Episode 43: The Benefits of Inclusive Education, Part 1

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 Arvin Arjona, a fine arts teacher of dance. This is part one of our conversation where Arvin shares what inclusive education means to him, and the benefit that inclusive education can have on all students.

I would like to welcome everyone back to another episode of the Inclusion Think Tank podcast brought to you by the New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education. I am your host, Arthur Aston, and I am back today with a brand new episode with my guest, Arvin Arjona. And Arvin, I am so happy that you are joining us today. You were one of the NJCIE honorees for 2022.

So we had a chance to catch up with each other at the teacher's convention back in November and introduce myself to you back then. So I'm happy to have you on as a guest on the podcast today. Thanks for joining us.

Arvin: Oh, you're welcome. I'm honored. The pleasure's mine.

Arthur: Yeah. So as part of your NJCIE honoree video, it was shown that you are a dance teacher.

And I really thought that was really cool, really great. So in addition to being a dance teacher, can you share a little bit about yourself and tell us who you are?

Arvin: So I'll say this much, when I was a kid, I did sports, martial arts. Also on top of that. Now, martial arts is part of the sports world, too.

those are part of my life and everything got me through a lot of, struggles because I know in school I was struggling, overall. So I didn't know anything about learning disabilities. Nothing. Catholic school doesn't cover that, not their fault. It's just their school system and everything. And I know Catholic schools have gotten better because special education has been researched.

And all the people from our generation, even me, growing up, I’m so happy the struggles we all went through, people took the time to say, oh, we got to stop this and just say, let's move on and let's get the help for everybody that needs it. Appropriate help. That's the most important thing.

In college, I took a modern dance class, so this is where my journey started to begin. I took a modern dance, and took it literally. And I thought modern meant like what we did in the clubs and stuff. And when I found out I was doing like Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham, like, Ooh, what is this? But I was like, Wait a minute, I did have a passion for this.

Arvin: I always wanted to take technical dance like tap, or ballet when I was a kid, but my parents didn't have the money back then. It's okay. And when I got this opportunity to do this at the college I was at, the two-year school, I was at, this was such an eye opener for me. And door opener. I could also revert to my learning disability, just what I did not know at the time.

Same college. There is a reading teacher there. Professor took the time out of her office hours and tested and retested me and then found that I had dyslexia and I dealt with that for so many years. And I have no fault. I never, ever blame my teachers in the high school and the child study team of my high school.

They did their best, but I think they just didn't give me the appropriate testing. And they honestly, they didn’t know what was wrong with me. And I was still struggling with school and you'll hear stories about that by many people and many I've encountered that I've talked to that had similar experiences that I have because like I said, back in those times, they didn't have all the resources yet.

Arvin: Special education was still new in the nineties and everything. So after I took that dance class, I had these two professors change my life and that makes that's what makes the difference in anyone's life. You find that your mentor, because I'm going to use a Star Star Wars reference that I'm their Padawan and they were my Jedi masters and eventually I became their Jedi Knights.

And, feel like I'm that master now of both of them and honor them through my through through what I do as an educator to this day and stuff. So big Star Wars fan myself. That's why I reference that I could go Star Trek too. But this is such an easier way of going through education wise and a but about me, it's just overall it's, taking on challenges.

And then once you find out you could overcome these challenges and figure out how to do it is even the best part of who I am and stuff. And I can't do it without our family, obviously, we can't do it without my wife, for the 20 years I've been married with her always supported me in hearing all the stuff that goes on as I was a special education teacher and now I'm a dance educator.

And the reason why I became a Special Ed teacher, is because when I was in high school, I said I cannot have a student, a child go through what I did, what I went through. And luckily over the years, so much stuff has opened up for students of all different types of abilities, and I'm so happy to see that there's still more to do, honestly.

Arvin: Let’s revert back to inclusion. Inclusion still a baby in this country. And I feel like it's not there's not enough and there is. It's not done right. I'm not trying to be the master of inclusion, but I, me, myself, it took all these years to figure out how to do an effective inclusion class as an educator, as someone that never had that opportunity in school.

I probably was having inclusion, didn't even know that was happening because it didn't help me as a student at the time. Like I said, no blame goes to anybody. It's the education system at the time, and the tools that were available for these poor educators, they didn't have many back then.

So now a lot of us have it, but it's how to utilize those tools with the approach, with using the appropriate tools for that specific individual. That's why they're called IEPs, individual education plans, and 504, you got to help those students out that have a 504. So what's appropriate is the most important for that person.

So and like reverting back. Yes. I feel like I still have my own IEP and I'm living by that. And, I like to encourage that IEP because it is your identity as you go through life. And I'm turning 50 this year. Amazingly. And I was like, wow, I still I still have a lot a lot to learn.

Arvin: Even as I'm teaching, I feel like I mastered things. I just like, Wow, there's still more to learn. I still learn a lot from my students. So that's the best part of being an educator right now, just learning from your students and stuff.

So to describe what I am. I'm still an open book, but I know I mastered certain things in my life.

Arthur: That’s one of the reasons why I love having, being able to host this podcast to hear different people's stories and the way that they were led into the education profession and their stories of growing up and the experiences that they've had and what led them to teaching and educating others.

And I also appreciate what you said about your upbringing and not being diagnosed with dyslexia until later on, but also not placing any blame on the teachers and the child study team when you were in school, because as you said, things were limited back then and they did the best they could with what they had available to them.

And it's one of those things, what’s the quote ‘when you know better, you do better’. And, it's a lot easier because things have changed and things have improved so much so, they're able to make those diagnoses of dyslexia and other diagnoses a lot earlier now because the tools and the research and everything has gotten so much better since since you were in school and so many others were in school.

Arthur: So thank you for sharing all of all of that with us.

And so the next question I have for you is what does inclusive education mean to you?

Arvin: So even me as an educator, I like what it means to me. It means the world to me because it gives an opportunity for someone, I’ll refer back to my years of school.

I know some kids that were classmates of mine just if they had inclusive education, it would have opened the door to them, to different other avenues. And so I'm glad a lot of them, those specific people I'm talking about, found their niche, which is great. So but that's something they had to do on their own.

They struggled to find their own and it took a couple of years to find their niche. But inclusive education, it's the reason why it's so important. It just provides that opportunity for everyone with different types of abilities. Regardless of your Gardasil where you are, let's let's, let's use autism regardless of where we are in the spectrum. Inclusive education to me, feels like especially for that population.

And because that's what we that's who we educate most, mostly in in the public school systems here in America. But when we do get someone that has Down syndrome or other things or multiple disabilities, it just provides that open door for that person to have an education with the population of the people of the place they live in.

Arvin: And that's something that's that's why inclusive education is so important to me. Because if students even where the school district I'm in and something I love, what they do is they start in kindergarten right there and then and they at kindergarten, it doesn't matter what abilities they are, even to the lowest that I see. Students help each other out and I see that at school.

And so evident because they started so low in the in the kindergarten level, even pre-K. I heard too, that they do it with obviously pre-K stuff because some kids are still in the early intervention programs, but once they get out of that, I'm telling you a lot of the kids are so accepting of different abilities, even kids that don't have the IEP, the what I call the 504 the ones that are just on the cusp that needs that extra, just that needs that extra little thing of being in that inclusive environment helps them so much.

And if you have if you have what they call the co-teaching model, in a lot of the classes which we have at the school district on that inclusive education, just the way it has improved over the years and doing the way of doing it, I feel a lot of students benefit from it. Yeah, we're going to lose a few here and there because it's not appropriate for them, you know, or they just need that extra, extra instruction that or just a way of doing it.

Arvin: But inclusive education just in general, it’s not just wife feeling like it's important, but it's also, you know, how that term. So you got to put your you got to get your foot in the door type of thing. This gives them their foot in the door. And also, I'm going to quote this from a Fresh Prince episode.

He was talking to Mr. Uncle Phil himself. And it's something I tell my college students at Rutgers about this. A lot of these kids feel like they have one roller skate on their feet and they're still trying to catch up. But I feel like inclusion gives that other roller skate and they just keep up. That’s why I feel like inclusive education gives an equal advantage to get the same education these students get.

And, like, and then, that concept they say the least restrictive environment. That's where that actually happens and that's what inclusive education why schools of education support me, because that's what defines what that least restrictive environment is. We don't know what that was. I'll be honest. When I was teaching, when I was learning, I was doing my undergrad for special education, we we had no clue what that meant.

No matter how much our professors tried our best to explain it to us, we were like, there's no example that was a problem. There was really no true example or an inclusive education became a big thing here. The country, thank God it happened because it's like I said, it's still a baby. It's not that many years because of education.

There was not so much emphasis on it so recently. That's how I feel and stuff. So but yeah, I had no clue what that least restrictive environment is and now I know because that's why inclusive, inclusive education gives us that extra skate to make the kids keep up with everyone else. And not just talking academically, but socially too.

Arvin: I see it in my inclusive classes when I teach. A lot of kids know each other like what's on it and they're not treated because they have they have a specific disability. They treat it because they're treating them like who they are as a person. And that's another thing, the social aspect of it.

The kids get to know each other socially and stuff. So that's why I feel like inclusive education, there's a lot of emphasis on mental health. But I feel like inclusive education is the biggest key to maintaining that mental that positive mental health for everyone in the school.

Arthur: Yes. And you I think you really hit it home there with the social part of it because it shows that someone I recently had on said that, you know, after kids graduate high school and go to college and after college, there is no special education world.

it's just the world. And we're all supposed to join this world together. And I'm going to interact and socialize and work together as coworkers and meet up in, you know, in the public at that grocery stores and malls and things altogether. And I think also another point that you said that's so important is starting it early, starting the inclusion early at the kindergarten level, preschool level, if possible.

That is something that has been talked about on this podcast as well. So it is really so important to start it early because then the children will learn about each other and their differences and disabilities and what it means for for this child to have to use a wheelchair or to use braces or crutches and, or what happens with them because they are on the autism spectrum and it's just so important to start it early.

Arthur: I think that was so, so important to mention and the impact that inclusion has on the social life of the students is something that it's not often talked about. So that was really great to to say as well.

Arthur: So you started talking about it, how you had your class, your dance class when you when you were in college.

But how did you become interested in dance and what style of dance do you like to teach or is your favorite? And what style do you find that the students are most interested in?

Arvin: Okay, so let's go back to Michael Jackson, watching him for the first time and me entering in Michael Jackson competition. I got as far as regionals, but some kids are at a whole other level than I was at.

So, yeah, that's what started me sparking. But what I realized with Michael Jackson, I was like, besides being like a street dancer for gliding, locking, popping, but he also has a jazz dance element to him. So I was like, Wait a minute, I want to learn this stuff. Be like him and everything. But like I said, the funds of my parents are immigrants to this country.

They were just starting out. When I hear my dad told me, I only made $1.50 an hour in the in the factory. I was like, wow. And it's so many Americans back in the into the seventies and the eighties trying to make it. And a lot of them did a wonderful job. I mean, I'm here so and I have the support system there but they provide me with a roof over my head and food and get me to what I need to get to now.

Arvin: But going back, it was Michael Jackson and I loved watching him. And also I was a fan of Bob Fossey. Believe it or not, I was I don't know why I was watching Sweet Charity at five years old, but I saw it on TV. It was there and I loved it. And my parents, my mom saw me ‘You can’t be watching this.” when i watched Bob Fossey.

Then I saw West Side Story, for the first time when I was ten, that's when I fell in love with like dance. But I knew no funds. I said maybe later when I get older and stuff. So that's what got me started into that world. But living in Jersey City I live here now, it's such a full circle thing now as an adult in downtown Jersey City, the house kids got off the streets.

We played basketball and then we got the cardboard. We did that. And I grew up in the eighties, so that's what we really did and we learned from each other and like that. I know how pop, I know how to lock, And although I used to be a decent break dancer because the thing back then we just watched and learned that type of thing.

So I mean, we got hurt too at the same that's like the skateboarders back there, the BMX people too. We just it was all happening at the same time too. We just watch and learn and did our best and stuff. So yes, we all got injured at one point, you know, But we're young, we bounce back.

I can't do that now, at almost 49 years old. But overall, yes. And then I'm moving right along of what I did, start taking modern dance and in college and stuff. I fell in love with the whole area of the dance world. And so there are areas of modern dance that I'll say I have an open mind and there are times like, Wow, that could have been done earlier, like what the choreographer, he was trying to say and stuff.

Arvin: I feel like since I got exposed to that one other element, but because of all that and ballet, I also remember taking ballet early in high school. I did it just for like a few sessions because my coach’s wife was the ballet teacher for ice hockey. So I actually made my that's where everything right there is like how ballet helped me skate so much better and stuff.

when I realized that how much benefits ballet had, when I took modern dance, I took ballet and I became a dance major at the two-year school I was at. And so which is which was, which was amazing. And as I moved along and learned all styles and then when I got a chance to perform for three years.

I did stop teaching for three years, I was on three national tours of Footloose Le Mis, and A Chorus Line.

Arvin: I don't know how I got to Le Mis. I can't sing, but I learned how to harmonize. I had a wonderful I'll say this much, I had a wonderful voice teacher there, and she got me in, and my audition got me in, and that's how I got it. That's what they always tell me to this day. And I've had recently I've had reunions for all those three casts, which is wonderful to see everybody and, also perform Disney and Universal. So I had a nice performance as I did all of our little things here and there. But overall, they're going to go to the last part of your question.

Hip-hop dance is still the most popular dance for kids today because because of K-Pop, believe it or not, has emerged. And not just K-Pop. Bollywood is very popular among the teenagers, too. Not as much as the K-Pop. The K-Pop is huge now, but Bollywood is really big, too. I mean, I have a big Indian population in my school and that's what makes a lot of the kids, you know, like a lot of my I have it's crazy because I'm the advisor to three clubs, the regular dance club, which is all styles, the K-Pop crew, which is just K-Pop. And then the are not they call Andar dance club is of a Bollywood traditional Indian club.

So what's very popular is the hip hop dance and that's why when I teach my phys. ed classes, so I have two classes I present Fine Arts where I teach my first class. I start off with hip hop because I have kids, It's elective in my school, but sometimes one of the kids, some kids are forced into my class, so I have to start off at the hip hop. So to answer you, the hip-hop is huge. The kids love it.

They see it on Tik Tok a lot, a lot of the hip-hop movements and stuff, and I told them I've been doing that since 1980. Don't even start with me. We've been doing moves like that.

Arvin: You know, when I taught a group of students that I had, half of them had spina bifida, and there were multiple disabilities and wheelchairs. I did hip-hop with them. And they had such a blast and everything. We didn't just do hip-hop. We also did we did stuff with we did like improvisation with like scarves. So to work on their fine motor skills and stuff and oh my God, I'll never forget that.

That was part of my student teaching actually, when I was at Jersey City State, and they brought these students in and some of them from A. Harry Moore school, which is not there anymore, unfortunately. And that's what I realized when I was student teaching there, even though those kids had multiple disabilities, they never gave up on trying to learn. That's something I'll never forget and everything. I had a hard time in that school because I lost a student within two weeks of my junior practicum because of health issues.

And I, like I say, I cannot teach. This is where I knew that area I couldn’t teach because emotionally I couldn't handle it, Emily Miss little Emily I'll never forget her. It's just this kid had so much against her. But she never gave up when she died of cancer eventually, but.

But she had everything. She just liked to learn. I got her to improve from one level to the other in math is something I'll never forget socially. I actually asked I asked them the school itself, if I could bring like one of my college friends to come. college students who are going to be special ed teachers, too,

They said yes, sure. They just don't want to have too many adults in there for many reasons, because the inconsistency of the people coming in and stuff. So I totally get that. But overall, hip hop dance, I also taught her hip-hop dance too.

Arthur: It’s really great how again, how our experiences growing up, how they can influence, you know, our future and yes, what we choose to do in life as a job, as a career, and can you share you talked about it a little bit, you know, with difficulties and learning and not really knowing that having a diagnosis.

But can you talk about how your own experience in your high school years influenced the way that you teach and interact with your own students now?

Arthur: This concludes part one of my conversation with Arvin Arjona. Join us again in two weeks when our conversation continues and Arvin shares how his own high school experience continues to influence his teaching style today.