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SWIFT Talk Blog

SWIFT Talk Blog

Re-imagining Education

Filtering by: Susan Shapiro

Presuming Competence: A Thank You Note to Tina

How I learned the importance of presuming competence in all learners by making a huge professional mistake, and what I have been thinking about since then.

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It's About the Team

The team is everything. Whether it is a family team working together to care for a cat, or an educational team working together to educate a child, the team makes things work (or not).

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Q: What Does Inclusion Really Look Like? Answers from a Second Grade Classroom

The commitment to include Sam in this classroom is solid. No one is waiting for "evidence" of his intelligence. Everyone believes in him, and everyone takes responsibility for figuring out communication supports.

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Differentiation: The Learning Needs of All Children as Part of the Original Instructional Design

I learned that differentiation means that adults do whatever it takes to make the instruction, assessment, and environment different in some way—different in just the perfect way—for every child, so that all children can learn.

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"She Won't Get Anything Out of It" and Other Mainstreaming Blunders

My students had so many IEP goals to work on that the first grade curriculum seemed almost like dessert—we could have it; but we had to eat the special education vegetables first.

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An Apology to Frank

Is there a line? Are there really some kids that can learn, and some kids that cannot? Of course not! We know ALL children can learn.

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Through the Eyes of One of the "Other Kids"

Much attention is focused on inclusion from the perspective of parents, educators, and students with disabilities. This provocative blog post speaks to the heart of the matter from the perspective of an 11-year-old classmate.

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