Three Lessons Learned About Inclusion From My Marathon Journey

Author, blogger, and cerebral palsy (CP) advocate, Zachary Fenell, is back on our blog with a story about inclusion and a marthon. Read below to find out how the two intersected and changed Zachary's life in ways in couldn't have imagined. For the full story, check out Zachary's new book, Slow and Cerebral.

Discussing inclusion proves important. Through such discussion we learn from each other. Gathering ideas which will help inclusion thrive. Exactly why I approached Nicole and asked about providing a new guest post for The Inclusive Class blog. 

A lot has happened since my last guest post, published nearly a decade ago. Nearly a decade? Wow! Where the heck does the time go? Anyway, amongst those prior mentioned happenings, one in-particular stands out to me. I accomplished a feat that nearly a decade ago I deemed “unreasonable.” Becoming a marathoner.

The Effects of Presuming Competence

Ms. B is a teacher at XYZ Middle School. She has 32 students of various abilities in her class, including a student with intellectual disabilities. The student with intellectual disabilities has the support of a paraprofessional who facilitates access to the curriculum. Ms. B is about to plan for an upcoming unit on plants. The grade-level learning outcomes require students to understand the structure of plants and plant biology. She wonders if the topic and content will be too challenging for her student with intellectual disabilities to understand. Ms. B is concerned that the student will become overwhelmed and frustrated when presented with such a complex topic. Should she plan for the student to work with a list of science vocabulary words that were targeted for review in a recent assessment or should she plan to modify the unit lessons for the the student so they can participate in the class lessons and learn the same new concepts as their peers? Ms. B wonders what to do.