Welcome To Our First Blog!!
Hello!! Meet Elsa and Lisa!
​
We would like to welcome you to our Exceptionality Studies Blog!! We are currently students pursuing an Education Assistant Diploma, so that we can contribute to the support for children and youth within the school systems throughout Canada. We are excited to share what we are learning about Exceptionalities and the movement towards more inclusive environments and celebrating diversity.
Throughout the following posts, you will hear from both of us on our current studies around inclusion practices, conversations and controversies around inclusion in the classroom, who should we be paying attention to and why we are so passionate about sharing this assignment with others through a facebook challenge. The facebook challenge will be based on the exceptionality categories, found in Teaching Students With Special Needs In Inclusive Settings textbook. We have included posts with a brief introduction to each exceptionality group.
Please note that we will be referring to disabilities as exceptionalities. Exceptional describes individuals with diverse needs that are different from their typical achieving peers in some way. Disability often implies that there is something wrong or lacking and, as you well know or will see throughout the following posts and many resources, people with exceptionalities have many other capabilities that often exceed the average standard in other areas of life. Focusing our attention and ways of labeling towards more empowering words will have a positive effect on all people’s, with or without exceptionalities, concepts around the differences among one another. None of us are the same, and in our opinion, we all have exceptionalities in different areas. Disorders will remain with title, for now, as they are not as demeaning as disabled when it comes to describing learning styles. In our opinion, everyone is able to learn in some way. Learning may be done differently with different objectives, but we all are capable of learning.
1. Inclusion
2. Learning Exceptionalities
3. Intellectual Exceptionalities
4. Emotional/Behavioural Disorders
5. Sensory Problems
6. Orthopedic Impairments
7. Other Health Impairments
8. Autism Spectrum Disorders
9. Traumatic Brain Injury
10. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
11. Speech and Language Disorders
12. Gifted and/or Talented
13. Students At Risk
14 Typical—We have added this one to the exceptionality categories
15. Celebrating Diversity Working Towards Unity!
​
RESOURCES:
We have included our internet resources throughout the blog posts.
Textbooks used throughout study:
1. Hutchinson, Nancy L.& Specht, Jacqueline A. (2020). Inclusion of Learners with Exceptionalities In Canadian Schools. Pearson Canada Inc.
2. Smith, Tom E.C., Polloway, Edward A., Patton, James R., Dowdy, Carol A., McIntyre & Laureen J. (2015) Teaching Students with Special Needs in Inclusive Settings. Pearson Canada Inc.
​
​
Personal thoughts :)
​
Elsa’s comment: Labels were made for things, not for people! We are all different and that makes us have unique abilities. Every child should have the right to have the opportunity to learn and share their knowledge in an inclusive environment. I believe that if we all have a chance to interact with each other we will learn and teach a lot better. There are so many ways to include every child in classrooms, we just have to know them and understand their needs, so we can provide the best possible education. If we do that, it will be the first step to inclusiveness and equality.
Every child matters and has the right of inclusiveness not just in schools, but also at home and in the community. Inclusion is for life!!!
Lisa’s comment: Everyone has exceptionalities and disorders of some sort and that is ok...that is what keeps us unique and on our toes for growing and learning more about ourselves and life! :) As Elsa implies, we are so very much more than our labels. I currently have an autoimmune disorder and have had general anxiety disorder (GAD) most of my life. They are disorders, and they do and have affected how I live my life in both positive and negative ways depending on how I chose to deal with them. This is the beauty of it all… we are all unique and have our different combos of strengths and challenges to over come that shape us and grow us. It would be boring if we were perfect and all the same! :).
Promoting inclusion in the classrooms will lead to a more harmonious world for us all. It will not happen over night. It will take time, energy, patience, persistence and a true calling to serve others rather than self, recognizing that by serving others you are actually serving yourself in the greatest of ways. If we, as adults, can model and practice inclusion, focusing on the strengths in others and making connections rather than separations, to our younger generations than the future will be a lot more empathetic and empowering for us all. As Shelley Moore says the next evolution of inclusion is unity.