?
So let's talk about bowling: you have 10
pins, you have two balls, and you have a lane. The goal is to knock
down as many pins as you can but if
you don't get them all its ok cuz you
have another chance. But when I bowl and roll the ball down the middle and I don't
knock them all down... what often ends up happening to me is that there's two pins left
standing on either end and they stare
at you. It's the 7/10 split and it's the
hardest shot in bowling. How is bowling
like teaching? The ball is the lesson
the pins are the kids. We aim for the
middle, we do the best we can...
the pins that are left standing we often have another chance to kind of get to them
but at the end of the day
those two pins that are staring looking at
you are our kids who need the most support
and our kids who need the most
challenge. So we end up choosing one and
the other one is left standing.
I just took all the fun at of bowling. Now I don't know many times you've watched professional
bowling, but I spent an afternoon
watching professional bowling, and let me
tell you, there is not one bowler who
rolled that ball down the middle of the
lane. They threw the ball down the lane
at a curve and I was actually really curious
about this, so I called up a professional
bowler. He was so excited--I don't think
he gets a lot of calls about education.
He said the reason why the ball has to
enter at a curve is because you will knock down more pins and create a bigger
domino effect if you enter at that angle.
But in order to do that you have to
change your aim. In order to knock down
the most pins with one shot he aims for
the pins that are the hardest to hit. Now
let's just let this sink in for a second. We are
taught to teach the head pins. We are not
taught to teach to the kids who were the furthest
and the hardest to get to: the kids with
autism, the kids with Down syndrome. The part that's
critical here... and it really aligns with
Universal Design for Learning... is that so
often the supports that we design for those
kids on the outside of the lane are
actually supports that all of the kids
need. This is the part we need to
understand if inclusive education is
going to move forward in Canada. How can
we find this value of diversity in our
classrooms between the students. This is
not just important for the outside pins
but it's critical for every single one
of us. And just think all we need to do is change our aim. Look how bowling changed education.
