Episode 37: The Importance of Listening, Having Empathy and Awareness

Transcript

Arthur: This is the inclusion Think Tank Podcast, where we talk about inclusive education, why it works, and how to make it happen. On today’s episode, I welcome my guest Amara. Amara is an inclusion facilitator with NJCIE. During our conversation, we discuss how Amara has been applying her over 10 years of experience in education, and her interest in servant leadership in her role as an inclusion facilitator, and also what she is most looking forward to in this position with NJCIE.

Arthur: I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the inclusion. Think Tank podcast. I am the host, Arthur Aston, and I am happy to welcome my guest to the podcast today, Amara. So thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.

AmaraL Thank you for having me.

Arthur: Yes, I ask all of my guests to introduce themselves and to share some fun facts about themselves. So if you'd like to do in your free time, if you have any, and a little bit about your background and and all of that. So if you could do that right now, that's great.

Amara: Thank you. So, yeah, my name is Amara. I'm a new inclusion facilitator with the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. I consider myself a pretty feminine spiritual woman, and I'm in my early to mid-thirties.

I am a mom to a 15-month-old and actually, I have another one on the way in about four months. Five months. I love personal and spiritual development. I love those kinds of books and like aligning myself with the season. So like we're in fall right now, so I like to get more sleep If I can. Eat more seasonally and generally kind of slow down and kind of take a step back from everything I'm doing to kind of follow the season and just kind of rest as we're approaching winter, and that's here in the Northeast.

I've been an educator for ten years. I taught in Washington, D.C., where I spent the majority of my teaching career. I've also taught in Maryland and in Florida. I am duly certified in special ed in elementary education. And I've taught elementary school and high school special ed, general Ed. And I was also a reading specialist for a little bit.

Amara: my college career, I have a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University. I actually thought I was going to be a veterinarian, but that is obviously not the case anymore. And I had an education minor, which is really what introduced me to the world of education, but my mother is a teacher and has been in Asbury Park, New Jersey for like 23 years, I want to say she's close to retiring. and I have a certificate of administration and supervision as well.

As you said, I don't really have a lot of free time currently, with the little one when I do is probably reading something I like to read before bed or journaling. And I like yoga a lot when I get the opportunity to do that.

So that's a little bit about my background.

Arthur: Yay! Well, congratulations for the one on the way and awesome. Yeah, I, I also enjoy reading and journaling. So I, when you said that, I was like, yeah, that's really a cool thing to do. I've really gotten into audiobooks in the last few years. Listening to audiobooks and doing that right before bed is really been great or I can't listen to them in the car.

People are like, Oh, I listen to audiobooks in the car.

Amara: I’ve tried, I’ve tried the audiobook thing, but I really think, like my dad is a reader too, so he's just like, he likes to smell books and I think I got that from him. It's like, I need something in my hand if I want to go back and highlight or write notes, and I can’t always do that as efficiently with audio.

Arthur: Yeah, that is the great thing about having a real book, like you said. Yeah. You know, to fold the page back like, Oh, I love that. I think that that's really a good time to be able to hold a book. Yes, that's yeah, that for sure.

Arthur: So can you share with us what does inclusive education mean to you?

How would you define inclusive education?

Amara: So for me, inclusive education would mean giving all students, regardless of background, socioeconomic status, race, gender, or ability, an equitable opportunity to live out their greatest potential as their same-age peers and with their same-age peers in their classroom.

So for me, I think that equitable peace is really important because that means if we're thinking through a lens of equity, especially when it comes to special education, we're designing our classrooms, our curriculums, our lessons, thinking about our students furthest away from success. Due to some sort of barrier at designing our classroom from the outset to address said barriers so that they can be successful?

But what happens is when we do that, we find all students end up being successful. It's like the handicap ramp, for example. We put them in buildings expecting people who are in wheelchairs, who maybe might be pregnant, who are on crutches to use those ramps, but what do we see? Everybody uses those ramps or even whether they need it or not. And so I definitely think that we need to think about education in the same way so that we can ensure that every student has the opportunity to be as successful as they want to be in the classroom.

Arthur: I always use the example of the ramp, as I always do, because I'm like, everybody can use a right tomorrow no matter what. You can use the ramp. And it's like you said, with inclusive education, the equitable piece is the. So the most important part, it's just, you know, brings everybody together and everybody can learn and we can learn from each other.

You can learn from the children who have the disability needs and have those experiences, because in the real world, outside of school when they go on to graduate or go on to college or work in the workforce, they will be other people with disabilities.

Amara: Yeah, everybody is out there.

Arthur: Exactly. Everybody is out there. So you will, I think the earlier we can have these interactions and have the students together with their peers, no matter if they have a disability or not, I think the better society can be as a whole as they grow to be teenagers and older and into adulthood.

Yeah, it's really important to start that. So at an early age, which is, really important.

Amara I would add to that that the data supports that, right? The data that we've done within inclusive education shows that all students actually do better when everybody is included, both the students with disabilities and students without disabilities to everybody thrives and does better and are successful when everybody is included. Regardless of people's personal feelings about it, the data does support an inclusive classroom over a non-inclusive one.

Arthur: Yes, and the data has been the same consistently for 30 years. It's out there and it's, easy to find. The data supports that is inclusive setting is the better overall for everyone.

Arthur: So as you mentioned, you are an inclusion facilitator with NJCIE. Can you share with us some of your responsibilities in that role?

Amara: So far the biggest part of my role has been working with school teams on a long-term basis, talking to improve their inclusion rates.

So I know that I'll be with these schools for at least the next three years. These schools have been identified to receive a grant through the New Jersey Inclusion Project, and basically these schools, we want to serve as models within their districts of what inclusive education is and should look like. So basically, New Jersey has the worst inclusion rates in the country, where about 24% included students and national averages about 66%, with the goal obviously being 80%.

And so what this includes is that I meet with these school teams on a monthly basis for the entire school year, basically educating the team, and building capacity of these teams to create a more inclusive school environment for their students. So we do professional development, we do walkthroughs, we do observations, we do modeling, we also do professional development with their entire staff around things like inclusion 101, things like coach teaching, universal design for learning anything that would really be instrumental in creating an inclusive environment. We're going to be building the capacity of these school teams to be able to do that within their school environments.

Amara: And so we also help them with analyzing their own data, thinking about students who they're identifying for special ed and kind of making sure that they're included from the outset instead of having to go back to re-include them.

We help them create action plans, analyze the action plans, implement action plans, and even involve the school families when appropriate, to make sure that they're also considered a valuable stakeholder as well. So that's what my job is entailed, because also sometimes schools are require a one off training, like I did a training at a school not too far from here.

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That's not part of my official workload of schools. But they wanted a training on some behavior modifications and accommodations for students with ADHD. So I did some of like one-off trainings as well. I also have some walkthroughs on my calendar, so a school might request a walk-through for someone to come in to look at their inclusive classrooms or look at their self-contained classrooms and see what can be done to improve that within their school environment.

So that's what my role has consisted of as far.

Arthur: That’s awesome. You sound very busy.

Amara: That would be correct!

Arthur: So when we were planning to record, you shared with me that you have an interest in servant leadership.

And I did a little research on that and I found that listening, empathy, and awareness are three of the common characteristics of servant leadership. So can you share with us how these characteristics can be applied in the world of inclusive education?

Amara: So I got interested in servant leadership and I was doing my certificate of admin supervision. It was through Loyola University and it's a Jesuit-affiliated university.

And so that was kind of the foundation with which our program was based on. And so for me, those characteristics are really just part of a humane, just equitable society, not just inclusive education. But if we're looking at inclusive education honestly and any really any other societal system, we're thinking about, we'd make the jump more readily to an inclusive education, educational environment because we'd be able to empathize with students who are not included and really think about the barriers that they're facing from the jump and be able to create our classrooms, our schools, our buildings, our what am I thinking of, like our social systems from the outset to make sure that everybody has what they need to survive and to thrive.

So, basically, it just means to me that we're really taking a humane, humanistic approach to what we're doing with students in the classrooms every day and every part of it, from them arriving in the morning to eating lunch, to how they're learning the material, to interacting with their peers, to the behavior systems we use, we would really create really humane, very kind, compassionate classroom environments from all aspects.

So it just means that, we're giving students what they need to in order to survive and to thrive in our classrooms.

Amara: I had done some work in DC through a program called City Bridge, and at that time that program was focused on people who were interested in founding their own schools in the city. And we worked with somebody named Caroline Hill, who is the founder of something called the 228 Accelerator.

And it was basically a community of practice centered around a theory called Equity by Design. I'm bringing it up because something that stuck with me from that training was that she had a theory that we called designing from the margins. So thinking from the student, thinking about the students who are furthest away from success or furthest away from opportunity, because that was most focused on the opportunity gap.

But what can we put in place from the outset to have these students fill these gaps so that they are closer to the success that is required or that they would like to achieve for themselves?

Amara: And so for me, it's very applicable to inclusive education because it's the same thing. We're thinking about the margins, students furthest away from opportunity, furthest away from being included, furthest away from being successful in our school environment.

What is missing? Why aren't they being successful and how can we put those things in place to help eliminate those barriers in order for them to be successful?

And, ultimately, when we create these kinds of environments, we then help to create a better world and a better society because students take that with them as they graduate, as they go out into the world, as they do their jobs, as they are creating more things for our society, we end up affecting the world as a whole or the country as a whole.

Arthur: I agree with everything that you that you just said. I think for those were just three of the many characteristics of servant leadership that I found.

They all like you said, they applied to society as a whole and not just inclusive education and, you know, I think the big thing is listening, because inclusive education takes work from a lot of different people that are involved. From the top levels of the school board all the way down to, you know, the people in the lunchroom and the custodian building, It involves everybody, including the students themselves.

So, listening and realizing what needs to be done and hearing all sides of everything. I think that's a really big part of it. And then just having empathy and awareness, that's so important. You don't it's like you can't fix what you don't know kind of thing. Exactly. So being aware of what the challenges are can help you arrive at solutions and, so I think those are, really big things for applying and being able to apply this to the inclusive education world.

Arthur: So to wrap up our conversation, can you share with us something that you are looking forward to in your role as an inclusion facilitator?

Amara: I think what I'm looking forward to the most would probably be seeing the transformation of the school communities, and I hope it's like palpable because like data will be one thing, like to say, Oh, we have like instead of, 20% or 30%, that's cool.

But I also want to be able to like, feel it when I walk in the classrooms and throughout the school, like seeing all kinds of students in one classroom, working together, creating together, laughing together. I think that would be the thing they looking forward to the most, because ultimately this work is going to require a paradigm shift, and we know that that is really hard to do no matter what we're talking about.

And so this is going to require us to look at education in a whole new way. And there are going to be some people who are going to be able to understand it and get with it and some people who aren't going to be able to, and maybe they'll transition to do something else.

But ultimately, as our world gets more diverse, we're going to have to shift this anyway in how we're doing education and the US, New Jersey. We're not the only ones grappling with this. Other countries are also doing this as well. We have pretty decent data about how other countries are educating all students in an inclusive environment, and they're doing a lot better job than we are.

Amara: So we know it's possible. And so I think for me, you know, the future of the world literally depends on it, because we want to be able to create a world that works for everybody. And starting at our schools is one way of us to be able to accomplish that. So being able to see that happening, I think in real time would be the thing I'm looking forward to most.

Arthur: That’s great. Yes, It's always it's always fun to know that you're part of making the change and then being able to see the change that has taken place. That’s really great and rewarding for, you know, for everybody to to have that happen.

So, Amara, thank you so much for your time for having this conversation with me on the podcast and, wishing you the best and all of the things that you're doing and now I will be in touch with you soon.

Amara: Sounds good. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Arthur: We thank you for listening to this episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education NJCIE. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcast, and don't forget to follow us on social media @NJCIE. Until next time.