How to make sure I meet every student\'s needs in a way that fits with multiple intelligences, personality, and learning styles.

1. Accepting Responsibility for
the Learning of All Students
What does it Mean?

2. “Race is tied intricately to class.
When we understand this intricate tie that
binds us,
we begin to see that we do share much
common ground in class.”
Ronald Takaki

3. Enduring Understanding
 Culture, first language, ethnicity and race
often allow students to present as
abnormal to the teacher who is from the
main line culture. It is necessary to
understand how these things effect their
learning and the disproportionate number
of minority students in special ed. If we
teach all of these students so they can
learn, special education classes should
shrink and prejudices should recede into
the past.

4. Essential Questions
 How are the demographics of public schools
changing?
 How is the increasing diversity of the student
population reflected in special education?
 What is the demographic divide, and why is it
important?
 How can we explain the significant discrepancies
in educational outcomes for children who vary
by race, culture, socio-economic status,
language, and learning differences?
 What do successful teachers believe and do to
enhance the educational futures of all children?
quoted on page 52 of Special Education for Today’s Teacher An Introduction

5. How are the demographics of
public schools changing?
 In 2004 (US Census Bureau) US was 67%
European American.
 In the last two years Hispanic Americans have
surpassed African Americans as the largest
minority in the US.
 At least 4 states now have now majority
population by ethnicity.
 By 2015 only 58% of the 0 to 24 group will be
European American.
 By 2025 half of all school children will be of non-
European ancestry.

6. How are the demographics of public schools
changing?
 Over 10% of the student population is classified
as English-language Learners and are entitle to
general education services to address their
limited English proficiency.
 The number is disproportionally larger in some
regions and it is straining budgets and staffs to
meet the needs.
 Many of us would not recognize the sounds of
our own school hall ways if we went back today,
the change is so all pervasive in the US.

7. How are the demographics of public schools
changing?
 Poverty is increasing.
 Poverty is often tied with ethnicity and linguistic
differences as those who don’t fit into the norms
of our culture often get placed in the worst jobs
despite great intelligence and training.
 Poverty means teachers will have to learn to
look out for signs of poor nourishment to insure
that their students can learn well as health has a
great impact on ability. Sometimes, if not
caught early enough, it results in permanent
damage to mind as well as body.

8. How are the demographics of
public schools changing?
 Neglect and abuse are on the rise.
 Neglect often comes with the socio-
economic struggles and growing divide in
our society.
 Neglect has become the greatest form of
child abuse in the country today.

9. How is the increasing diversity of the
student population reflected in special
education?
 Overrepresentation
 Academic achievement is hindered by
being on European American due to
resource inequities.
 Proportionally more American Indians and
African Americans have intellectual
disabilities, learning disabilities, and
emotional/behavior disorders.

10. How is the increasing diversity of the
student population reflected in special
education?
 Students with disabilities are more likely to live
in poverty and end up in schools with too few
resources to meet their needs.
 Type of classroom used for special education is
most often integrated for European Americans
and in essence segregated (called separated) for
the African Americans.
 Graduation rates are falling for all but the Asian
American students. It is especially true in the
special education classroom for the Culturally
and Linguistically diverse.

11. The Demographic Divide
 It is between teachers and students.
 It is most often social and economic.
 It leave teachers without enough understanding
of the student culture to know when the
students are being defiant or being as is
culturally acceptable in their society.
 Makes it more important to have good teachers
from the same culture as role models.
 Makes it important to have same culture
teachers to help those on the divide know best
how to deal with the special needs they don’t
normally recognize.

12. The Demographic Divide
 We must not think we cannot reach the children
on the other side of this divide if we are
European Americans. Hard work, proper
attention, and learning about the students and
their families will do wonders. We need to
develop resources to make it happen.
 Teachers have to understand what is normal in
different cultures. A lot of the students in this
multicultural milieu are from more communal
cultures that expect far different behaviors in the
classroom than our individualistic culture.

13. The Demographic Divide
 Educational decisions made on our own views of
“normal” may have deleterious results for the
education of many of the students coming here
from cultures unfamiliar to us.
 Teachers have to understand what is normal in
different cultures. A lot of the students in this
multicultural milieu are from more communal
cultures that expect far different behaviors in the
classroom than our individualistic culture.

14. How can we explain the
significant discrepancies in
educational outcomes for
children who vary by race,
culture, socio-economic
status, language, and
learning differences?

15. Discrepancies
 Deshawn, page 64
 Lack of trust in authority in poorer
neighborhoods.
 Recognizing the difference between defiance
and cultural norms does is important but does
not require teacher-student cultural parity.
 Linguistic divergence can make it hard for
parents to inform teachers of physical or
psychological needs they know their children
have.

16. Discrepancies
 If teachers make decisions based on
English performance for ESLL students,
then they may put very bright students
into special education settings that will
hurt rather than help. (Josue pg. 66).*
 Cultures direct parental interactions with
schools as well as those of their children.
 Parental expectations for their children
may be different from the teachers.
* Alternate Homework assignment. Reflect on this student’s teacher’s responses to his
needs.

17. Discrepancies
 Children who come from poverty often start
behind in school and stay there.
 Students from diverse backgrounds with
disabilities often struggle because the states
keep changing expectations and the parents are
either working too hard to take time to talk to
the teachers or are unable to communicate in
English and have given up trying to help their
children.
 High Stakes Testing is causing its own problems
for these students, especially in special
education classes.

18. What do successful teachers believe and do to
enhance the educational futures of all children?
 They take advantage of the information available
in communities that thrive on extended family
living.
 They use mentors and fellow teachers ideas to
become more culturally sensitive and responsive.
 They learn all they can about multiple cultures
that may be divergent in their behavior
standards and work with the students to
understand each other rather than set rules that
cause tension or make one group seem superior
to another.

19. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 They tend to work from a more
Interactional model for disabilities and use
information from the Medical Model to
help get them diagnosed, but not
necessarily to teach them.
 Use the school environment to foster
resilience in the students rather than total
defeat.

20. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 Know yourself and the role culture plays in
perception.
 Study culture and diversity
 Help our student to think in terms of how
different people respond to experiences without
going into great cultural studies. Use normal
examples like male and female, fat and thin,
worker and manager and branch out from there.
This should help all in the class become non-
judgmental.
 Don’t be judgmental.

21. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 Make the classroom a caring place.
 Make interactions with parents caring
events that assure them of your support.
 Make opportunities to learn about your
students and their backgrounds.
Informal observations of students.
Informal conversations with parents.
Use questionnaires when possible.

22. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 Create a sense of community in the
classroom.
 Teach classroom rules, routines, and
procedures explicitly. Never assume that
anyone knows what is expected of them.
Your cultural may set you to expect
something a student has never been
required to do in his culture.

23. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 Only assume that students will behave
appropriately if they know and remember
what is expected by the teacher.
 Use multiple strategies to teach classroom
expectations.
 Use humorous negative examples as well
as models when setting expectations.
 Set high expectations for student
achievement. Anyone can learn.

24. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 Provide authentic opportunities for
students to use newly acquired skills and
competencies.
 Insist on completion and quality.
 Use culturally relevant curriculum and
texts.
 Link the children’s interests, experiences,
families and home cultures to the school
work.

25. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 Take advantages of traditions like oral history in
the African American community.
 Take advantage of the things some families do
to maintain the family tree and the history of
each member. That is a great way to tap the
funds of knowledge in a family that doesn’t want
to talk to the teacher. Talking to the student
about the weekly family tree sessions will bring
out much to help the teacher link the classes to
that student’s life.

26. What do successful teachers believe and do to enhance
the educational futures of all children?
 Empower students to seek equity and social
justice.
 Integrate social justice into the curriculum as the
students grow older.
 Take advantage of current events to make this
happen more readily.
 Make ways for students to get involved in social
action projects. Then they will believe that they
can have an impact on the world.
 Make sure they know what equity means.

27. We have to bring
the students in
our growing and
rapidly changing We need to learn to know our students better than ever so
American culture we can cross the demographic divide.
together in a
place where it is
safe to be
oneself and to
learn without
fear of not fitting We need to be
in. ready to learn and
grow and change
as much as our
students. If we
don’t, we will
make the divide
into an unbridgeable
chasm.

28. We have to learn
to love our selves
and our students We need to be ready to face the pains that living in a poor
in wisdom so we neighborhood bring to our students. Poor neighborhoods
can meet their often provide poor schools and unsafe environments.
problems with These are hard places for children to learn in. Find ways to
understanding. make it easier.
We need to be aware of family traditions
that will become treasure troves of information
for us when our students parents are uncomfortable
coming in for meetings or can’t find anyone to translate
for them.
Commit to learning about our students, their backgrounds and their
experiences. Then commit to incorporating their lives into our teaching so they
can see the value of what they are learning.