Join this CollabCast where we talk with a former colleague from New Delhi, India, Kanwal Singh. Kanwal will be talking about the book she published in 2020, Hanging On: A Special Educator's Journey into Inclusive Education. This book even though written in the Indian context, is relevant across any context and as we talk today, you will see why. The book presents a compelling argument for transformation within the realm of special education. Bold and unabashedly forthright, the book confronts typically skirted topics, including the tensions between inclusive theory and practice, the stronghold of traditional 'expertise', the creeping in of commercial interests, and educator burnout.
Unknown Speaker 0:05
Welcome to CollabCast.
Unknown Speaker 0:19
Music.
Speaker 1 0:27
Hello, I'm Ruchika Chopra, host of our collabcast series. Our collabcast conversations are a resource from the urban collaborative supporting over 100 districts in 29 states across the country to build equitable and inclusive practices. We are here to listen to stories and personal experiences of people in our community, their successes, how they got there, and advice they might share with others who are facing some of the same challenges and opportunities they may have had. Each of our collab castspeakers connect us to the theme of the month that we're looking to explore with you all our urban collaborative members, these themes concern issues that you have told us you are grappling with and want to learn more about. Let me start today by introducing our guest. Today's guest is coming to us from New Delhi, India, Kanwal Singh. Kanwal is a dear friend, colleague and mentor. Kanwal has over 30 years of experience as an education consultant, school administrator and teacher. She led the Center for special education in an organization in New Delhi for years called ADDI, which is where I first met Kanwal. After her work at ADDI she played a pivotal role in establishing Vishwa vidyala, an inclusive school in Gurgaon, Haryana. Since 2014 kavel has operated as an independent consultant guiding organizations towards inclusive practices. She is a member of the consultancy team at the enabling Education Network enact UK, a renowned Information Network and consultancy service provider dedicated to promoting inclusive and enabling education, particularly within resource poor context, covers commitment to inclusive education coupled with extensive first hand experience navigating philosophical shifts and a knack for posing thought provoking questions alongside a sharp wit and a wicked sense of humor. Culminated in her book, hanging on a special educators journey into inclusive education, published in 2020 today, we will be talking with cover about this book, which, even though written in the Indian context, in my opinion, is relevant across any context. And as we talk today, you will see why the book presents a compelling argument for transformation within the realm of special education, bold and unabashedly forthright, the book confronts typically skirted topics, including the tensions between inclusive Theory and Practice, the stronghold of traditional in quotes expertise, the creeping in of commercial interests and educated burnout. Hi Kanwal, thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2 3:04
Hi Ruchika, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 3:07
I know I shared a brief introduction about your work. As you say hi to our listeners. Can you please share some more about your personal journey as an educator and the reason you decided to write this book, and what does Harry Potter got to do with this book, can you tell us more?
Speaker 2 3:21
Okay, sure, sure, I stepped into the special education realm way back in 1988 you can say I'm a special education veteran, or maybe I'm a special education dinosaur, right? So it's been an exciting 36 years, very dynamic, action packed full of twists and turns and ups and downs, and because during this period, during these 30 especially the first 30 years, the field underwent several changes, several shifts in philosophy as well as educational setting. So from special we went to integration. From integration, we went on to inclusion. So that was a quick shift, actually, because each decade, it was a new philosophy and it was a new kind of setting. So I joined as a special educator. I joined a very dedicated and inspiring team of professionals, and I was really happy, because at the start of every semester, we would, you know, diligently do our assessments. Using that time, we used to call them normal, check normal milestones. I think now we call them typical milestones, or whatever, terminology has changed. And we used to do the planning. We used to make IEPs, the we used to implement the IPs. We used to do term end assessments, and it was just, I used to feel happy being part of this lovely team. We shared a wonderful bond with the students and the parents loved us. They were happy. Because their children were in safe hands. They were getting all the therapy and all the education in a safe and happy environment. I felt special because I felt, you know, traveling on the road less traveled, yeah, making a difference and protecting my students from this very cruel and very insensitive world. But however, this euphoria didn't last very long. It was short lived because there was this, some, you know, this nagging feeling, something, just this feeling that something is wrong somewhere. You know, these six hours of special school were like six hours of escaping from reality. It was like entering lala land, a make believe world where everything was like sunshine and rainbows and all the problem was that not only were the students isolated, they were totally cut off from the rest of the world, but they were also over protected, and, according to me, over programmed. They were leading a very sheltered life, checklisted and timetable life, and not only at school, also at home, because we used to hand them a timetable for home, also, we used to create these timetables so parents that aligned with their daily schedules, you know, yeah, our intention was that, you know, they won't have to take out special time or separate time to work with the child. So during cooking, and we used to kind of incorporate all the different activities during cooking. You can teach your child about vegetables and shapes and names and colors, during eating, during bathing, during Yeah, all the time. So even the the time at home was like, you know, leading a timetable. You know, you know, that kind of her life. So I recall one of the parents when I handed over this timetable to them. This was about 35 years ago. Maybe the parent asked me, you know, is there a time should you where I can hug and kiss my child? Oh,
Speaker 1 7:05
my goodness, yeah, the normal experiences of being with a child, can I can can you program that in so
Speaker 2 7:14
obviously we were going wrong somewhere, right? And the special school facility, ah, extended only until the age of 18. Once the child became an adult, it was not all the children were taken the vocational section, which was the 18 plus section, and some of the children had to go home. And I felt miserable telling some of them that, Okay, that's it. Pack your bags and now you go home and spend the rest of your life at home, because there's no other option for you. So that again, you know those questions that we're not we have to change, we have to change the way we're doing things. Think long term and all that. Right, right? In around 1998 that's about after spending 10 years in the special school, the special education sector came to this significant realization, students with disabilities are isolated. They need to connect with the real world, with the broader society. And this prompted a series of reforms and shifts, and we started with the implementation of the integrated education initiatives. And this was also the time when I was appointed as the head or the program manager of the special school. So I was actively involved in this shift. And the task was to transfer students from special schools to mainstream schools, and not all the students qualified for integration, students who were ready, students who had the potential, they were identified and packed off to mainstream schools. And most importantly, in integrated education, no external support was anticipated from the mainstream schools during this transition and the responsibility for adaptation and success, it rested solely with the students and their families, and it was up to the students to swim or to sink. And special educators, including me and the entire team, we had our reservations, and we shared our concerns, we expressed our reservations about this approach, and soon our concerns were sort of validated, because it became evident very quick, quickly, that putting the onus on students to cope and adjust was not only impractical, it was unrealistic. Parents struggled, students struggled, teachers struggled, and while some of them were able to adapt, many students ultimately withdrew from mainstream schools and then they returned to special education settings through including our school really tough times right then came the next shift from. Integration to inclusion. And during this period, I was actively engaged in the special education training course, both as a lecturer and also part of the committee that was kind of adapting the course content to make it more inclusive as usual. I had so many questions, and I began to question, not the concept of inclusive education, but its approach, yeah, and the methodology. And there was noticeable dissonance. I mean, there was so many gaps between theory and practice. And although we incorporated the Inclusive Education theory in the course, curriculum, our practical tools and strategies, they largely mirrored those of those that were used in traditional special education, right, right? So we introduced new concepts. We introduced new vocabulary, likes rights and diversity, participation, collaboration, but our practices did not, you know, consistently reflect those principles. On one hand, we emphasize inclusion and celebration of diversity. On the other hand, we continue to rely on developmental milestones, checklists, concepts like school readiness, bridging the gap. All these are reminiscent of the medical deficit model, right? Right? To make matters worse, I was the lecturer and the instructor for the assessment module. So I was the one teaching the students about inclusion, but also how to do formal and informal assessments, typical, those typical, normal milestones, right? And of course, then after a year or two, I said, I kind of said, I cannot do it any longer, please. Yeah, let me go,
Speaker 1 11:48
yeah, hand this off to someone else. Yeah,
Speaker 2 11:52
yeah, give it to somebody else. I'm not comfortable to it, so,
Speaker 1 11:56
right? I know I was just going to make a connection here, that it's interesting, right? And you and I have talked about this before, some of those same things that you share, as far as the changes that were happening in the Indian context, about how students with disabilities were receiving an education was almost parallel happening right here. Yeah, you know. And again, there are so many concepts and theories that go across cultures and countries, but it's interesting to see how some of those same hardships was happening here at the same time as it was happening with you and in India itself at that time. Yeah,
Speaker 2 12:35
yeah. In fact, that's the feedback I got. It's like people from all over the world. I mean, US, UK, Canada, Korea, Philippines, Australia. Everybody said it's like my journey, that you're talking about it, it's like the same thing happened to us, or is happening here,
Speaker 1 12:54
right? And, and it's and it's sad, but there is some of those same things are still happening. So it's not even that we've gone to a point of taking these learnings and making those shifts and staying with those shifts, but we still haven't quite figured out how to do this, even though we know what needs to be done, like you said, the bad theory, but on how to do it in practice, we still see that that struggle with us and between ourselves, as well as with others that we work with. So what was for you cover, what were some of those experiences that you had that helped create a shift in your own mind, or what were some of those things that you saw others do that that helped you with that process? So
Speaker 2 13:38
like I was sharing all these shifts caused a lot of confusion, a lot of questions, and there were no answers. I mean, we didn't get any answers. And somewhere we had to just, you're part of an organization, you're part of a community, so you have to go along, right? So what I observed was that in most cases, the educators didn't have a problem with the idea of inclusive education. You know, everybody was fine with the vision that. I mean, it sounded very nice, all children studying together and learning together, that sense of belonging, respect for differences and collective growth. I mean, it's all sounds very nice, very attractive. I mean, and
Speaker 1 14:27
something that it's like a right, like you, we all go into education thinking that, that that is true, right, like we, we don't. I don't think that anybody goes into education saying that I want to teach only this group of people. We all believe that all children learn, and all children can can do things, but so
Speaker 2 14:46
so the challenge arises when you're expected to do something about it. I mean, not just discuss, but actually put it in action mode when you are supposed to put the child. Story into action, right? So the shift can be overwhelming, and it's quite understandable why change is tough. Status quo is always more convenient, and any kind of change, minute change in our personal life also is really tough, because your comfort table. You, you, you have that comfort with familiar practices. You've been doing it always so educators have been trained in a specific area. They've got established roles and responsibilities, and they comfortable. They have their set routines, right? Right? Educators, they are accustomed to teaching their class in a traditional way, and it's a homogeneous class, and they feel confident in their abilities to teach all the students. They have the control and they have the power. And the prospect of including students with disabilities requires a major shift. It requires that they step out of their comfort zone, they enter uncharted territories, and they have to relinquish their power, and they have to relinquish their control. They have to do a lot of unlearning and relearning. They have to modify their techniques. They have to start from the beginning, I suppose, yeah. So that is a tough thing. So that is my that is the hesitation and this reluctance to actually make a shift, right? Yeah. And
Speaker 1 16:31
I just want to connect this to your book. In the book, this is in chapter two, and you call it Chamber of confusions. The book is written just for everybody who's listening, the book is extremely funny and and the way how you cover are able to take all of these things that you just said, which is extremely like intense and serious and things that have happened in all of our educators journeys in from special education to inclusive education. You say it with such humor, and you in the you have illustrations in the book that show this confusion and so forth. So I was wondering, do you want to read excerpt from that chapter to tie it? And also, I just want you to remember that I do want to at some point, you need to tell me why. What's the JK Rowling and Harry Potter piece in this? I'll
Speaker 2 17:16
do that. Yeah. Thank you. The chapter I choose is the truth ally could the learning is that status quo is convenient for us, right? It's easier. So I'll just read out the Para. Change is hard. It means entering an uncharted territory. Change is demanding. It requires a modified set of values, skills and behaviors. The incentive to change is not strong enough. It's not attractive enough. It's undoubtedly easier to gravitate towards traditional solutions, to keep doing what we've always been doing. So we take refuge by taking the easy way out. You know, we Shirley, Shirley, and we avoid change. We continue in our world of assessments and milestones and IEPs, right? And we keep absolutely
Speaker 1 18:09
doing that. And I just want to point out that the Chamber of confusions leads you to the truth. Ali,
Speaker 2 18:15
yeah, right. So the Harry Potter connection, the fact that I'm a Harry Potter fan, is pretty evident throughout the book, and you'll see many cartoons inspired by the Harry Potter series. And there are references to the Harry Potter like the terminology the magic spells. In fact, the names of some of the chapters have been inspired by Harry Potter. So like you said, chapter two is the chamber of confusions, then I have lala land and the comfort cocoons, and then the learnings. Is called The Truth alley, besides providing hours and hours of entertainment, right? This reporter series has taught me a lot that is okay to be different. It's okay to do things differently, and it's okay to be whimsical, and it's okay to use humor even during the darkest of times. So for me, special education, the Inclusive Education scenario, is a dark time, but I decided to use humor like in the Harry Potter series,
Speaker 1 19:19
and again, that humor comes through for people who are listening. The humor will come through when you read, when you read the book. I guess some of the things that you're talking about Kabul are things that just thinking about it across context, right? Our journeys, that that many of us across the world have gone through. And you talked about reasons why some of that continues to happen. And I'm wondering about, are those the reasons you think why we are still struggling as community? We are still struggling to answer this question that we all still keep getting about, why students with disabilities should be educated in inclusive classrooms. So just one. About, do you think that that's the reason why some of this connection? Is there, or are there other reasons for why we get that question?
Speaker 2 20:06
Yeah, yeah. So, so, of course, like I said, status quo is easier. Change is tough. Which is one of the reasons, one of the major reasons. Another reason is inclusive. Education also means giving up your primary identity of that of being an expert or being a specialist. So you have in inclusion you you give up that, right? And you are expected to give up the identity and become a member of a team, right? You're no longer the expert. You're part of a team. You're supposed to work collaboratively. You're not supposed to give the solution. You were supposed to work out the solutions with others, including students, their parents. So that identity issue is also there. People don't want to give that up. I mean, it's a big big ask, like you've studied all this, you've practiced all this, now you give that all up, give it all up, and you become part of a team. So it is a big ask, and I understand why it happens. Another reason is, of course, they have concerns about this hesitation because they're concerned about the effectiveness of inclusive education. It's a new thing. There are concerns whether we will be able to meet the needs of students with disabilities. For that, concern about whether the quality of education would be compromised for students, for the other students, when
Speaker 1 21:37
you say new thing, it's not, I mean, it's not necessarily a new concept, and we've seen outcomes that it does not have a negative impact. In fact, it has a positive impact on students without disabilities. So can you speak a little bit more about when you're talking about this? So
Speaker 2 21:54
let me give you my own example when I started on the inclusive education path. I mean, knew, I knew everything in theory was supposed to lead, you know, the way, but I didn't do it willingly. I mean, I wasn't happy about it. I had my concerns and I had my questions, and I started walking on the inclusion I had heard that, you know, there are success stories, and there is social inclusion, and there is there are benefits and all. But I had my reservations right, even then, right, and I didn't shift my parts to inclusion willingly, like voluntarily. I did it because that's where the organization was heading. I didn't have a choice, and I found myself outside my comfort zone, and I was reluctant to hand over my students to the mainstream teachers, but with a lot of, like I said, reluctance and reservations, we started in the inclusive direction, but once We committed to this path, and once we began implementing changes and actually started fostering genuine student and family participation, we actually started involving them in decision making, and we actually started working as a team, real Team. That was the time that I realized that, yeah, this is the path to go. I mean, the outcomes, you know, when we put the inclusive principles into practice, that was the time when the outcomes exceeded our expectations, like it was a real eye opener, right? And the belief that inclusion is the path, if that's the way to go, that is the time when actually started believing that, yes, this is the part, right till you start doing it, it's difficult to believe. I mean, just right, eating about the success stories and, you know, hearing, okay, this is, there was this research, and this was done, and you still have all those reservations, you know, and also our mindset, that's the the big one, with that belief in segregated Session Settings that is so deeply ingrained that disability means special, disability separate, you know, that also plays a crucial role, yeah, right, and it takes time to actually bring about a shift in the mindset. Yeah, you would. You were
Speaker 1 24:27
talking about in the beginning, you talked about that, how when you were part of that team, initially the joy and the happiness and feeling special, feeling yourself as special, right? We're not even talking about the kids that you were doing some work. And then I know that. I remember when I started in this field, too, my parents saying that you're doing good work and good and putting in quote,
Speaker 2 24:47
noble profession. Noble profession, right,
Speaker 1 24:51
right? So you get this feeling of when you're doing that, you get this feeling that, oh, it's almost like self fulfilling, and it keeps you going. And. Now, when you have to be a part of a team, and now you're doing all of this, and you're shifting and making those changes in your practice, some of that discomfort that you're talking about, that you're feeling, makes you stop feeling that special, again, putting it in quotes, stops making you feel that way. Yeah, and it's a big in some places, a shift in how you think and how you feel, which is where you're saying it becomes uncomfortable. But when you start doing the practices, when you start actually implementing it, that's when you start really seeing those positive outcomes that people talk about, which you're not quite agreeing with, until you actually doing it.
Speaker 2 25:40
Yeah, I read so I have a cartoon. I have a cartoon in the book. It's supposed to be me, where I'm standing in front of the mirror and saying, Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the noblest of them, all right, right, right? Because it gives you that sense of power and that feeling good, feel good factor and all. But like you said, after a while, you can fool the others, you can fool parents and other teachers and the community, but you can't fool yourself, and you can't even look at yourself in the mirror. You become so uncomfortable
Speaker 1 26:13
because you're not really seeing the outcomes that you're seeing for every other child when you're doing that. You're not seeing that, like you were talking about in the special school, you were seeing it was not reality. So you're not seeing those outcomes that you would see for other children, because reality was not being an experience that the children were going were undergoing, and you yourself were not having a real experience as an educator. And we
Speaker 2 26:37
were, we were so far away from reality. I mean, it's these in, like I told you, these experiences of collaboration, joint decision making, parties, real participation, not token participation. I mean, these experiences kind of pointed out the stark difference between our goals and priorities and those of families and students, right? I mean, there was so much difference in our definition of success and their definition of success, some of these learning, some of these experiences, also highlighted how limited our perspective was. Yeah, while viewing students through the disability lens, how we unintentionally lower expectations, how we deprive students of opportunities to tackle challenges, and how we hinder their abilities to develop problem solving skills, because we always we just like again. There was this cartoon where we just swoop in, and even before they can ask or say anything, we just solve the problem for them, right? Whether it's an adapted paper or a modification or anything. So it's these experiences, and especially at Vishwas, the inclusive setup. So that's where, like I said, it was such a eye opener, like, what are we doing?
Speaker 1 28:00
So at the end of the book, you talk about some of these takeaways, right? You talk about how being in that chamber of confusions led you to the truth, Ali, to the point of some takeaways that you got from there. And some of the some of these things that you're sharing are some of those takeaways. There was one that you shared about. It was the third takeaway where you where you talk about we need to think around the rebuilding of teaching, learning framework to practice what we preach. Can you speak a little bit more about that? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 28:31
So one of the problems, why inclusive education is we facing so many challenges, is because we're trying to fit in inclusion in the current education system or the setting, or whatever the framework is. So we're trying to just make some modifications, and, you know, make a little change here, do a bit of training, do something here and there, and think that inclusion will happen. But no, the entire framework, according to me, needs to be rebuilt, not modified, but rebuilt. And so the third one that you're talking about, the third takeaway was that we need to rebuild our teaching and learning framework in order to practice what we preach, and we cannot use the existing framework will not allow us to practice inclusive education, right? I'll just to maybe read a better yeah, some page, what? Page? 100 so many of us in the special education community want to practice a life or mean of meaningfulness, and yet we are struggling, as mentioned in the earlier sections, much of the work and teaching we do is creating newer, maybe kind of forms of exclusion, be it assessments, our special tags, our terminology, our special curriculum, our. IEPs, or even our sensitization campaigns, our efforts to organize support such as classroom aids, peer buddies, adaptations, accommodations and modifications, sometimes lower expectations, which in turn, lower self esteem of students. Our presence and our actions are acting as barriers unintentionally, we're ultimately promoting exclusionary practices. Our Teaching Learning Framework is inclusive by intention, but it's exclusive by design. So what do we do in order to practice what we preach? Now, according to me, we today, we have an actual advantage in the mainstream schools, the separate sections and the sessions give us the freedom and control to do what we do and how we do it. We can rebuild our practices, and we can retain practices that are inclusive and are working well, and we can discard those, the ones that are not working. We have the opportunity to turn special education on its head. And here are some of the examples of inclusive practices I have worked on in the last decade. So the first thing is assessments. It basically talks about how we can make changes in assessments, how we can make changes in the curriculum, how we can make changes in the plans and the goals, the teaching methodology and the support strategies that we use,
Speaker 1 31:38
right? And I think what you say around that, that we have to turn it on its head, right, that that's extremely important because, like you say it in all of those areas, assessments, the way we write, goals, the way we provide instruction, or we think we're providing instruction in an inclusive manner. Many times like you say about the kind of forms of exclusion, right, that we we say we are doing inclusive practices, but in some sense, we create these practices that actually are under the category of inclusion, but actually are exclusionary. So we all need to re reflect and think about our practices actually leading to and that might require us to and in like you're saying, Not might, but will, require us to change our teaching and learning framework, so that we we change it, so that we can think about all of the learners that we have in in front of us, in our schools and in our school buildings. You have a lot in this book about things that, as an educator, that you can learn from and take as information that can help you in continuing your journey as any from special education to inclusive education. But is there one piece of advice that you want to share with educators who might be listening that you've always wanted to share and have an opportunity to do so?
Speaker 2 32:57
So we are living in complicated times, and the world is going undergoing like profound changes. Everybody knows that, and all of us are struggling, whether it's teachers or any other profession. And there's so much to worry about, you know, so much to be concerned about, mental health and rise in chronic health conditions and climate change and geopolitical tensions. And you know that fear of another pandemic, all these things, and there are so many new forms in play, like artificial intelligence and increase in digitalization and all these things and education, whether it's special education or inclusive education or any kind of education is not immune to these changes. So we as a community, we've worked very hard to change others, but we ourselves seem to have been kind of frozen in time, and we need to prepare ourselves to address these challenges and these opportunities that are being presented by the modern day world, yeah, and we can no longer continue doing what we've been doing for years, just because that's how it's always been done, just because that's what we were taught in our training courses, and that's all we know, and just because, you know, we don't have the training or the resources, so we just keep doing what we're doing. So my advice to all educators, again, special, regular, mainstream, whatever is that, don't stop learning, because life doesn't stop teaching you, right? So don't stop learning because light never stops. Teaching and inclusion is a process of discovery. It's always evolving, and there's so much to learn as you go on the path. So commit to continuous learning, remain receptive to new ideas methods and try. Practices and read and listen to podcasts, especially this one, discuss, don't be afraid to question and express yourself like we tell the students, express yourselves in whatever way you're comfortable. So express yourself through art, through drama, through different ways, whatever cartoons, whatever, invest time in yourself, you know, stay updated on new knowledge or whatever innovations. Keep learning so that you can make your teaching more inclusive and more relevant. And don't focus on doing inclusion in class. Focus on becoming inclusive yourself. And once you start doing that, you'll realize that it also impacts you as a person in your personal life, make the world a better place. That's it. That's my advice. Okay,
Speaker 1 36:00
that's your advice. That's quite the advice. And just thinking about that noble thing, and just for listeners, that was that old piece around the noble piece was not necessarily something that cover or definitely, I know for myself that we agree with, but it's just something that people, you hear people talking about it. Thank you, Kabul, thank you for joining us today, sharing your journey as an educator and your learnings, we know that our listeners will learn from this reflect on their own journeys and support educators that they work with to get out of the chamber of confusions through the truth alley and put into practice their collective takeaways so that all our students have experiences and opportunities in School that help them learn and grow. We look forward to hearing from all of you, our listeners, on how covers experiences connected with you, how you might consider sharing this with your own communities, and the changes you may consider cover before we let you go. Can you please share with listeners how they might get a hand on the book and connect with you?
Speaker 2 36:59
The book is available on Amazon India only if you're in the US. I have a few copies over there. If you're interested, just write to me. My email is cover sing.in@gmail.com
Unknown Speaker 37:16
and I'll organize a copy for
Speaker 1 37:18
you, yeah and yeah, and we'll share the information of covers information as well as you can always, as usual, write to us at Urban collaborative, and we will share the information with cover so that she can get that to you. As always, we will have zoom meetings and access to connected resources on our website, urban collaborative.org Please reach out with topics and themes you would like to help us share some additional resources with with you on and as always, we thank Keith Jones of Krip Hop for providing the music For the collab cast. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai