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Restoring Humanity to "Special Education": Global Perspectives on Inclusion w/ Dr. Sarah K Benson
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Hey there, Nick here at Human Restoration Project. We took the longest break in our podcast’s history last month, and I hope you were able to take a break, too. We’re back for biweekly releases through the summer starting today with Dr. Sarah Benson. Sarah is Associate Professor in Inclusion and Disabilities at the University of Birmingham campus in Dubai where she teaches students from around the world as Head of Subject group for the School of education and lecturer for inclusion and special needs programs.
"Inclusion" has become a word everyone nods along to but almost no one defines the same way, And since so much of special education has historically been about sorting and labeling kids in relation to an imaginary average. I was so curious to ask Sarah, what does genuine inclusion require of us, and of schools, and what would it mean to restore the humanity of a special education system that was built to put kids into buckets?
Sarah and I also talked a bit about HRP Australia, which is a real thing you can check out at humanrestorationproject.au. HRP Australia is headed by Vaughan Cleary, former Learning and Teaching Head and Senior Deputy Principal at Assumption College in Kilmore, Victoria, and I’ll be headed down there at the end of this month to visit schools and experience Australian education firsthand.
Also a quick reminder that we’re reading Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for the End of the World as We Know it for our HRP Summer Book Club, and there’s still time to join us. You can learn more at humanrestorationproject.org/book-club.
Episode notes:
HRP Summer Book Club - Pedagogies of Collapse
‘I’m Determined’ at James Madison University
Recommended
Transcript
Accountability in Education for Students with Disabilities
00:00:00
Speaker
We have to hold people accountable because what happens when students with disabilities are, when we're not holding school systems accountable for their education, they are completely left out and behind um and and they are excluded.
00:00:15
Speaker
The flip side of that is when we do tests, we also exclude them. um So i think to me, inclusion, if we want inclusive school systems, this is why I always come back to, if we want an inclusive school system, we have to do away with traditional thinking, traditional testing, and traditional curriculum models.
00:00:35
Speaker
And we have to rethink and redefine education as a whole, because education in and of itself should be inclusive. There's this irony of that we have to talk about inclusive education and education,
00:00:49
Speaker
rather than just talking about education. And so I think it's funny you read a lot of inclusive literature and everybody starts their first three to four paragraphs are trying to define what inclusive education is to them in their contacts and whether that you're like, it's just that it should just be education.
Introducing Dr. Sarah Benson
00:01:11
Speaker
Hey there, Nick here at Human Restoration Project. We took the longest break in our podcast history last month, and I hope you were able to take a break too. We're back for bi-weekly releases through the summer, starting today with Dr. Sarah Benson.
00:01:24
Speaker
Sarah is Associate Professor in Inclusion and Disabilities at the University of Birmingham campus in Dubai, where she teaches students from around the world as Head of Subject Group for the School of Education and Lecturer for Inclusion and Special Needs Programs.
00:01:42
Speaker
Inclusion has become a word everyone nods along to, but almost no one defines the same way. And since so much of special education has historically been about sorting and labeling kids in relation to an imaginary average, I was so curious to ask Sarah, what does genuine inclusion require of us and of schools?
00:02:02
Speaker
And what would it mean to restore the humanity of a special education system that was built to put kids into buckets?
Exploring Global Education and HRP Australia
00:02:10
Speaker
Sarah and i also talked a bit about HRP Australia, which is a real thing you can check out at humanrestorationproject.au.
00:02:19
Speaker
HRP Australia is headed by Vaughn Cleary, former Learning and Teaching Head and Senior Deputy Principal at Assumption College in Kilmore, Victoria. And I'll be heading down there at the end of this month to visit schools and experience Australian education firsthand.
00:02:35
Speaker
Also, a quick reminder that we're reading Pedagogies of Collapse, a hopeful education for the end of the world as we know it, for our HRP Summer Book Club. And there's still time to join us.
00:02:46
Speaker
You can learn more at humanrestorationproject.org slash book dash club. I currently live in
Sarah's International Teaching Journey
00:02:55
Speaker
Dubai. So just to set the scene, I'm an American working for a British university in the Gulf.
00:03:05
Speaker
To complicate it further, i I was teaching in international schools 2000. ah Most of my adult career has been spent abroad.
00:03:17
Speaker
And I was teaching in Brussels for two years and then decided, As many teachers will recognize, you kind of either have to stay in a system to move up in a system, or you have to just entirely get out of the system.
00:03:33
Speaker
And if we're being perfectly frank, I had no desire to be an administrator. the The thought of it killed me. I was like, nope, not going to do it. And so I said, all right, then I have to get out of the system. So I chose to get my PhD.
00:03:47
Speaker
And I have since when I graduated, i met a gentleman who was working in the UK and he He was like, you would actually be perfect for
Personal Stories and Cultural Experiences
00:03:59
Speaker
this job. We're opening a campus in Dubai. We need to build out an inclusion program. And I was doing my PhD studies in Jordan. Shout out to the Jordanian national football team making their debut in the World Cup on Wednesday. Very excited.
00:04:15
Speaker
The match is at a time in which I can watch it. I've adjusted my gym and my work schedule so that I can be home and in front of the TV. um It's very exciting. Anyhow, so I was finishing up my PhD research in Jordan. It's a place that I hold near and dear. I call it my soul's home.
00:04:33
Speaker
um And this job opened up in Dubai. And I got to tell you, it is much easier to fly from Dubai to Jordan than it is to fly from Washington, D.C. to Jordan. There's about a 10-hour time difference in that flight pattern. And so I moved here before I finished my PhD.
00:04:53
Speaker
I've been working here since. um met and married in Australia, saw that Vaughn was setting up um the project in Australia, and I was like, wait a second.
00:05:05
Speaker
I got to take it. Like I was taking a trip down anyways and so excited for what he's doing. I'm like, ah, I know that he said that you were going to go down to Australia at some point soon. And i think there's so much potential there. And so I'm so excited for you guys.
00:05:20
Speaker
I literally, I just booked my flight on last Monday. Last Monday, I booked my flight. I'm going, and I've never been. um It's a haul to get from ah Des Moines, Iowa to a Melbourne. um It's, yeah, I'm leaving on July 31st, and I'm getting in on Sunday, August 2nd. And from there, I'm going to be in, yeah, that that involves um Des Moines to Denver, Denver to Los Angeles or San Francisco, one of the two, and then from there on to Melbourne. It's crazy It's funny because it makes me think of like when you're like it was 2022. We just quit. I'm thinking this four years ago.
00:05:58
Speaker
Like to you sometimes look back and think that was just four years ago. Like what have you created and done in four years? And like and it sounds to me like you've kind of.
00:06:11
Speaker
just Things just keep happening in the best pot. Like kismet is not a word that that I, but it feels like one of those things. And it's not that there's not clear hard work, dedication and thought.
00:06:28
Speaker
But we all know that like luck and just meeting the right people at the right time plays such a big part in
Art and Disability: Changing Perceptions
00:06:35
Speaker
in all of life. But like, um i it makes me think of, i actually just this morning and it was so exciting to see.
00:06:44
Speaker
I've been doing similar to you. I had a small grant. it I didn't. She's kind of like, this is what I'm doing. um And what it was i still do a lot of my research out in Jordan.
00:06:56
Speaker
um And I was kind of like, one of the things I've seen in Jordan is that there's always a lot of um arts things going on. It's a very artistic country.
00:07:09
Speaker
Their murals, their wall murals throughout the city are gorgeous. And there's just a ah deep sort of, commitment to that artistry. And um there's also a lot of struggle around disability acceptance and and things have changed massively since I was in Peace Corps there in 2004.
00:07:27
Speaker
Like you go back, you know, I went back 12 years later and I was like, things have changed, but it's still not where people with disabilities would like it to be or families of people with disabilities. And I thought, well,
00:07:38
Speaker
Art has forever been used to kind of like support that that culture change and changing people's hearts and minds. And so just kind of was like, I was like, oh, I'm going to do a little project with some students and some cameras to share what their lived experience of disability in Jordan is.
00:07:56
Speaker
Literally like a twenty five thousand pound grant, like which is in the scheme of academics. It's basically a micro grant. Yeah, I should have done nothing with it.
00:08:07
Speaker
But because, and this is one of the reasons I love Jordan so much, um is you you meet one person and they just throw the gates wide open. And I ended up meeting the two exact right people.
00:08:22
Speaker
the time he was the, um I think you' the assistant director at the National Gallery of Art in Jordan and the head of arts and culture for the British Council. And the two of them kind of knew each other tangentially. And I was like, come to this photography exhibit I'm putting on of the students' work and let's talk.
00:08:40
Speaker
And the three of us like just got on like thieves. um And since then, we have continued to just kind of like scrape by, find a little funding here, find a little funding there.
00:08:56
Speaker
The two of them went to do this workshop um in Portugal about commute building a community of practice um and how we approach it with intentionality and how we each bring something together to learn and like over time process and solve the problems that are in front of us that that the group is concerned about. And so we have since that small micro grant,
00:09:20
Speaker
been able to put on a whole two-day symposium around arts and disability, inviting disabled, non-disabled um directors of centers and galleries.
00:09:32
Speaker
And that has like burgeoned into, we have this whole network of people. um The deaf are a Deaf Cinema Club that we work with has been winning international awards. And then we worked with a comic book artist and he put on, they did a whole, um I went in and did a training for them on like training.
00:09:55
Speaker
We did a workshop session on on disability um and how to talk about disability, how to ask and and kind of how to shift our thinking around disability.
00:10:07
Speaker
And they did a whole ever um comic book issue, comic, a whole comic issue around disability, bringing together disabled and non-disabled artists. And they this morning I opened my WhatsApp chat. I can't always read everything because it's all in Arabic. And all I saw was um they have managed to get the comic issue.
00:10:30
Speaker
It is now on display at an art gallery in London. And I'm, you know it's one of those things where you're like, he was literally a micro grant. And you just find the right people at the right time.
00:10:44
Speaker
and the energy has carried it forward. And I, at this point, I step in when they want me to come in and do some sort of training or we need to bounce ideas. Like I, it's one of those things where. Yeah.
00:10:58
Speaker
Yes, I was part of pushing the the ball off the top of the mountain, but like the momentum is all the people who have continued to just kind of kick it down, down the mountain. And, um, it's self-propelled at this point, which is just so cool.
00:11:13
Speaker
um And yeah, just as you're talking, it like it sounds like that's kind of where you guys are at. That's sort of like you didn't you didn't know what was going to happen. You guys were ready to pack it all up and go teach in Australia. And and honestly, I send my students like one of my i teach teachers and.
00:11:31
Speaker
My students are pretty used to me saying, we should just blow it all up. We need to start fresh. Nothing is working for anybody. And yours is a resource that I send them to when I say, let's investigate what other people are doing that actually works for students.
Challenges in Traditional Schooling Systems
00:11:46
Speaker
And so when you think about the reverberations that you guys are having in Dubai, but like not something that that probably in 2022 you really thought, oh yeah, some random person from Dubai is going to contact me.
00:12:04
Speaker
Honestly, i get I get chills because that's, it's so, i have the world's, I guess, worst imposter syndrome because it's like, okay, we're just a couple guys, you know. um Now we're three full-time people for crying out loud. So, like, what kind of an impact can we have? And to your point exactly about um people It's just about, i think, there's a ah need sometimes expressed, often unexpressed, but when you see people that are like minded, and you can connect with them and begin to just build things, there's sort of an emergent
00:12:37
Speaker
you know, like emergent property of, of ah cool, interesting, motivated, passionate, curious people that come together and just something new that you could never even think of comes out of like, Hey, what if we just did this?
00:12:51
Speaker
And then each person just contributes, you know, to their own little piece to that. And it ends up growing into something that nobody by themselves could have, could have even done. So yeah, again, the fact that you're over there sharing our resources um with people half a world away um is wild. i I have the same feeling when I pull up you know podcast analytics. you know I'm just like, oh, where are people listening from in the world? And it's like, we have listeners in like Indonesia or like places I would never think um to to look for folks, you know especially like an English-speaking podcast like ours is predominantly. I'm just wondering, like who are people out there in the world accessing this? um
00:13:30
Speaker
I love that. can i Can I ask, what specifically are you sharing with them when when you're like expressing that need or students are and you're like, oh, connect to this HRP thing?
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from this idea of, you know, most of my students are working as learning support teachers. They are working as inclusion teachers. They're working as special educational needs coordinators.
00:13:59
Speaker
Some of them are parents of children with disabilities um and neurodiversities. And some of them um are teachers who want to make their classroom more inclusive um and and realize that they don't know everything that they need to know.
00:14:18
Speaker
I think what's so lovely, what I so love teaching about this course is um my students come from, i think this this year I've got India, Pakistan, Brazil, South Africa,
00:14:31
Speaker
lebanon the United Nations over there. yeah think I just, so so they're all bringing their background and experience in schooling and in disability.
00:14:45
Speaker
And it's it's been fascinating for me to learn from them about how did they grow up and what was their schooling experience. And so one of the things that we often talk about in class is how does traditional schooling construct disability within
Advocating for Responsive and Inclusive Schools
00:15:02
Speaker
the classroom? And how are we disabling students beyond the biological impairments by what we're asking, what we're the standards, these arbitrary standards that we, you know, this learning loss that we have invented, all of these things.
00:15:20
Speaker
um And so we spend our first term kind of thinking about how does culture and how does school culture how does that end up um creating or calcifying disability um for for students? And then we kind of take it into this idea of like,
00:15:43
Speaker
Well, then what is a good school and how do we legislate what good schools are and what's stopping us from from being good schools that are responsive to our communities? And often my students walk away with this profound frustration ah because they look at their schools and that they say, the schools are not doing what my students need.
00:16:06
Speaker
um We work in a very highly commodified educational environment, um which is one of the things that terrifies me right now about what's going on back home in the States, um because i I live in a post- Department of Education world. And I've seen what happens when you make education a commodity and um it doesn't work.
00:16:32
Speaker
It works. I take that back. It works for the people who have money and who have social capital and political and financial capital. works great for them. But for everybody else, um we're struggling and and it's difficult.
00:16:47
Speaker
And my students come in thinking that this is the one right way to do that. To do education, we have to do reading, writing, arithmetic. And many of them have come from very traditional educational backgrounds, thinking about the educational system in India, in Pakistan, in Lebanon, where it's very, you know,
00:17:10
Speaker
teacher-led, teacher-directed, um very assessment-heavy, very sort of follow the straight line that's been set forth for you, and there will be no deviation from that.
00:17:24
Speaker
And because we're looking at students who have disabilities, neurodiversities, learning difficulties, um we're looking at students who that straight line doesn't work for, but the further you dig into it, we talk about how actually One of the things that we really go into and we discuss at length and in the in the course is well, does should education be any different for neurotypical students than neurodiverse students? should educatione And when we talk about what do we want our kids to walk away from school with, nobody says, i want them to have a hundred a nine on their GCSEs, that the end of school.
00:18:03
Speaker
Nobody says, i want my student to get the highest marks. When I ask my students, after the seven years I've been teaching this course, and and anytime I talk to any group of teachers, I say, what do you want your students to walk away with?
00:18:16
Speaker
I want them to love learning. I want them to be happy. I want them to be fulfilled. I want them to be independent. and And at no point does anybody ever say, i want them to look back and think about how they... they took this test or what their grade was in mathematics. And I say, well, if this is what we say we want our students to walk away with from schooling, then why are we doing this in our schools instead?
00:18:45
Speaker
Because what we're doing doesn't actually match was with what we think that the outcomes of school should be. and and And the students kind of sit back and they're like, oh,
00:18:58
Speaker
It prompts an existential crisis a little bit. It does. Yeah. It does.
Frustrations with Education Systems
00:19:04
Speaker
more than one occasion, I've had students go to me, Ms. Benson, I really i ah really didn't like you at the end of that first term. and And then we go into our second term where we talk about like, but this is the reality we're faced with. So how are we going to support students? And they're like, and now I just like you even more because now you've put the contradiction front and center. It's not just now that you've blown up my worldview, but now you've blown up my worldview and told me, yeah, but sucks. We have to get on with it. And I'm like, but this is the tension that we're constantly faced with.
00:19:38
Speaker
All teachers are, but I think that teachers who are working with students who don't fit the middle, that silly little bubble on the bell diagram that we continue to insist on using, um teachers who who teach at the margins of that, we see that...
00:19:57
Speaker
very quickly and and are faced with it in maybe in our faces a little bit more often. It's it's harder to ignore. and think all teachers know it, um but it's harder for for teachers who are working with students who are neurodiverse or have some sort of disability.
00:20:12
Speaker
And so, yeah, and so then I and then they say, but who is doing something like this? And I said, well, look over here. Look at these projects like it is possible to still have students who have
Global Education Models and Innovative Approaches
00:20:25
Speaker
the intellectual prowess that we do want our students to have in order to be successful and do all of the rat racy things like I get it. We do live in this system, but it's possible to do that in another way.
00:20:39
Speaker
um And so, yes, so then I point to them when they say to me, but nobody's doing this. What would this even look like? I say, go here. Look at this. There are schools that are doing it.
00:20:51
Speaker
You just have to look a little bit harder. um And and that's why that's partly why, you know, I wanted to talk to Vaughn. One of the things I know very little, but I am learning about the Australian system.
00:21:04
Speaker
But. They have a lot of parents that post-COVID, there has been a dramatic increase in, and and a professor once told me the exact numbers. i've Of course, i don't have a head for numbers. um A dramatic increase in the amount of students who are being homeschooled and the amount of students who are seeking out alternative educational options. And Australia has a history of correspondence courses and this sort of like unique approach to education because of the the kind of expanse of the country, because of the rural nature of so much of the country.
00:21:43
Speaker
And so that's one of the reasons why I was so excited to see Vaughn doing this is because I was like, ah Australia has this unique thing in which I find. as so I've lived in Europe, and this is no shade to you European lived listeners. um I've lived in Europe, and I've lived in the Middle East, and I've lived in the Gulf, and I find myself generally making bestest friends with Australians.
00:22:09
Speaker
Because when faced with somebody from Europe or somebody from Australia, I find the Americans in the australia and Australians, we have a lot in common that like tradition doesn't always support with those things. And so that sort of can do cowboy attitude is very much in Australia.
00:22:29
Speaker
um And so I think it's a place that is is ripe for and has the potential to to buck the system.
00:22:41
Speaker
um and And so it fascinates me to see what ends up coming out of that. i'm i'm doing a um I'm doing a project right now where I've been working with ah teacher education in Malaysia.
00:22:54
Speaker
um And i I'm going to throw a few more like Curveballs. We've been educating refugee teachers um in Malaysia because they um are not actually the refugees who end up in Malaysia are not recognized. They're not allowed to go to schools. A lot of the refugees end up becoming teachers themselves, but they have no teaching background.
00:23:17
Speaker
So we've been doing teacher education projects with them, and that's resulted in us potentially doing some work in Indonesia with rural teachers. And so I've kind of started doing this, you know, but a scoping review, this very academic thing of i just am trying to figure out who's written what about rural education.
00:23:37
Speaker
And do you find the majority of it comes from America, Australia, and then Africa um is where you can kind of see the majority of rural education.
00:23:47
Speaker
literature and understanding coming from. And so again, I come back to like Australia has that sort of like cowboy sense about it that they they might just take, take off and run with it, um which is so exciting because I don't know that America is in a place right now to do that. And a lot of the rest of the world is is edging towards a very corporate model of education. And I think it's one of the things that frustrates me about being here.
00:24:18
Speaker
We literally have all the money in the world. um Schools are making money hand over fist. But the colonial mindset of British education is the best education remains so deeply embedded um that everybody just coalesces around like, no, no, we have to have a British curriculum.
00:24:40
Speaker
And like you talk to a lot of British educators and they're like, it's not going well. But there is still this idea that that this is the best way to be. And I'm thinking you have all the money in the world we could create.
00:24:54
Speaker
such an amazing opportunity here because we want people want to invest money in it. Like we just keep investing in the top tier British schools. And I just keep thinking, but there's a better way to do it.
00:25:08
Speaker
So anyways, that's a long way of saying my students find a lot of like relief that there are places and people in the world that when faced with this question of what do we want students to get from their years of schooling?
00:25:25
Speaker
what do we How do we want a graduate? What is you know what is the what do we want our students to come away with? There are people in the world who are actually working towards what we all say we want them to come away with rather than coming away with an SAT, GSE result.
00:25:43
Speaker
In very long-winded way. No, no, no. I think you've made it so plain. I think that that really the tension between ends and means, right? At some point, we kind of, we forgot or we flipped that like the means became an end in itself.
00:25:59
Speaker
um So, you know, it used to be the case, okay. um We recognize that learning is you know a more holistic or emergent thing. It's sort of always happening. And yeah, testing can sort of take a slice of it, right? We can see how we're doing in these things, but that's all a means to an end of, i don't know human flourishing or whatever democratic citizenship or you know name a value or something that's in there.
Holistic Development vs. Metrics in Education
00:26:24
Speaker
But at some point, it's sort of flipped to say like the end result that matters is that the metrics improve.
00:26:31
Speaker
And I don't think it's an accident then that we've seen really like those things have flatlined the more that we've chased them. But it seems like everything else has gotten worse as we've neglected like those values questions. So to your point at the very beginning, when you were saying talking to teachers and asking them, what do you want kids to be? You know, not just like,
00:26:51
Speaker
set a smart goal for, you know, where you want kids to be by the end of the semester. But like, who do you want them to be 30 years from now? um And how do you want to have an influence on it? And then the follow-up there is, are the things that we're doing, the things that are going to help us get there? And then I think,
00:27:08
Speaker
One thing I've really appreciated in and in our work with schools coming from a classroom teacher perspective is I often found um school administrators and leadership very stifling um in in doing that in my own context.
00:27:23
Speaker
ah But I found the more that we've looked out and connected with courageous leaders, they're really not afraid to be the ones to... um push and to make room you know for their teachers to do exactly those things and to take the the brunt, you know take the heat where um there's pushback and really shield their teachers and provide them you know the skills, support, um and frankly, just the space to say, like look, maybe we don't need to teach everything about this curriculum, what are some things that you could maybe cut as long as you know you can show, you can prove to someone say the school board or to parents that what you're going to be doing is better than that, right? So being able to bring the receipts um is a really important part of that too and in our system. But yeah, just connecting with courageous school leaders.
00:28:12
Speaker
I also want to touch on something real interesting that you pointed to as far as like the international um education context, because I think your perspective is so, I don't know, unique or random.
The Evolving Concept of Inclusion
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah. But again, like, you know, ah in the random walk of your life, you have this global perspective on um on these issues.
00:28:34
Speaker
I find myself looking to Australia too for more of those innovative things and less towards UK and Europe and stuff. So I guess I'm super fascinated, Sarah, like in this question of inclusion, given that global perspective, when you're talking to students from all of these different countries and continents around the world in your work, and you are all having this conversation about inclusion,
00:29:00
Speaker
You know, I hear conversations about special education and it often seems like that means making kids more average, right? Fitting them into a box that maybe they don't fit into. And I get frustrated with those parts of of the system too. But when you're talking about inclusion,
00:29:18
Speaker
true inclusion, genuine inclusion with your students who are going to go on to work in schools or, you know, with with other human beings. how do you How do you all define it? And in what are models that you see that are out there that are working? Yeah.
00:29:31
Speaker
The 64 million? Are we in 64 trillion? Are we into trillions now? Yeah. With with inflation, it's got to be up there. Yeah. $64 trillion dollar question or durham question You know, I think it's interesting to me as somebody who comes and I've had these conversations with with other U.S. educators and the the program at UVA is very traditionalist in special education um and interventions students.
00:30:02
Speaker
to to to keep kids on the straight and narrow of what we believe education should be. um And and you it's funny because when I first started my PhD degree, I was looking for international special education and I kept like searching for literature around that.
00:30:20
Speaker
And it just like i it wasn't there. um So then librarian, of course it was a librarian, God love our librarians. um yeah the greatest of the greats, um was like, well, what ah what are some other search terms? What about inclusion? And I was like, okay.
00:30:37
Speaker
And I searched for inclusion. and cool Interesting and also okay very telling. Roger Slee and some other kind of big thinkers in the field has talked about how essentially inclusion has replaced the word special education.
00:30:57
Speaker
And it is... Like so many things in our world of education, we have simply been told that it should be this. And so we use the word inclusion. But what we really mean is special education um because they have researched and they've said special education inclusion is the best. You know, Salmonka statement, the CRPD, all of these international things have told us that we we need to have inclusion.
00:31:26
Speaker
And so schools around the world have said inclusion. So now instead of saying the s SEND kids or the special ed kids or the SPED kids, do you know what we say here?
00:31:38
Speaker
The inclusion kids. Totally different. I think my favorite is is I walk into schools and they're like, oh, and you're the inclusion teacher, so let us show you the inclusion room.
00:31:51
Speaker
I just, I have to bite my tongue every time. and I just, I'm like, well, okay. So glad you have an exclusionary inclusion room.
00:32:03
Speaker
Is it in quotation marks when it's on the wall? Unfortunately, no. The inclusion room. No, it is just this is these are our inclusion kids and this is the inclusion room. mean, education loves nothing more than to change the terms without actually changing any of the practices, because changing the the term is the easy part. Changing the practices. Oh, man, you get into a whole everything is kind of stuck together with each other.
00:32:26
Speaker
It would require us giving teachers the time and space and the leaders, you know, supporting the teachers and growing their knowledge and changing their practices rather than introducing a new two-hour CPD every term or every Tuesday.
00:32:43
Speaker
All that other stuff sounds really labor-intensive and time-consuming. And the other thing just seems like, hey, if we can do it two hours on a Tuesday and call it a day. Yeah. yeah Welcome to education, folks. Yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
Just so. And, and you know, ah we joke and and that is something that we discuss at length about our current context here in Dubai. um But it's not unique to Dubai. um You know, it is certainly something that you see.
00:33:10
Speaker
around the world and there's been a push to start. And within the field of of inclusive education, there's debates, you know, with bigger thinkers than me about, is it a place? Is it a, an attitude? Is it a, you know, is it a type of teaching and, you know,
00:33:30
Speaker
And then some people are like, oh, but now we have to call it disability inclusion rather than just inclusion because inclusion actually encapsulates so much more and that it should be um gender, it should be sexual orientation, it should be socioeconomic status, race, religion. And so now, and then there are people, and I i think I am often one of them that says, yes, but disability requires often not just inclusion,
00:33:59
Speaker
including different representation or different languages, but actually different teaching styles or different teaching methods. And we cannot lose that. Now, as somebody who grew up and and was a special education teacher, I will say I can teach all students because is I've learned that teaching should be flexible and we should change our approaches based on individual student needs and, you know, all of this other stuff. And, um,
00:34:27
Speaker
And so actually special educational or special needs teaching is is not that, it's just good teaching.
Principles of Inclusive Education
00:34:32
Speaker
ah ah um But I think that we, as the students in my class, myself, I fall down on this this sort of Inclusion means what's best for the student and where they want to go, which is not helpful when you're trying to write policy or when you're trying to design an education system necessarily, and because it's very nebulous and and it's very sort of
00:35:01
Speaker
woo-woo of like, oh, we can't write letters. We can't test it. We can't measure it. um we We can't necessarily see the outcomes. And and I agree. like I understand there's a tension. It's always about these tensions.
00:35:15
Speaker
We have to hold people accountable because what happens when students with disabilities are, when we're not holding school systems accountable for their education, they are completely left out and behind um and and they are excluded.
00:35:30
Speaker
The flip side of that is when we do tests, we also exclude them. um So I think to me, inclusion, if we want inclusive school systems, this is why I always come back to, if we want an inclusive school system, we have to do away with traditional thinking, traditional testing and traditional curriculum models.
00:35:50
Speaker
and we have to rethink and redefine education as a whole because education in and of itself should be inclusive. There's this irony of that we have to talk about inclusive education and education.
00:36:04
Speaker
rather than just talking about education. And so I think it's funny you read a lot of inclusive literature and everybody starts their first three to four paragraphs are trying to define what inclusive education is to them and their contacts. And so that you're like, it's just that it should just be education.
00:36:22
Speaker
Like it should just be here, let's go learn. Let's just go let's go play and see where that takes us. And, and yeah. So I don't know, of deaf defining inclusion. That was a very political answer of like, I'm not going to answer your question. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Well, no, I think right there at the end there, we kind of got to like the central tension, right? Is there's something about the, the,
00:36:50
Speaker
Let's let's call it let's let's agree to this like binary right about like mainstream education that views the requirements of inclusivity as a threat and has to sort of define it outward.
00:37:03
Speaker
Right. So it's like there is an education that is going to do things in a particular way. um And then there has to be inclusive education that I don't know is going to do all the good things or is is a different way of approaching it. um that yeah, and so much of what resonates with what you're saying is when I've been to spaces so often, you know, that are in, i don't gosh, a special education space where I do see, you know, true inclusion and collaboration and I see a model of like what works or even in an alternative education space, um very often are ah the innovative spaces where you wonder, okay, if the The practices that are happening here, or I guess the beliefs, the structures, the systems, the the everything coming together in this space, if that was applied over here in the mainstream spot, would these kids need an alternative education?
00:37:57
Speaker
Like that is always the question that I'm asking, right? Or it's probably same for inclusive. Would would we need a separate inclusion room if the things happening in the inclusion room happened in the big room where everybody's at? Um, it's just such a, such an interesting, ah I guess. Yeah. Tension. Like you can't untangle these, these two threads without something coming as de attention.
00:38:19
Speaker
And I know that we weren't going to we said we wouldn't talk about the American system, but like what you, what you just said is, is my experience. Like oh right if you go back to when I was, if you literally go all the way back to my student teaching days,
00:38:36
Speaker
I did my student teaching in a center where we loved on our kids. We were flexible. if Look, if the way that we can get you to read is you're laying down on the floor, then you that's where you read. We don't care as long as you're reading. um and And one of my students...
00:38:55
Speaker
Like many teachers, I ended up student teaching in my hometown in actually the middle school that I went to that has had a center wing. And so I was teaching in the center. And I had to take one of my students who we had just had a great breakthrough English lesson.
00:39:11
Speaker
You know, he struggled with his seventh grade, struggled with reading, really couldn't do it and would often shut down. But he was being included, mainstreamed.
00:39:21
Speaker
for a few periods a day. And one of the periods he was being main mainstreamed for was his science class. And I walked into that classroom and it was my former science teacher.
00:39:33
Speaker
Nick, I loved her. She was like, she I loved science. I loved her as a teacher. I thought she was so great. I walked in with my current student and she just looked at him. She goes, oh, he's here today.
00:39:47
Speaker
and I said, yeah. Yeah, he is. He immediately went in, put his head down, wanted nothing to do with her. And I just thought, gosh, if you had greeted the kid with a smile, if you had welcomed him into class, if you didn't demand that he read, it just, it was such a stark contrast of of what happens in these two different settings. And and this is you know something that my students and I struggle with all the time. We're like, why shouldn't everybody get life skills? Why do we only give life skills to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities?
00:40:30
Speaker
Shouldn't everybody have some sort of life skills embedded into the curriculum? You know, you know, this is where some of the community work that's coming through and in what you guys are doing is so exciting to me because it is that idea of we want our students to come out of school being good community members and everybody, disabled, non-disabled, neurotypical, neurodiverse,
00:40:54
Speaker
We all work in a community
Community Dynamics in Classrooms
00:40:56
Speaker
together. And so why aren't we replicating communities in our classrooms? um Because then we would be giving the same thing, that same greeting, the same opportunities to a kid, regardless of mainstream or the center that they're coming from. And you know i over the years, I've worked with all of those kids who come to me and they're in this loving, flexible environment, the same curriculum.
00:41:21
Speaker
Same knowledge being imparted to them, but a different standard of how it has to happen. and And they flourish. And then we send them back to the mainstream school and they tank again. And you just think,
00:41:35
Speaker
why can't we give that flourishing to every student? um And it just, it you know, and here again, we we work in a very corporate setting in a very strict sort of, this is what you will do. You will sit at your desk, you will be quiet, you will give eyes to the teacher and you're just thinking,
00:41:54
Speaker
Even the kids who are who who could be excelling are not happy. And, and you know, that's this whole myth around we have a bell curve, that it doesn't exist.
00:42:05
Speaker
There's no middle kid. there's no but Every child that walks into your classroom, whether you have the eight kids that I used to have when I was teaching at a center, or you have 25 kids, they are all different and unique and we can achieve curricular goals without having to work in lockstep towards them. And I just, yeah.
00:42:27
Speaker
I read a really interesting framing. This was around motivational theories, like in self-determination theory, right? Where if we reframed those needs under self-determination theory for like competence, autonomy, and relatedness as basic human needs, which they are, right? Basic psychological needs for um human health and and thriving and flourishing.
00:42:47
Speaker
And we would say, if you went into a school context, right, and it didn't provide clean air, clean water, right, safe, ah you know, if it was physically unsafe in your person, we'd say like, well, this is an unacceptable space for kids to be in.
00:43:00
Speaker
But we're fine if those psychological needs for competency, autonomy, and relatedness aren't in the picture as long as it's meeting, ah you know, a different end or a different mean,
00:43:12
Speaker
um And so I'm thinking of the same thing too for the student that you walked back into that room. It might as well not have had oxygen in it, right? um That's, I think, such a necessary reframe to think the kid who's not getting something in that room is not having a basic need met just as they would for any other sort of, you know, physical requirement for nutrition and and anything else. um So what does it say about...
00:43:38
Speaker
classrooms and sometimes teachers who would deprive kids of those needs and recognizing that they're going to have different needs, just like they have different nutritional and physical and safety and all these other things. And i think part of the push for a lot of inclusion efforts, um whether it be motivational or what we want to put under like social social emotional learning and trauma informed teaching and Right. um Disability inclusive teaching, too, um really is about changing the mindset and habits and attitudes of mainstream educators, not necessarily at the level of practice, you know, about like, oh, what can you do? Read students at the door, or do this. But at the level of beliefs and ideas, right, about really putting that charge out there to say, like, you're depriving a kid of a basic human need, right? Like, what are you going to do about that?
00:44:31
Speaker
like that moral charge, right? Like that's where that's where I'm at right now in
Fostering Inclusive Environments through Belief Systems
00:44:35
Speaker
this conversation. And I can see your reaction. but it's It's just so funny to me. I'm going to just put a pin in If you haven't already, you should seek out James Madison University, another...
00:44:47
Speaker
another Virginia-based university, and they have a program called I'm Determined um to support students with neurodiversities and disabilities in um being self-advocates for themselves. And it's a fantastic, amazing program.
00:45:01
Speaker
If you don't know them yet, I think i'm I can still connect you, but i' I'm just putting a pin in that so I don't forget that. um Yes. Because I think it would be a part of your community. But on what you just said around this idea of that going to the very core, the moral piece. And I think teachers likely enter the field with this, right? You're a teacher, I'm a teacher.
00:45:25
Speaker
There's, you know, and I don't believe that we should put a moral burden on teachers. We don't pay you well enough because you do it for the you do it for the love of the kids, right? Like, no, we are professionals and and we deserve to be treated as such. And also our profession is built around relationships.
00:45:43
Speaker
And and um i i do teach on my, i teach a full inclusion course, but I also end up teaching because I'm the inclusion disability specialist.
00:45:55
Speaker
I end up teaching on all of our new teacher training courses and it it drives them bonkers because I walk in and I say, I'm not actually going to give you any tips and tricks.
00:46:08
Speaker
Because there are some great blogs. There's some great things out there that like here, here are your resources, like go to understood.org, go to Edutopia, like there are some wonderful teaching tips and tricks.
00:46:20
Speaker
We need to talk about your belief system. We need to talk about how are you walking into that classroom and what do you believe about the children?
00:46:32
Speaker
um There's a fantastic um American researcher who ended up in the UK, Lonnie Florian, and she developed what she calls the inclusive pedagogical approach. And she talks about these three principles that after studying lots and lots of teachers, um they were able to come up with these three ideas around like these are three principles of of of inclusive pedagogy that every teacher needs to have. and And one of those is that you need to believe that every child can learn.
00:47:07
Speaker
And then you need to believe that you as the teacher have the capacity to help them learn. And then the third one is that you need to work collaboratively and flexibly.
00:47:19
Speaker
and And teachers look at me and they're like, yeah, but we're going into the classroom tomorrow and we have to differentiate our lesson. And I'm like, i honestly, I just don't care about that. It's like it's not bottom tier things.
00:47:33
Speaker
Do you think that every child in that classroom can learn or has somebody told you to put on your lesson plan? Here are the kids with disabilities who aren't going to be able to achieve my lessons objectives for the day.
00:47:47
Speaker
And do you believe that you can help that student make progress or do you think it's the job of the learning support assistant or the inclusion teacher and you're gonna pass it off onto them? And if you do think that you can make them, like help them get there, do you know who to talk to to to to to do that?
00:48:05
Speaker
If you can do those three things, you will be inclusive. It is not magic. And and those those new teachers, they just look at me and they're like, but no, I need i need to know how to teach a student with autism.
00:48:18
Speaker
Or they come to me and they say, Sarah, Sarah, I have a student who has dyslexia. What do I do with them? I don't know. Have you asked the student? What a novel idea. And they're like, well, yeah, but but he's only in year three.
00:48:33
Speaker
Okay. So he's seven. He probably knows what he needs. Yes. Or at the very least can can begin to articulate and you can bring your expertise and meet them somewhere in the middle to say, hey, oh, I hear what you're saying.
00:48:47
Speaker
Why don't we try this tool in my toolkit? And then if that works, that's great. Or if it if it ah you know crashes and burns, let's try something else. right it In dialogue with the kids that we're teaching, what ah what an incredible, ah innovative idea, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And this is, I think, you know, so so again, it comes back to that, like, how do you define inclusion? How do you teach people to be inclusive? How do you differentiate between mainstream and special education? Like, it comes down to these these very basic principles of, do you think everybody can learn?
00:49:22
Speaker
Do you think you can help everybody learn? And do you know who to go to for help when you need it? Because even though as teachers, you know, the British training teacher training system is pretty intense. They have one year. We take them from, I'd say, zero to 80.
00:49:40
Speaker
And within that one year, we prepare them to walk into a classroom and that's it. And not that the American system is is necessarily better, but I think you have a little bit more time to acclimate. um And, you know, they they really are looking at you like, no, but I need i need to know what to do.
00:49:58
Speaker
and And it's so hard to, so hard for people who are being held to testing standards, who are being held to advancement standards by their leadership to to let go of this idea of, I don't have a recipe, but I'll figure it out.
00:50:15
Speaker
um And that's that's really hard for those new teachers who think that I'm coming in as the expert. And I'm like, I don't know the kid. i don't know your curriculum. Yeah, you cannot be the expert, right? Like for their own context what I'm saying. Yeah.
00:50:32
Speaker
yeah Gosh, there there is just, I think, a through line in this conversation unraveling so many tensions in education, you know, down to educators role in the system as far as shouldering the burdens of the entire system on their shoulders, causing them to look in, say, the wrong place for solutions about how to work with the kids that are in front of them.
00:50:57
Speaker
And then again, I'm thinking of that misalignment between ends and means and the teachers that we hire or the things that teachers are looking for in the system. I'm not trying to use teacher blaming language, right? Like I'm i'm recognizing they're just as much gosh, i don't want to say like victims, but like under those same pressures as everyone else. They're looking for answers when we don't necessarily have any. But the ones that we maybe value or that the the system will say are the most competent or or the best are going to be the ones that come in with a differentiation plan for X, Y, or Z and have a list of tools and ah tips and tricks to meet different situations as opposed to what you're saying in
00:51:36
Speaker
When your teachers come to you and ask for those things, you say, well, I don't know your kids. I can't answer that for you. That's not a great answer to a system that wants answers right now. So we could end up with teachers.
00:51:48
Speaker
in whatever mainstream or inclusion or, you know, however we want to entangle that other tension, who are in there without having those prior beliefs that every kid can learn.
00:51:59
Speaker
Oh, I have a plan for every kid. They just need to follow that plan. But that same deficit thinking applies where, oh, a kid wasn't successful in my differentiation plan. Well, I tried, right? And now what's a...
00:52:12
Speaker
But yeah, there's just something so fundamental about, you got to sort yourself out first in your own beliefs about the system and the kids that you teach. But the system itself demands so much of teachers that we don't have time to do it. You know, I had to sort all this out when I left and be like, oh my gosh, I never realized the pressures I was under um or the burnout or the moral injury, right? So I don't know. It's just, it's ah it's a it's sticky ball of things that we got to keep unpacking here.
00:52:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think that idea of reflection is so important because I do think that that's one of those things that we really miss. We miss for our teachers, our teachers like you. It wasn't until i had, you know, and I have the luxury of of being an academic now, whatever that means. You know, I put it in quotation marks. I like imposter systems syndrome is very real on this side of the screen as well.
00:53:05
Speaker
um But like that reflection time and and I did just after COVID, like everybody else who's in academia, I did some research around COVID and its impact.
00:53:16
Speaker
um But we looked specifically at how did teaching online um impact inclusive teaching and and teachers who were trying to be inclusive? Because the the regulatory bodies within the UAE were very clear that you had to maintain um systems of support for students.
00:53:37
Speaker
ah We call them, we call but the students of determination, and that you had to maintain these systems of support around students of determination. And um lots of guidance was put out and things like that. and um It was a unique place to do this research because teachers and schools here, there is some homogeneity around um the socioeconomic status. The rest of it's completely off the
Innovation and Reflection in Teaching Practices
00:54:04
Speaker
charts, right? Like everybody is from everywhere else. um The actual Emiratis are a minority in their own country. And and so every school is just this amalgamation of people from across the globe.
00:54:14
Speaker
um But... The socioeconomic, you can take a school and say, this is the school fee. And so every child in that school is going to be from this exact same socioeconomic background. um And every child will have a device and every school has signed up for x Y or zd platform.
00:54:34
Speaker
And I think one of the things that my co-researcher and I, Nadra Alborno, I have to give her a shout out because she's absolute my absolute heart here, um One of the things that we walked away with and we just said, teachers didn't know how to be inclusive online.
00:54:52
Speaker
Teachers didn't know how to teach online and nobody else did either. And you know what teachers did? They're geniuses. They went out and they educated themselves and they figured it out and they were flexible and they learned and they asked other people and teacher talk was born and like all of these things.
00:55:15
Speaker
Teachers figured it out. And I look at that research and I apply it to those those mainstream teachers who come to me and say, Sarah, I'd love some advice around this kid who has ADHD. And I think,
00:55:29
Speaker
You can do this. You know how to do this. But during COVID, we said, all bets are off. Just do your best to get these kids educated.
00:55:40
Speaker
Just do your best to get the kids to do something. And you know what? When that pressure was released, teachers were like, OK, well, I'll figure it out. Not to say that they didn't work incredibly hard, not to say that it wasn't a lot of work for them to be figuring these things out.
00:56:00
Speaker
um But it's funny, when we ended up finally, because of various delays, we didn't talk to teachers until about six to seven months later. And each one of the teachers, we ended we ended up interviewing 10 teachers, each one of them said, gosh, I haven't had a chance to reflect on this yet.
00:56:20
Speaker
And I thought, well, no wonder we haven't changed anything in our system because nobody's actually reflected on it. But these teachers, what they were telling us about how they were allowing students to answer in different ways and how they were utilizing the chat box. And and so students who didn't want to talk didn't have to talk and how they were alternative methods of connecting with parents. And it's like,
00:56:45
Speaker
You know, if we could go to that place of giving teachers a little less imposing testing policy structure, a little bit more freedom to do what they're good at, what they've been trained for, why they're in this field, because they they're good at building relationships.
00:57:06
Speaker
They're really good at listening to people and figuring them out. Um, Alongside of that, they have this depth of professional knowledge around curriculum and learning and development.
00:57:18
Speaker
And if we could give them a little time to reflect on their students and the curriculum and and and how to make it work, we might actually see some some really incredible things happen.
00:57:31
Speaker
And instead, it's you will teach 10 subjects and you will be tested on five of them and you will work from 7 a.m. till 6 p.m. and you will be judged on this. And and and yeah, we really...
00:57:48
Speaker
This is why you all give me hope, because there are people who are getting federal money and advertising it to say there is a better way. um And if we continue to just say, well, it was the only thing that worked.
00:58:02
Speaker
um We're not going to make those changes. And I think that that's just, yeah, it's, and and, you know, on that idea of not teacher bashing and things like that, and teachers can feel like they're really cogs in the wheel.
00:58:15
Speaker
The teachers who get it that ah that walk through my doors that I get to teach, you know, they say, but Sarah, what am I supposed to Yeah. Like, I'm just an LSA or I'm just a teacher. Like, you know, there's this whole board of educators, this whole board above me and above them is our regulatory body and above them is the...
00:58:35
Speaker
So make a difference in your classroom. Nobody's walking in there every day. Make a difference for the kids who are who are struggling a bit. And, you know, one of one of my absolute shining stars who's been with me for three years, like I've watched her advocacy and sometimes I've had to say we need to go in with love.
00:58:53
Speaker
ah um But I've watched her advocacy in her school and what a difference it has made with the teachers that she has advocated for. And she's a learning support assistant, so like bottom of the food chain. And she kind of would look at me and go, what am I even supposed to do? But the way that she has changed how she talks about students of determination and the way the standards that she's holding, the teachers that she's working with are different.
00:59:20
Speaker
and And those incremental pieces are are are making those little bits of difference it really is like the permission to connect with the teacher, that the idealistic person that you were when you got into the profession, yeah right? That's what it's about. Not just, not just asking who do you want your students to be, but like, who were you and what did you want to do in the world? Like, why did you become a teacher in the first place before you had to think about all of these things? And then, yeah, just giving them permission to, to be that person. And maybe like,
00:59:53
Speaker
Of course, maybe COVID was an opportunity permission. Like that's all it took was to reconnect or focus on some different values since it blew up everything in such a profound
The Passion and Curiosity in Teaching
01:00:03
Speaker
way. Like if making it through the day was what it took, then like i'm I'm ready to meet that task. If we needed to get something done, like we can shift gears and do that. But yeah, the the permission structure to act and all of that, you know.
01:00:17
Speaker
Why did you become a teacher? Oh, God, that's a great question. um I so i I taught social studies and i taught history. Right. And I think it just came out of a passion for um wanting to connect young people to the world and people and places and ideas and cultures. um I don't know, I had a fascination for it and I wanted to share that passion with kids too. So I just came in full of that energy and just wanting to, I don't know, show show kids the world, different ways of seeing the world the they that they hadn't done that before.
01:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's that's about it. Why did you get into education, Sarah? i hate sitting behind a desk. I like being creative. My very first question, my very first words were, was that?
01:01:06
Speaker
Was that? I used to drive my mother crazy because I'd walk around just pointing at things. um And so teaching allows you to be creative and curious and and' like you are exploring as much as your students are. um and I, you know, I had...
01:01:26
Speaker
Another shout out, I listened to a lot of Adrienne Marie Brown. um And she always talks about her lineage, right? And in and like the people who came before her. um And so one of my lineage people is is Mrs. Sleeper, um Christine Sleeper, my Latin teacher in high school.
01:01:43
Speaker
She was 80 years old when I went into her classroom. Phenomenal. You know, some people just have great teacher names, um sort of like that nominative determinism. You know, Mrs. Sleeper as your 80-year-old Latin teacher. You couldn't write that into, ah you know, a young adult fiction. you know You couldn't. You couldn't. But she was there and she was brilliant. This woman swam a mile before school every day.
01:02:08
Speaker
She would read five newspapers. She'd show up. We were high school students. We didn't entirely appreciate her at the time. We definitely appreciated the fact that we could tell her like, no, but Miss Sleeper, you told us we were having a party today.
01:02:21
Speaker
Oh, did I? No, look, we have we have the food and everything. Okay, well, you just take this quiz and then we can have our party. Great, Mrs. Siebert. There was no party planned. We just didn't want it to do work that day. um And bless her, you know, she let us get away with it. And when I joined Peace Corps, she she ran into my parents in the grocery store.
01:02:44
Speaker
They told her. So she invited me out for coffee. She gave me a book about Jordan where I did Peace Corps. And then she told me how she was one of the first 99 women pilots and served as a Red Cross volunteer in Jordan and how I was absolutely going to love it.
01:02:59
Speaker
Where was that the whole time that, you know, that's wild. Okay. But it was having people, women like that, that encouraged me and subtly planted those seeds of seeing the world, being a part of the world.
01:03:19
Speaker
um that That you, life is not growing up and and going to a job. you know but but i I hope not because that sucks. Yeah, it does. Right. It totally sucks. um And so having people like her in my life.
01:03:39
Speaker
um you know, it it planted that seed that actually teaching was an opportunity to be creative. I wanted to be a vet and I struggled in science. and um And instead, I was not struggling with, you know, building magic backpacks to support the kids I was babysitting all summer and things like that. right on. So the ability to be creative and and innovative um and curious for the rest of my life was pretty, pretty fantastic gig.
01:04:08
Speaker
That sounds awesome. But I always am curious with the people that I talk to, like, what is the through line or what's the question? You know, not just talking about expressing that creativity and curiosity and professional practice, but like, what is the central question or through line, you know, drawing between all the incredible experiences that you've been talking about here as it relates to, you know, your work in inclusion and and everything else that we've been discussing? Yeah.
01:04:36
Speaker
I think, I mean, the first word that jumps to my mind is that idea of curiosity. I'm neurotypical and non-disabled, and I've always been curious about other people. And i that started in me in being curious about other cultures and other places. And just, I like to relate to people. and And I'm curious, like, where did you come from? Like, what are you doing? Like, I'm the person who actually, I struggle in taxis in New York because I just want to know, like,
01:05:05
Speaker
okay, so where did she come from? And like, tell me how you got here. And like, let's, I want to hear if I've been to your village in some random place. And I'm like, you got to stop that. Like, that's, that's a no go.
01:05:17
Speaker
You're going to get a low rating. This, this person wouldn't stop talking. yeah yeah like um And so just this idea of being curious about other people. um And, and, and so for me, it started out with going to Jordan.
01:05:33
Speaker
I was a Peace Corps volunteer. i spent two years there. Prior to even doing that, um I moved to New Hampshire where I worked at a residential facility for boys with significant emotional and behavioral challenges.
01:05:45
Speaker
um And just being curious about like, what is this like? Like, oh, let's go see what I can find out by living in the woods for a few years he heres at this like really intensive setting. um And yeah, I just, I'm, I have always been curious about other people. And I think working in the inclusion space gives you more flexibility to learn and ask questions because you can't assume that you know anything.
01:06:16
Speaker
um And that marries with my curiosity about the world and and what does it look like from different sides of an ocean, different time zones. um One of my favorite like fun facts that I learned from a podcast was um the where you, how you talk about directions, whether you use ordinal directions or you use left or right, actually like changes the wiring in your brain And like, i didn God help me, I could never figure out what podcast that came from.
01:06:50
Speaker
<unk> an NPR listener. So somewhere. But like that. Some Science Friday bit. yeah Yeah, probably. This American Life or something. and um But that idea of how did we become who who we are?
01:07:05
Speaker
and And being curious about that sort of journey. I should probably get my own podcast show to figure those things out about people. That's like what you get to do on these things, isn't it? Oh, it's great. It's like it's like yeah you in the taxi cab, right? But like, hey, for an hour and then disconnect. Yeah, well there you go.
01:07:23
Speaker
and You just need to do that, but bring bring your bring ah ah bring mike a lapel mic or something. Yeah. And just shove it in their face and ask them 20 questions. No, I think curiosity. Curiosity would be the through line.
01:07:35
Speaker
I think. Yeah, that's that's that's where I would land on that one, I think. Just being curious about other people's. Where do they come from? What are they doing? Why? Yeah, help me understand.
01:07:47
Speaker
Thanks for taking the time to talk with me today, Sarah. Thanks so much, Nick. I really agree that there is a lot of common ground um and I look forward to exploring those tensions more. Thank you.
01:08:02
Speaker
Thank you again and for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change. If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player. Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free at on our website, humanrestorationproject.org.
01:08:20
Speaker
Thank you.