Reflective Journal | EDTL 609 | Professor Karen Gaztih

Sean Johnston

A central interest I have, both in education as well as in life in

general, is how structures and institutions shape lives. Not only has

this class taught me invaluable information and communicated a more

thoughtful and nuanced understanding of issues as they relate to
diverse learners, but it has piqued my interest in how approaches and
concepts fostered by institutions shape approaches and outcomes in
regards to diverse learners.
Given my interests and concerns, it is reassuring to know that
there is an awareness of these dynamics and a self-reflexivity built into
approaches such as Response to Intervention and Universal Design for
Living. UDLs insistence on a move away from the wait to fail model
speaks to the notion of institutional responsibility, and that the onus is
on the school system and not the child (Gazith, 2015). UDL allows the
proactive educator to ensure that the classroom is designed to meet
the needs of diverse learners both prior to the commencement of
teaching as well as in real time. This is ensured through backwards
design (identifying desired results (KUD), determing acceptable
evidence (assessment), and planning learning experiences and
instruction (lesson plans) (Gazith, 2015), etc.) and a cognizance that
praxis that is activity-focused and concerned mostly with coverage is
to the detriment of all students, not just diverse learners. As Wiggins
(1998, p. 15) states, too many teachers focus on the teaching and not
the learning. UDL emphasizes that an active awareness of students
need to be kept in flow between having the background knowledge
and basis to grasp new concepts and information without an
overfamiliarity that produces boredom is vital to the success of any
teaching endeavor (Gazith, 2015). This is also in keeping with
Tomlinsons findings that a classroom needs to nurture student
contribution, affirmation, power, purpose, [and] challenge (2003, p.
16-18) if students are to fully develop and actualize in a school setting.
A central way to ensure that this is possible is through the
development of the brain-friendly classroom; whereby not only the
educator but also the school system itself identifies that the classroom
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must begin with an understanding of the qualities and conditions

necessary for the brain to thrive in order for the student to thrive. In
order to do this, the understanding has to be that the first-order
concern of the brain is for its own survival. Therefore, it is essential
that the classroom is one where students feel security in both their
safety as well as their identity. Teachers should be wise to understand
when they may be creating circumstances where students may feel
threatened and that, in doing so, it is to the direct detriment of
students ability to gather and process new information. A brainfriendly classroom understands the attention spans and human need
for novelty. Daydreaming students are a testament to the fact that, an
environment that contains mainly predictable or repeated stimuli (like
some classrooms?) lowers the brains interest in the outside world and
tempts it to turn within for novel sensations (Sousa, 2006, p. 29). The
brain-friendly classroom also understands that recoding and repetition
are essential for all students to move information from short-term
memory into long-term memory especially for students with dyslexia
and ADHD (Vaugn, 2012, p. 235). The purview of the brain friendly
classroom even extends to the rules and expectations regime a
teacher institutes in the classroom. Research has demonstrated that,
when there are no clear rules, or when those rules are not enforced,
students tend to exhibit more problematic behaviors. This is especially
true for student who have difficulty adjusting to the demands of
school (Scheuerman, B. K. & Hall, J. A, 2012, p. 212). This also needs
to be balanced by the reality that get tough and no tolerance
generally prove pernicious to the ends they attempt to address as
highly punitive approaches are actually associated with increases in
the very behaviors that they are intended to eliminate (Scheuerman,
2012, p. 174). Rules fair and consistently applied therefore become
not only a means to become a more effective teacher, but they also
foster a more equitable learning environment where more students are
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likely to flourish. For someone who struggles to be sufficiently strict

with student expectations for following rules, this is a nice reminder
that it is not just to make my life easier, or to facilitate instruction, but
rather it is a structural element that actively fosters social justice.
This desire to ensure more students many students that are
often overlooked by institutions and society can flourish in the school
system is built into the very structure of Response to Intervention. RtI
understand that there is disproportionality in who is being identified as
a diverse learner: namely, low-income, ESL students, and boys (Gazith,
2015). Turnbull notes that the poverty rate is significantly higher
amongst children with disabilities and that [r]ace and ethnicity clearly
are factors in the identification of students having a disability
(Turnbull, 2004, p. 12). Importantly, RtI in placing much of the
responsibility in addressing the needs of diverse learners with the
teacher and not just with teachers in special education means that
the needs of many students who would not qualify as requiring the use
of special education can still more likely have their needs addressed in
standard classrooms (Vaugn, 2012, p. 54). This means, just by the
basis of its approach, that there is a developed sense of social justice
built into the structure of RtI. Moreover, this means that RtIs focus on
universal screening, early intervention, research-based teaching and
curriculum development, progress monitoring and differentiated
learning (Gazith, 2015) is necessarily oriented towards creating a more
just education system and, in turn, a more just society. Hopefully, this
initiates a process whereby the types of teachers who were identified
by Hutchison (2002, p. 18) begin to feel especially uncomfortable in
their insistence that it is not their responsibility to address the needs of
diverse learners.
It is my own desire to not be part of [this] problem but instead
part of the solution that has spurred my own active interest in gaining
as much understanding as I can about how best to accommodate the
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needs of diverse learners. To do so necessarily means learning as much

as I can about students with, for instance, autism and ADHD. My
experiences in my first internship greatly aided in humanizing students
who have autism and ADHD, and I am not so sure I would have made
such a close emotional connection with the issue had I had this course
before my first internship. Teaching to students who have ADHD and
autism was a frustrating and alienating experience when I did not have
the necessary understanding to adequately address their needs. I had
the constant suspicion that my own need for student teaching
experience was coming at their cost. That is why the emphasis in this
course on strategies with, for instance, students with ADHD (such as:
the constant need for recoding and repetition; the need to make
associations through difference rather than similarity; the use of
mnemonics and visual guides all tools, essentially, to lessen the
demands on working memory) was an absolutely crucial discovery.
Singhs Will the real boy Please Behave: Dosing Dilemmas for
Parents of Boys with ADHD (2005) was a fascinating exploration of the
subject that I witnessed first hand (the dosing if not overdosing of
students with ADHD) with a psychological approach that bordered on
philosophy (popular and scholarly notions of the concept of
authenticity) that appealed to my natural proclivities. It is perhaps the
article from this course that I reflected on the most about.
Similar to this appeal was the notion of neuro-diversity with
regards to students with autism. That no two people with autism have
it in nearly the same way (Gazith, 2015) is apparent just from my own
experience. That someone could deign these wonderful individuals
deficient or dysfunctional seems quite strange in light of the fact
that these people with autism certainly do not view themselves in such
a manner. The course and the Smith reading went some distance in
explicating their interesting fixations and desire for sameness (Smith,
2013, p. 344-345). I feel like I have a firmer understanding of how
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students with autism operate strange behaviours become not unlike

any other behaviours. This, again, speaks to how research and
understanding a greater grasp on reality itself aids in fostering the
growth of social justice through individual and institutional change.

References

Hutichson, N.I. (2002). Educating exceptional students: the Canadian

experience. Chapter: Education exceptional students: the
Canadian experience, pp. 2-30.
Scheuerman, B. K. & Hall, J. A. (2012). Positive Behavioral Supports for
the Classroom. Chapter 5: Prevention of challenging behavior
through school-wide positive behavioral interventions and
supports. pp. 173-209. Chapter 6: Prevention of challenging
behavior through rules and procedures. pp. 211-231.

Singh, I. (2005). Will the real boy please behave: dosing dilemmas for
parents of boys with ADHD. The American Journal of Bioethics.
Vol. 5, No. 3. pp. 34-47.
Smith, D. D. & Tyler, N.C. (2013). Introduction to Contemporary Special
Education: New Horizons.
Sousa, D. A. (2006). How the brain learns 3rd Edition. Chapter 1: basic
brain facts. Chapter 2: How the brain processes information. pp.
15-75.
Tomlinson, C. A. (2003). Students needs as an impetus for
differentiation. Fulfilling the promise of the differentiated
classroom. pp. 14-24.
Turnbull, H.R. et al. (2004). Overview of todays special education.
Exceptional lives: Special education in todays schools (2-40).
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall.
Vaugn. S. & Bos, C.S. (2012). Strategies for Teaching Students with
learning and Behavior Problems. Chapter 3: Response to
Intervention. pp. 54-78.
Vaugn, S. & Bos, C. S. (2012). Strategies for Teaching Students with
learning and Behavior Problems. Chapter 8: Assessing reading:
fluency and comprehension. Pp. 232-284.
Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Chapter
1: backwards design. Chapter 1: Backwards Design. pp. 13-34.