Perceptions matter as WE learn and grow
In the field of education, August and September are months that offer anticipation, excitement, and often anxiety as the new school calendar year begins. Teachers look ahead to the quarters, trimesters, months, weeks, days, and hours of hard work that await and start the countdown to the May or June of the following year to celebrate successes and unroll the beach blanket. In preparation for my upcoming professional development sessions in the 24-25 year, I reorganized my office and found a paper with a metaphor a participant wrote during a PD activity. It reminds us that perceptions matter as WE learn and grow.
New school year, different weather, clothes, pencils, crayons, books, policies, and more. More includes attitudes. We teach all kids, the ones who know more and less, care more or less, have more or less, and need more or less. We teach the kids who sit and listen, kids who squirm, kids who understand half of what is said, but won’t tell you which half, quiet kids, noisy kids, kids who love pictures more than words, kids who prefer to draw, rather than do the math, kids who look you in the eye, kids who look up at you while seated in a wheelchair, kids who talk with their hands, and kids who grow up with more or less love from others and for themselves.
As you begin the 2024-25 school year, I invite you to define disABILITY in yourself and others through a positive lens. Students, families, admin., teachers, related staff, and communities have experiences that range from good to better to let’s delete.Levels of competencies exist and vary for students, families, and the professionals. Teachers are entrusted with the best job in the world- molding minds. As an inclusion coach, I invite you to view ABILITY first. Can do, will do, and plan to do, then growth will occur. Anything is possible if you plan a course of action that says, I can and WE will. I invite you to figuratively and literally believe in ABILITY, yours and theirs. Write you own similes and metaphors as you propagate ABILITIES. Together we learn, together we grow. Have an EXCELLENT start to the upcoming year!
