Children’s Books That Respectfully Portray People with Disabilities

            In this article in The Reading Teacher, Ashley Pennell and David Koppenhaver (Appalachian State University) and Barbara Wollak (University of St. Thomas/St. Paul) say that well-chosen children’s books can act as mirrors (reflecting kids’ own thoughts, feelings, and experiences), windows (opening new worlds through characters’ experiences and responses), and doors (transporting them into adventure, fantasy, and mystery). “It is vitally important,” say Pennell, Wollak, and Koppenhaver, “to consider who is represented, who is underrepresented, who is misrepresented, and who is ignored in literature. When books painting diverse and accurate portraits of the incredible range of ability and disability are not available to students, we must question what we are teaching them about who is valued and what is important.”

The authors did a systematic search for picture books that depict people with disabilities in a respectful way, using these criteria:

-   Easy to read – third-grade readability or below, accessible to students in upper elementary grades who are reading below grade level;

-   Not overly didactic – the character with a disability is not pitied or patronized;

-   Respectful language portraying characters with disabilities as rich and complex individuals who are defined by more than their disability;

-   An interesting and engaging story line involving characters with depth;

-   Readily available from booksellers and public libraries.

The authors’ initial search identified 700 fiction and 1,100 nonfiction books, which they narrowed down to a much smaller number. Below is a sampling of the best they found. “Each book,” say the authors, “has the potential to transcend the disability category and could be enjoyed, and learned from, by all students.”

• King for a Day by Rukhsana Khan (2014) – Malik, a boy in Pakistan who uses a wheelchair, struggles with a bully and hopes to become the best kite fighter in Lahore.

• Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson (2015) – A boy in Ghana is born with a physical disability but hops the two miles to and from school, learns to play soccer, and eventually bicycles 400 miles across Ghana.

            • The Snow Rabbit by Camille Garoche (2015) – In this wordless book, two sisters, one using a wheelchair, watch snow falling outside their window; one goes out and makes a snow rabbit, brings the snow sculpture inside, and when it starts to melt, they go outside and play and the magic begins.

            • El Deafo by Cece Bell (2014) – This autobiographical graphic novel tells how the author lost her hearing at age 4, struggled to read lips and decipher sounds through her hearing aid, sought friendship, and imagined herself as El Deafo, a superhero who was able to hear everything.

            • Miss Little’s Gift by Douglas Wood (2009) – An autobiographical picture book about a boy with ADHD who has difficulty learning to read. With the help of a caring teacher, Douglas finds a book that interests him and discovers the joy of reading.

            • Kami and the Yaks by Andrea Stenn Stryer (2007) – A young Sherpa boy, who is deaf and unable to speak, races a big storm in the Himalayas to rescue a group of yaks who strayed from their owners.

            • A Boy and a Jaguar by Alan Rabinowitz (2014) – A true story of a boy who spent his school years in a special classroom because of his stuttering. His teachers believe he’s incompetent, but he finds his voice through imaginary conversations with animals and becomes a strong advocate for wildlife conservation.

            • I’m Here by Peter Reynolds (2011) – A boy with autism is isolated but fully aware of his surroundings. Sitting in a playground, he makes a paper airplane and launches it into flight, and the plane is returned by a girl who may become a new friend.

            • Skateboard Sonar by Eric Stevens (2010) – A graphic novel about a skateboard competition in which Matty, who is blind, wins the competition against several bullies, showing that “seeing isn’t everything.”

            • My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay by Cari Best (2015) – Zulay is a blind girl who is included in a regular education classroom. She and three of her best friends debate which field day events to take part in, and Zulay ends up running a race with the help of her friends.

            • Zoom by Robert Munsch (2003) – Lauretta needs a new wheelchair and chooses a 92-speed dirt-bike model and takes it home for a trial run despite her mother’s misgivings. Then the real adventures begin.

“Respectful Representations of Disability in Picture Books” by Ashley Pennell, Barbara Wollak, and David Koppenhaver in The Reading Teacher, January/February 2018 (Vol. 71, #4, p 411-419), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.1632/abstract; the authors can be reached at mcclainae@appstate.edu, bawollak@gmail.com, and koppenhaverd@appstate.edu. 

The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #719 of The Marshall Memo, an outstanding resource for educators

Ideas for Carving Out Time for Teacher Team Meetings

       In this article in The Learning Professional, Anne Jolly lays out an extensive menu of ways to give teams time to meet during and after the school day:

• Bank time:

-   Lengthen the regular school day and save the extra minutes to create larger blocks of time for team meetings.

-   Start school 30 minutes earlier Monday through Thursday and dismiss two hours early on Friday to create a weekly block of time for meetings.

-   Schedule regular early-dismissal or late-start days.

-   Shave minutes off lunch and bank the time for team meetings.

-   Total the hours teachers meet after school and don’t require teachers to report to school for that amount of time on regularly scheduled teacher workdays (when practical).

• Buy time:

-   Use paraprofessionals to release teachers during the school day for meetings.

-   Hire a team of rotating substitute teachers to release teachers for meetings.

-   Hire one or two permanent substitute teachers to regularly free teachers to meet.

-   Schedule a team of substitute teachers for a day a week to release teachers on a rotating basis.

-   Hire more teachers, clerks, and support staff to expand or add teacher meeting time.

• Use common time:

-   Schedule common planning time for same-grade/same-subject teachers to meet.

-   Organize special subjects into blocks to create common time for teams to meet.

-   Schedule planning periods immediately before or after lunch to allow for double-period meeting time.

-   Create double planning periods in the schedule.

• Use resource personnel for student learning activities:

-   Get administrators teaching some classes to free up teachers for meetings.

-   Allow teaching assistants and/or college interns to monitor classes.

-   Pair teachers so one teaches while the other meets with colleagues.

-   Plan off-site student field trips and use the time for meetings.

-   Ask parent volunteers to monitor classes for an hour while teams meet.

-   Have professionals from local colleges, businesses, government agencies, and community agencies lead student activities and use the time for teacher meetings.

• Free teachers from non-instructional requirements:

-   Use non-homeroom teachers to occasionally perform homeroom duties to give teachers a block of before-school and homeroom time.

-   Reassign school personnel to allow teachers to meet during pep rallies and assemblies.

-   Reassign non-instructional clerical and management tasks so teachers have more time to focus on instruction and collaboration.

• Add professional days to the school year:

-   Create multi-day summer learning institutes for in-depth PD.

-   Create a midyear break for students and use those days for teacher learning.

• Use existing time more effectively:

-   Put routine announcements in newsletters and/or e-mails to staff and reserve faculty meetings for professional learning,

-   Provide shorter, more-frequent meetings by spreading time from existing planning days across the calendar.

“Team Basics” by Anne Jolly in The Learning Professional, December 2017 (Vol. 38, #6, p.

63-68), drawn from Jolly’s book, Team to Teach: A Facilitator’s Guide to Professional

Learning Teams (National Staff Development Council, 2008), no e-link available

The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #719 of The Marshall Memo, an outstanding resource for educators.

Jon Saphier on High-Expertise Teaching & Cultural Proficiency

            “There are many outstanding professional teachers at work in our schools, including those serving our most economically disadvantaged children,” says PD guru Jon Saphier in this article in The Learning Professional. “But there are simply not enough of them… The fundamentals of high-expertise teaching have not been provided to or expected of large portions of our teacher corps.” What’s missing in too many cases, says Saphier, is a good understanding at the federal, state, district, and school level of the complexity of teaching and the kind of continuous professional learning needed to bring everyone up to par.

            Saphier imagines a situation where a teacher tells you about a successful classroom practice that’s different from the one you’ve been using. If you believe there’s generally a right and a wrong way to teach something (the effectiveness or “best practices” paradigm), your reaction may be that this colleague is trying to show you up or is patronizing you. But if you view teaching as a vast repertoire of practices that need to be matched to individual classroom situations, you’ll have a different reaction: Hmmm, that’s an interesting alternative. I might want to try it. “That view of professional knowledge not only accepts the legitimacy of different ways of doing things,” says Saphier, “but also encourages debate and professional problem solving.”

            A crucial first step for principals, then, is shifting colleagues from the “best practices” to the “repertoire and matching” way of thinking. Step two is orchestrating team meetings in which teachers are constantly talking about what’s working and what’s not, based on assessment evidence. Step three is getting people to see beyond their silos: “Fully professional teachers,” says Saphier, “are leaders who take the initiative to influence colleagues toward ideas they value and move the school toward practices they believe will strengthen everyone.” This involves giving up some classroom autonomy in service of the greater good.

            Cultural proficiency is a particularly important area for professional development, Saphier continues, given the increasing percentage of students from the Caribbean, Central and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. “Cultural improficiency in the classroom leaves students who are culturally and linguistically diverse feeling misunderstood and excluded,” he says. “Like all children in all schools, they need to feel known and valued to have their energy available for learning.” Among the proficiencies that need to be affirmed and developed in all teachers:

-   Curiosity and continuous learning about the cultures of all students;

-   Acknowledging and valuing cultures different from one’s own;

-   All students feeling valued and that they have a place in the classroom and school;

-   Curriculum, classroom artifacts, and instructional examples reflecting diverse cultures.

One problem is that discussions of culture are sometimes taken as an accusation of racism. “Racism is certainly a first cousin of cultural blindness and cultural improficiency,” says Saphier, “but it is profoundly different. Cultural improficiency arises from lack of interest, awareness, and respect for other cultures. It assumes the dominant white culture is just ‘normal.’ But racism comes from an ancient tradition of dominance and control,” he says. Some ways racism manifests itself in schools:

-   Views of intelligence as innate, fixed, and unevenly distributed by group;

-   Different educator behaviors toward students believed to be academically less able;

-   Tracking and disproportionate placement of students in special education;

-   Unequal application of discipline to some subgroups;

-   Microaggressions committed by unaware individuals;

-   Internalized racism in individuals belonging to marginalized groups;

-   Stereotype threat – the unconscious loss of performance edge based on racial cues.

“The quest for racial awareness and antiracist teaching should propel us to push back on negative stereotypes, correct distortions, and remedy omissions in our behavior and curriculum that stem from racism,” says Saphier. “Most powerfully, it should inspire us to ensure that if some students of color doubt themselves, it is our job to make them believe they can grow their ability and teach them how to act effectively from that belief. In the process, we will have to work hard to convince ourselves, since we are all, without exception, tainted by traces of racism and belief in the bell curve of ability.”

All this requires humble and skillful leadership by district officials, school principals, and teachers.

“The Equitable Classroom” by Jon Saphier in The Learning Professional, December 2017 (Vol. 38, #6, p. 28-31), e-link for members only http://bit.ly/2r55IHH; Saphier can be reached at saphier@rbteach.com.

The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #719 of The Marshall Memo, an outstanding resource for educators.