Student Empowerment

In this chapter, you will learn about the importance of empowering students to be included with their peers, as well as strategies that will accomplish this goal. Research will be presented, along with Anna’s perception about including her daughter with her peers, and a video example of Anna discussing strategies that could assist Sabrina in her own involvement and educational empowerment.

Things to Consider:

What are some strategies that can actively include all students to work together?
If you were a parent of a child with special needs, how would you encourage your child to form relationships with his/her peers?
When watching the video of Anna and her team, what do you think about some of the strategies that she presents to the educational team?

Student Empowerment - What Research Says

Including students with disabilities into the regular education classroom requires deliberate strategies that move beyond a student’s physical presence in the classroom. Actual classroom attendance is not inclusion. Students with disabilities who are included with their typically developing peers should be engaged in the same classroom lessons as their peers (using modifications or accommodations as needed), while a deliberate sense of social inclusion is encouraged (Karten, 2005; Salend, 2001).

In this chapter, the term student empowerment was deliberately chosen to emphasize the importance of educating all students to become aware of who they are as person and what they can contribute to their peer group. This goal can be achieved by encouraging students to work together, practice using their social skills, and develop their own leadership qualities. Karten (2005) presents several intrapersonal and interpersonal activities that can achieve this goal. Some of the intrapersonal activities include personal goal setting, individual projects, and maintaining a journal. Meanwhile, the interpersonal activities include team building exercises, cooperative learning groups, and group functions or activities. There are many specific strategies an educator can employ to include and empower all students, all of these sharing the same common belief that each classroom member contributes something unique to their peer group.

When setting up a classroom to promote student inclusion and empowerment, it is critical that the teacher identify the set of explicit and implicit social values and skills that make up the classroom culture. There are many social rules and values that are implicit and may not be easily identifiable by a student who has a disability. Smith Myles, Trautman, & Schelvan (2004) refers to this as the “hidden curriculum.” Once the implicit and explicit classroom culture is understood, there are many strategies a teacher can employ to foster student empowerment and inclusion, some of these are:

Educate students about disabilities
Practice or role play working with a variety of people
Invite guest speakers (e.g., family members, adults with disabilities, etc)
Provide social skills instruction
Directly teach friendship skills
Provide ample praise to students who are working together
Structure class activities to encourage peer collaboration
Teach and address stereotype
ACTIVELY include the student in all classroom activities
Create a classroom friendly environment for everyone

Student Empowerment - What Anna Says

For me, this is the most important piece of Sabrina’s inclusion and the most difficult to implement. Her long-term success in life rests in her friendships and social skills more than her ability to count by 10s or pronounce a ‘th’ sound. I think it’s hard for adults to remember that children need modeling and strategies to negotiate relationship both in and out of the classroom. As Sabrina gets older, she gets more confident and yet many of her peers still see her as the girl who talked like a baby and don’t see her as equal to them. I have had the same conversation with her team every year. Her peers need to see her as having something to offer them and not as the girl who needs their help.

In first grade, I went to the talk with the kids twice during the school year. I sat on the floor with them and asked them what strategies they used or could come up with to help them understand Sabrina. Some cupped their ears to hear her better, one suggested using his newly invented dot-language, and most just asked her to repeat her words (though they wanted to know it was OK to do that). After that, they were more willing to try to understand her because they knew what to do. As a benefit, their parents also tried harder and were more willing to invite her over for a play date and to talk to me about her. Notice that I did not talk about her disability; I focused on the kids themselves and asked them to come up with solutions.

Student Empowerment -Video Example

Please observe the following video example of Anna discussing how she would like to encourage her daughter Sabrina’s involvement in her classroom with her peers. Please take notice of the suggestions Anna discusses with her team that can empower Sabrina to be more involved with her own education and to foster her peer relationships.

References

Karten, T.J., ( 2005). Inclusion strategies that work: Research-based methods for the
classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Smith Myles, B., Trautman, M.L., Schelvan, R.L. (2004). The hidden curriculum:
Practical solutions for understanding unstated rules in social situations. Shawnee
Mission, KS: Autsim Asperger Publishing Company.

Salend, S.J. (2001). Creating inclusive classrooms: effective and reflective classrooms
(4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.