Episode 38: Creating Adaptive Physical Education Spaces

Transcript

Arthur: This is the Inclusion Think Tank Podcast, brought to you by New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education, where we talk about inclusive education, why it works, and how to make it happen. On Today’s Episode, I welcome my guest Lauren Tyndrof. Lauren is an Inclusion Facilitator with NJCIE. Today, we talk about how physical education classes can be adapted to include all students, including those students with disabilities.

Arthur: I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast. I'm your host, Arthur Aston, and I am excited to welcome my guest on today's podcast, Lauren Tyndorf.

So, Lauren, thank you for joining me today.

Lauren: Thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to be a part of this.

Arthur: Yes. So to start off the podcast, I always ask a form of this question, and that is for my guests to share a little bit about themselves with us. So can you share, things you like to do for fun a little bit about your educational background and, all those kinds of things?

Lauren: Of course. So I received my undergrad degree in health and physical education. I was a high school health and P. E. teacher for about five years. I started as adapted B and then we got it into an inclusive P.E. program. I received my Masters in Motor Learning and Control, and I did my thesis on children with cerebral palsy and the connections that can be remade between the brain and their affected hands.

And then I received my doctorate in curriculum and teaching and phys. ed., with a focus on how students with disabilities perceive inclusive physical education. So really trying to see if there's a disconnect between how students with disabilities experience physical education to help improve our teaching practices. I've worked for Special Olympics for a number of years. I volunteered. I have always wanted to, and I've always loved working with teachers on creating these inclusive environments so that we can have all of our students succeed.

Things that I like to do for fun, oh that’s a tough one, I don't know how much time I have on the side, and I do enjoy reading. I love reading books. I love watching true crime. That's probably the biggest thing that I do in my free time. And then spending a lot of time with my rescue dog. She's taking a lot of work out of me. So working with her.

Arthur: Great! Yes. I also enjoy reading. It's so interesting. I moved recently and I have a huge bookshelf and my friends who are helping me move, they said, Have you read all of these books? I said, Yeah, at one point or another. Yeah, I did. So, it's really great that you like to read and you have a rescue dog.

I appreciate what you said about working with the teachers to make the inclusive environment work for everybody. That is. I say it a lot in this podcast, but that is something that a lot of people bring up, who I have as guests on the podcast. They talk about collaborating and making sure that everybody is involved and everybody is on the same page about the inclusion and what it is that you want to see happen in that school environment. So that's great, that you mention that as well.

Arthur: So the next question I have for you is how would you define inclusive education?

Lauren: So I would define inclusive education as looking in our classrooms that all students of all ability levels, disabilities, lower skills, higher skills, everybody is working together for the common goal. So whatever our lessons are trying to focus on, but really including every every student, every body inside of our classrooms so that all of our students can succeed.

As teachers, we are teaching all students. There is not we're not focused on one group. We are focused on educating all of our students. So if we can really create these environments where all students are together and we can provide the modifications that we may need or different changes to rules, whatever it can be, so that all of our students can be successful, learn in the same environment together.

Arthur: That’s great. You're like you said, you're educating everybody. That's the that's the key thing. It's not a separate thing, for students with disabilities over here and everybody else over there. Yeah. So that's that's really awesome that you mentioned that.

And as a follow up question to that, was there a particular something that happened in your life that made you interested in the world of inclusive education? How did you choose this path?

Lauren: Yeah, so that's a loaded question. I feel like I've my career path has changed so many times that when I started out teaching, I didn't have a background of working with kids with disabilities in my family. I don't have anybody who has a disability. I wasn't around them. And throughout my student teaching experiences, I really started to find my passion working with kids with disabilities and learning and seeing the milestones be accomplished and getting through challenging tasks and life was giving me all these opportunities when I went for my master's and my advisor was a big researcher in the field with cerebral palsy.

So he took me under his wing and I got to learn all the intricacies that he had known and the knowledge. And then when I started teaching, I did not feel as prepared, looking back as I should have been to working with kids with disabilities. So it was a lot of me doing research and sometimes it was a total failure on my end as a teacher with different things that I was trying to do.

But I didn't want my kids by themselves. I knew that they should not be. Why are my kids disabilities not included for sports? Sport is sport. And that was kind of where I started to change where my path was going to be and really focus on inclusive education and working with teachers that I didn't feel that teachers always felt prepared to work with kids with disabilities in the gym setting.

Lauren: that’s why my doctorate had changed for what I initially wanted to do with the focus on curriculum and in our curriculum and teaching, and with that focus on inclusive education so that I had the knowledge for curriculums. And how can we write curriculums, how can we develop curriculums and how can we work with teachers to say, Hey, kids with disabilities are supposed to be in the gym and working together with their peers?

Sport is sport and I will continue to work and help teachers at whatever facet they need to really promote inclusive education because it is so important and vital. We know what the benefits are. Being in the realm of inclusive education. So trying to get everybody else to understand that and so that they can see the differences that it does make in everybody's educational background and just in life in general.

Arthur: I’m enjoying this conversation so much because I when as soon as we were talking about like topics that we could talk about and you mentioned the physical education part and your background in physical education, and I immediately thought about myself as a wheelchair user all through my time in high school, the physical education teachers were always looking for ways to make sure I was included.

And being that I use a manual wheelchair, I pushed myself, you know, on the nice days, everybody had to do a mile out on the school track, and the physical education teacher looked at me and said, and you will too. You may not get a mile done. You don't have you can't physically run it, but you will go around as many times as you can in this time that we have with everybody else.

And then they would eventually say, well, we'll give you one or two friends that can go with you. So that was the big thing with everybody. Oh, I want to walk with Arthur! So they didn’t have to run it! So that was the really big thing. But just again, going back to, like you said, with the collaboration of how everybody just works together to make it happen to come together and just have, everybody included.

Arthur: And I graduated many years ago. And to think that maybe the conversation of inclusion wasn't like a really big thing then, but it's like they were they were doing it without knowing it probably at that time to say, okay, he can physically do certain things. So we're going to have him included in this gym class.

Thankfully I wasn't part of the dodgeball games or anything like that, but they did have me doing quite a bit of things, from the physical education classes. But I can remember.

Lauren: yeah, it's interesting. I had as I was doing my research on my dissertation, it was really understanding perspective. So I never had mentioned a disability. It was if the students brought it up, then we could talk about it, but if not, as an outsider and really trying to understand their perceptions, I didn't want to bring up a disability.

I wanted to see if they related to it that they identify with having one. What was the situation? Because I, as an able bodied person, I can see things, I see things differently than what my students were doing.

One of the things that had come up and when you had mentioned the wheelchair, it always resonates. I had one of the students who was involved in their warm up games that were outside on the turf, and for a portion of the game he would play, but then he would come and he would be on the sidelines and he would sit next to me and we would talk.

And I had asked him if he wanted to keep playing or why did he play for a little bit and sit on the side. And it had come out that the turf was so hard for him to move himself around, and it was for me as I was no longer teaching at the time, but it was, oh my goodness, I always thought as a teacher I was doing the best thing, and we're going outside and we're going on the turf.

Lauren: We’re taking advantage of the beautiful days. And then when he had said that the wheelchair was harder to roll on the turf, I was like, I never even thought about that. And then it even more started to get me into like, what are the what else can I do? Because I didn't think about things. And it was to me, it was a huge learning mode where it was, okay, we have more that we need to get out of our students with disabilities and their perceptions to see what they really need from me and what do they need from the rest of their teachers to help them.

Arthur: Wow, That is that's so interesting because it's,, like you said, you're thinking you're doing the best thing that's possible. And it's like, well, actually, like this is kind of hard.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, I love learning from my students. Like you had your experience and you enjoyed doing that. I welcome all those perceptions and hearing it from the individual who are living in this moment.

Arthur: Yes. And again, it goes back to what we were saying before about the collaboration and involving everybody, including the students in these conversations, because they they have a voice. And like you said, their lived experience is the best education for everybody. It's the best learning experience for everybody to to hear from them themselves who are actually living, you know, the disabled experience.

And they can share what it is that they need, you know, to make it better for them and make it more inclusive for them so that that's great.

Arthur: So we've been talking about it, this whole conversation. But your dissertation, like you said, was on the perceptions of students with disabilities, in inclusive physical education settings, can you share with us because I off the top of my head, you're the first person that has a physical education background that I've had on the podcast to talk about this.

So which again, it's so important that children all the children in the class are included in physical education, including those with disabilities. So can you share what some of the modifications that physical education teachers can make to their classroom, to their class experiences, so that they are more inclusive for everyone?

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. So I think first and foremost is equipment.

There's so much equipment that is out there. And I if I can find different ways to use standard equipment, I'm going to do that. So there's no reason to say that I can't use beach balls when we're playing handball or using beach balls for soccer or basketball. So changing just what piece of equipment you're using in your inclusive classes can really help the game for all students.

So a lighter ball is going to move a little bit slower or you can deflate a soccer ball if you don't have the slow roller soccer balls that exists. There's different pieces of equipment that have bells in them. So students who have visual impairments or need another focus, a different type of sensory item has a basket of oh my goodness, has a bell inside of it. So it can draw more attention to it.

Lauren: So equipment first and foremost, I think is huge to help create these more inclusive classrooms. The second is rules of the game. I have always said that I have. Am I going to have somebody come into my gym from the NBA watching to see if I'm playing basketball by what the NBA rules are?

And I then I laugh even more because they double dribble and they travel in the NBA. That doesn't get called. So and my kids are double dribbling and traveling. That's fine. So creating your own rules. And that's where I really would talk to my students about what modifications work for them. So I had when I taught and I had a student who was a wheelchair user, I had asked him because dribbling for him is going to look very different than how my students are who are running and walking.

So I asked them, I said, What modification do you want to do? So he said, I want to put the basketball on my lap and I want 3 seconds before a defense can get on me. I said, okay, let's do it. So we did. And the class was started to count down from three. So they got to the end.

So it was you got this sense he was building a self-esteem. Everybody was excited. So I was able to change the rules for what were for my individual students to make the class more fun and beneficial for them. And I think that just leads into a third point in just talking with your students. I can create modifications that I think work or that I have used that had words.

But students with disabilities also know they know what they can do and how they may be able to manipulate an object in a way that I haven't even thought of. Or they may create a modification that actually is way better than anything I would have thought of. So they're being able to advocate for themselves as to what they need to be successful in the class.

Lauren: And then it in-turn benefits them because they're more engaged. We're building their self-confidence. They're able to really talk for themselves and not have me doing it for them. So working definitely with the students as to what other modifications are there, I love learning from them and if I could give back a portion of what my students with disabilities have taught me about my teachings and how to create these environments that I try to aim to give back some of it.

And I don't know if I ever will, because they've always taught me more things.

Arthur: When you have that some, that's usually how it goes. It's, you know, you're it's like you go into something expecting one thing and then like you said, you learn tenmore things and yeah,

Lauren: I always thought I would get some of the kids towards the end of the marking periods or let them create different obstacle courses.

So when we had all the gym space for their inclusive class, they can choose over equipment they want and they'd be split up into groups and do an obstacle course. And it was fun as you got to see them start to strategize for what their other peers were able to do. So if they knew some of their students were really quick, they would try to figure out, okay, how can we slow them down in this obstacle course?

Or they would they would take into consideration are wheelchair user and okay, well, he's not going to be able to go under this hula hoop or through it. So how can we create something that he's able to do? So then I got to see more. It was kind of a second objective for what the lesson was, but how they were able to modify and adapt other equipment which we then we can use for other activities or other games that they were doing, but they were doing it all on their own.

Arthur: And it's so amazing how fast other children pick up on things and understand things.

Lauren: Yeah, that really is incredible.

Arthur: I feel sometimes like we don't give children much credit for those kinds of things. They, t's like, okay, so, this child who's a wheelchair user has to he won't be able to dribble the ball. So we have to have the ball on his lap.

Okay, No big deal.

Lauren: Yeah.

Arthur: Like you said, they make it part of the whole experience. Okay. He needs 3 seconds before we can actually try to get the ball or whatever from it. So. All right, let's all count down and then let's all go get it.

Lauren: Yeah, that's what it would be, and he would start laughing like, I can picture it. He, loved it. And it was I got him. He was not a student who always and not everybody loves PE. This is it's not a secret. We have a good number of kids who like it. Other kids don't want for whatever reasons there are.

And he for him was hard. And this class, anytime there was basketball he would crack up like he loved it because he thought it was so funny that after 3 seconds of what his rule was, everybody was coming. They were getting to him!

Arthur: And then, like you said, if you you know, if you had a certain activity where the other children realized that, like, okay, this would be difficult for my classmate to get through, like, how can we help figure this out for, you know, for them?

It just makes everything so much better. And, for everyone and especially like at a young age, for elementary school children to have these experiences is interacting with, people their age, children, and other children their age who have disabilities so that when they get older and get out into the real world, it's like, oh, I remember Johnny, who was in my third-grade class, it's no big deal.

Arthur: That’s what I say all the time about my friends and their children and spending time with them and letting them being able to ask me questions about my wheelchair or about my braces, my like braces and my crutches or if take my braces off, why can't I walk? Why do I have to crawl around?

So it's not a big deal to them when they start school, when they go to school and see that the new student who just moved into town has to use a wheelchair, they can say, Oh, a guy comes to the house all the time in a wheelchair. it's no big deal.

Arthur: Yeah, just this past weekend I was at an event and one of my friends who I've known since we were in ninth grade, I was telling the story about her, and I met her my very first day of ninth grade.

She walks up to me and tells me her name and she says, My brother uses a wheelchair. I know how to help transfer. I know how to do this. And you know, if you need help, everybody knows me. You know, go to the office. They can find out what class I'm in. Whatever you need, find me, and we're 42 this year, and we're still the best of friends.

And it's it's just great because it does provide that connection. And it lets the other children know, like in the class that like, okay, they have to do things differently, but they can still participate, and we can all still participate too. And like you said, you give them the three-second countdown and then we can go get him. Like we would just get everybody else,

Lauren: It all goes in together like with equipment there’s what I always call adjusted nubby ball because it makes me think of it. It's not a dog toy but there's a stuffed toy and it has little spikes.

It's going to sound like it's dangerous. And I promise it's not what it is. It's like a rubber it's a rubber ball, but it gives a different texture. So for my students who are playing handball, the gator ball or what typically would be called the dodgeball back would be would be in P.E. it slips out of students hands. So they were catching it.

And it wasn't because they couldn't catch, but that material was too slippery for them. So when we changed the equipment with that ball, all the kids were able to catch it and it didn't matter if you had a disability or not. Everybody started the whole game, started to just increase in skill and teamwork and sportsmanship. Nobody's getting frustrated about what's happening because it's too slippery.

Lauren: They’re able to catch the ball and it it works for everybody and there is nobody that was singled out for whatever it could be. Everybody really was just working together to achieve that goal for handball for the class, which is what our goal is for inclusive education, is that everybody works together with whatever modifications are needed and everybody succeeds.

Arthur: Yeah, I again, I love this conversation because we haven't talked about this on the podcast yet and it's it's so important to talk about because like for myself I can't walk for long distances but I can push myself in my wheelchair for long distances. So physical activity is so important for people with physical disabilities. But then also just for everybody to break up the day, the school day to get out and have some activity, release some energy.

It’s so important for everybody. So I'm so glad that, we're having this conversation. That's cool. I'm excited about it.

Lauren: I love talking about it. I love movement. So any chance I can get anybody to get up and move and knowing that they can do it. And that's always my focus is focus on what people can do.

There are so many times people are hit. They know that they can't do certain things that we don't want to focus on, that we want to focus on, okay, we can this is what we can do. And we are going to we are going to go off of what we can do and we're going to keep building off of that, right?

Arthur: Yeah. Like you said, it's always like I like I know what I can't do, but I'm well aware of that. But to have someone, like yourself in a position of being like a PE teacher to show me like, okay, you can't do this, but here's what you can do to participate with everybody else is really awesome. Really great.

Arthur: So you are recently. Oh, sorry. Wow. I don't know what I was, but I just messed up. So you are an inclusion facilitator with NJCIE. Can you share with us what are some of your responsibilities in that role and what are you most looking forward to with this position?

Lauren: So my role for inclusion facilitator is I get to work with individual schools on different topics that they have applied for so it can be co-teaching or building inclusive environments and we work one one-on-one with each school.

I'm doing observation is going through training and really helping them create these more inclusive environments for things that they feel that their schools need. And then on the systemic change side of it, it's a three-year program right now and we really look at the data that's in the schools. So what are percentages that students are with their general education peers and how many students are out of district?

We try to really change where numbers are and how can we create these more inclusive environments, but really working individually with each school. I think one of the fun parts is that I've been involved in inclusive education and I love to work with kids with disabilities and how can we get them more involved in what is a typical school day in general education classes?

Lauren: And that's what I get to do, is every day I get to work up. It's something different. Each school has their own different needs and we get to be creative and find, okay, this works for here, but it may not work here and how can we change it? And that's what we're learning constantly as we're going through and working with each school.

So I just love being able to share my background and working with people to achieve something that's a greater good for everybody that's involved.

Arthur: Yes, I, I love what you said, that this position allows you to be creative because every setting is different. You know, you're going into these different schools and like you said, something that might work over here doesn't work over there. So you have to think of,a different way to approach, you know, what might be a theme, a similar topic or a similar challenge that the school is facing.

But because of each school having its own unique people and set of circumstances there, you have to approach it differently and you can,, forces you to be creative, to come up with different solutions for every school, every setting that you're in. So that's really yeah, that's cool. So it's like a new like every day is a new a new day like so you get to try some.

Lauren: Yeah. You're on your toes a lot.

Arthur: Well, Lauren, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation to share your story and your experience and to shed light on the world of physical education as it applies to inclusive education because it's a topic like I said, I've been doing this podcast for two years now and we have not really talked about that.

And it's again, it's so important because it is part of the school day for all students. And I love the suggestions that you gave about for the modifications that can be done because it's not if it's not costing a lot of money or any money at all to do those things that you said.

Yeah, it's just purchasing different balls. Like you said, instead of using a a soccer ball, you get a beach ball, you know, and if you get the right deal, you might be able to get a couple of beach balls, you know, and then save money. So yes  I thank you again for this conversation. And it was great to meet you virtually. And I will be in touch with you.

Lauren: Of course. This was awesome. Thank you so much for having me on, Arthur. It was a great conversation. I'd be happy whenever you need me. I'm here.

Arthur: Great. Thank you. Oh, well, you have a great day.

Lauren: Yeah, you too!