Leaves were falling around the campus when I approached the Coralwood school. I walked in, spoke with the receptionist, and ask to use the bathroom before I meet with Dr. Castelle. I passed classrooms filled with enthusiastic students ages 3-6, with adults running with individual children down the hall, smiling and encouraging them to keep up. Returning to the reception desk, I tell the woman that I'm ready. One child runs into the office with an adult after him. Dr. Castelle approaches him, scoops him up and asks him how his day was. She and the adult then coo him into saying hi to her. She then smiles, shakes my hand, and invites me into her office. I place my phone on the desk and open my recorder. I quickly explain my research, my background, and then I start, "What does the Coralwood school do? What is the Coralwood school in your eyes?" She smiles, opens her hands and says, "Coralwood is a very, very unique school; it's the only of its kind in county. We're an early childhood inclusion school. We only serve three year olds, four year olds, and five year olds. In our three year old classroom, we have one special ED teacher and two paras, what we call TA's. Those classes have 16 students. 6 have IEP's, special needs students, and ten are typically developing students. In our four year old pre-K classes, those are co-taught classrooms, we have 20 students, 6 who have special needs, 4 who don't. In our kindergarten class, we have a 7 to 13 ratio, also co-taught classrooms. We also have four sub-contained classrooms for students who have more significant challenges with a special ED teacher and paras for support." Having all of these numbers by heart, it is obvious how much she cares. I start, "Your website talks about inclusion education. Can you explain more about this?" She replies, "The inclusion model places a majority of typically developing students in the classroom alongside IEP students. Typical students act as role models for those with special needs. Often, looking in the classroom, you can't even tell which have special need students and which don't." "How do you think that your particular teaching method helps students with disabilities? What specifically have students taken with them after graduating?" "This is the best anti-bullying campaign you could get at: students at this age don't recognize gender, race, ethnicity-or disability. So the friendships that they make last. When these students move onto the bigger school, our typical students act as role models for other typical students and students with disabilities. This program in itself builds such an anti-bullying model. Students are likely to stand up for one another. These kids- it's natural for them to be around people with disabilities. They accept people who are different." I smile, "That's incredible. In my research, many reported that great strides can be done outside of the classroom. Do you have programs that encourage students to work outside of the classroom or is it the role of the parent to push them to do so?" "Our parents are so involved that they truly seek different therapy programs outside of school programs. We did have after school programs for dance and art that were inclusive in nature, but we found that when we had outside vendors, they were not trained in how to work with students with disabilities. They didn't know how to prevent over stimulation, incidents happened, and this wasn't a successful situation for all children involved. I've been working to find people with the training we need, but until then we aren't holding such programs." | "And the parents are so involved and invested that all of the onus doesn't have to be on you," I insist "Definitely! We also work to inform the parents on how to best care for their children. We hold summer camp expos for typical and special needs students, so parents know what is available. We always send out plenty of parent information that can serve any student." I grin apologetically, "I know that this is an obvious question, but what is the importance of a high self-esteem in a student? What do you find helps students who lack confidence in their ability to fit into a school setting?" She leans in and shows incredible interest at me talking about self-esteem. After I finish the question, she nods, "With the co-taught classroom model, all the children learn together. It lends itself to all students finding success. The presence of three adults plus therapists allow all of the children to feel confident and supported. They don’t' see themselves as different from their peers. Their small group learning methods may differ, but they all work together on the same topics. Their feeling of success is paramount to their development." "What would you say to parents of children struggling with disabilities? What is the most valuable things in the toolkit?" "This model of early intervention is all about the the birth through three model: the earlier that a parent acts, the more successful that a child will be in the future. All I can say to parents, being the parent of a child who had disabilities, is 'push them, push them, push them'. You can't let your child be more handicapped. Let your child fall every once in a while. They aren't going to learn to take chances, to gain that courage, if we coddle them too much. We obviously have so much love and concern for our children, but we can't baby them." I feel myself becoming excited, "I'm sorry, I'm so fascinated, since my parents began me on speech, occupational, and physical therapy at the age of one and a half. I feel like you're advocating what worked for me." "Same with my son, he lives on his own, works, drives, everything. If he had been coddled, and rescued him every time he stumbled, he wouldn't be what he's doing now. My friends and neighbors would get excited, while he would just brush himself off. They'd say I was being mean, but I'd actually be mean if I didn't let him act on his own." "I know that my mom had a big issue with that. She would let me stumble, but she'd be crying on the inside. She would have to put me on monkey bars to help combat my muscular problems. I would immediately drop, but she'd have to keep trying." "But she did keep picking you back up, and that's the great thing. My experience was that I was a special ed teacher before I had children, so I had that type of training to go into motherhood." I smile, and look that I've exhausted all of the topics I had hoped to discuss, "That's so fascinating. I got so much out of this talk; thank you so much for your time." She reaches her hands out, "You are so welcome, did you take a look around the school?" "I did, it's absolutely beautiful." "It really is." |
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