Implicit Bias: Special Education

Transcript for Podcast Lesson on Special Education with Melanie

Jenny Woo: Welcome to 52 Essential Conversations. I'm Jenny Woo and I have Melanie McLaughlin with me to talk about implicit bias and special education. Melanie is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker with over 20 years of experience in broadcast media production. As a former ward of the state of Massachusetts, her life's work has been as an advocate for social justice for economically disadvantaged, neglected, and abused children. Melanie is passionate about creating systemic change for children with disabilities, economically disadvantaged children, and minority children.

Jenny Woo: Welcome Melanie. What does implicit bias in special education mean to you?

Melanie McLaughlin: For me, it means when people judge children before they even get to know them based on their disability or based on their color or based on any number of things. For example, my daughter Gracie has an intellectual disability. She has Down syndrome and she's 10 years old now. And somebody might approach her in a classroom setting or in a school environment and ask her a question. And because they don't wait the maybe extra 60 seconds of time it might take her to answer the question, and they've moved on to the next thing or gone down the hallway, they may assume that she was not able to answer the question when in fact they were just not able to wait long enough. So that sort of implicit bias is assuming that because somebody has an intellectual or developmental disability for example, that they're not smart when in Grace's case, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Jenny Woo: Tell me more about these assumptions. What are some of the most common ones that you've seen dealt with personally or have heard?

Melanie McLaughlin: Well I have to say, before I had a child with a disability, I didn't have much experience with people with disabilities. We had a prenatal diagnosis and in fact, we struggled with the prenatal diagnosis because we just didn't know what it meant or what it would mean for us to have a child with a disability. Some things that I was really worried about was how she would look. I was concerned about what she would look like, which I think is so absurd now knowing that she also had a heart defect in utero and I was more concerned about her looks was something I'm not particularly proud of but that was an example of implicit bias that I had had because that's something that had been focused on my whole life especially when it came to people with disabilities. That's an example but also assumptions: I was told by a very well-meaning friend that if we continued the pregnancy it meant having a child who would not be able to read or travel or go to restaurants. And I was so devastated by that. And this was by a friend who was very worldly and experience, so I just assumed that person knew what they were talking about. After Gracie was born, I was exposed to this program called The Learning Program where it's based on Sue Buckley's research out of England. It's teaching children with Down Syndrome how to read. I was seeing all these videos of little ones with Down Syndrome Prekindergarten, children with Down Syndrome reading. And I was like Oh my God, they can read and see it helped me believe it. I worked really hard with Gracie very early on so that she could read, and she does. Also, I started communicating with Gracie really early and I could see from the time she was born she was tracking me. She was just doing a number of things that made me question all these things that I had known about her. I also read about the use of sign language because she might have a speech delay. We started to use sign language for four months. Every time I gave her a bottle, I would make the sign for milk. At six months we were running late one day for her feeding and she was in the stroller and she suddenly reached out her hand and made the sign of open and close because she didn't have the dexterity yet. But essentially, she made the sign for milk at 6-month-old. It was amazing. And I would never have thought. I never did teach my typical children sign language because I thought people were sort of full of it, like that doesn't really work and kids can't really do it that early. In fact, they can, and they do and she did. Sign language is a great resource for families of children with disabilities because. in a number of ways, because it shows people that they can understand you, they can communicate. Also, she was able to do something that typically developing kids weren't able to do. She still is able to do things typically developing kids weren't aren't able to do, because she does know sign language and she teaches her peers sign language. It's just a really good example of my own implicit bias. When I set to overcome that, I could see that it would fade away. Especially with the sign language, I saw that a lot, and playgroups in school when Gracie couldn't speak. She didn't really speak until she was 4, but she could use sign language. People were blown away by that when they would see it, and then they would start to question their own perspectives and their own beliefs. Seeing is believing.

Jenny Woo: Let's talk more about seeing is believing and really challenging the sense of normalcy. What is a normal thing? That also reminds me of a recent conversation I had around expectations and having the self-fulfilling way of if you expect yourself to do this or you expect your kid to not be able to talk, then maybe you're setting those expectations and that's how they might be. It's a detriment actually to that. Tell me more about overcoming that. What's the process of helping other people see to believe? And if they cannot see it what can we do to help them shift that mindset?

Melanie McLaughlin: I think regarding our expectations, that's so important for parents to have the highest expectations for our children because if we don't, then who will. And from a very early age for Gracie, I expected that she will go to college. I expect that she'll live independently in her own apartment and I expect that she'll drive. I expect that she'll get married. You know, I never allowed myself to expect that she would have children because it just seemed like it was the one thing that she probably would not be able to do. And then I stopped doing that to myself and to her probably about a year ago. I'm not going to say she can't do anything. I'm going to leave my mind open to the possibility of everything and who knows, maybe she can become a mother. I don't know I'm not her God, I'm not her higher power. I should expect everything of her and give her every opportunity which is what I do as a parent and as a mother. I think sometimes other parents who maybe have children who are more involved medically or maybe have children who have more behavior or a number of different issues. They may think, well that's different because her child is this way and my child is that way. I would really say, we still need to have high expectations for our children. To make sure that other people have high expectations for our children, and it's called presume competence. We talk a lot about that with educators in her IEP meetings. We always presume competence. For example, just because Gracie might not answer you back doesn't mean that she doesn't understand you. And we talk with her like we would with any of our other children and we presume competence. We don't automatically assume she can't do something, we presume competence. It's really important in educational settings to presume competence, especially for children who don't communicate verbally because we don't really know what's going on. The least dangerous assumption is what they call it. The least dangerous assumption is to presume competence because otherwise, you would be causing harm.

 Jenny Woo: Tell me more about how that works for schools and also the systems that you've worked in. As parents, if we could get through this barrier of overcoming our own implicit bias and open up our eyes for the wide range of things our children can do. But, how do we balance that and do that in a system, in a society where it's more stubborn to grasp what the status quo is.

Melanie McLaughlin: Right. The really difficult part I think for any parent or guardian of a child with a disability is working within the education system--the school system and systems as a whole. And part of that is because implicit bias is just embedded in systems as an institutional bias that exists everywhere. Also, how you get people to do what they need to do when you're not there to ensure that it's being done. It's sort of a tricky part. So one of the things for us is that we meet regularly with our team. We have consulted every two weeks with our team to make sure that we're communicating and trying to keep open communication. I say the three P's where I'm persistent, professional, and polite. But we always come back to the table. We've had a really hard time getting folks to teach Gracie at grade level because they keep reminding us that Grace is not on grade level. I keep reminding them that she has an intellectual disability and that she's not going to be at grade level but that doesn't preclude you from teaching her grade level. And that's the whole point, is that it's required you should be teaching her by grade level, and you need to make accommodations and modifications at grade level for her but in third grade giving her kindergarten level homework, she should be doing the same goal that the other kids are doing. But it just needs to be modified in a way that's accessible to her. If it's multiplication and she's that addition, then fine, take some of the five-plus five plus five plus five equals twenty, and then getting in that area. It's thinking outside the box and it's Universal Design for Learning. When you do Universal Design for Learning, you are benefiting all children and becoming a better teacher. That's the important piece that we see in the research is that typically developing students do better when they're educated with students with disabilities when there's meaningful inclusion because of the differentiation, because of the Universal Design because we all learn differently. A universal approach allows children to learn differently. But working within a system is really hard. One of the things that I think is really important as well is knowing the law, and so I'm very connected to the law. Some great websites like Wrights' Law is a great website for parents to understand what their rights are and what the law is and also for teachers. We talked a lot in the Ed school last year around moral responsibility and so teachers have a moral responsibility to teach our children. And I see too often in IEP meetings, teachers, specialists, speech therapists, parent paraprofessionals or occupational therapists what have you, who may say one thing to me on a personal level but don't feel comfortable speaking up at a meeting level. And I disagree with that 100%. People think that they'll lose their jobs and actually, you can't lose your job for that. No, it's against the law. You would have a clear lawsuit, and nobody wants to do that, I understand. But at the same time, as far as I'm concerned, it's a moral obligation. If you see that a child is not getting the education they deserve or the human rights or access to education that they deserve, then it's a moral responsibility to speak up and to help change that. I think all too often, people are afraid to do that. Then they don't know about the case like the one Dr. Hare Shared with us where there was a teacher who stood up and said this is not OK. This child of the disability needs this and that the child wasn't getting it. And that teacher ended up getting a $20 million-dollar settlement.

Melanie McLaughlin: Yes, for speaking up. Having that moral obligation. I think people talk a lot about parents needing their voices. But I think also teachers need their voice and educators need their voice because so much of the time resources are limited and time is limited, and all these other things are limited. But I think when you come to the table presuming competence and having an open mind, Then, you're willing to rework the formula and change the system.

Jenny Woo: It's really interesting that certain barriers that I can think of offhand for both teachers and parents in terms of talking about this are that it's either a taboo or maybe they feel incredibly incompetent not knowing where to start. Feeling that they don't know enough to even say something about it or versus if we reset how we look at this and use that moral responsibility as the foundational piece to prompt that you need to talk about this. This is what you can do and using that as an entryway I can see it as a way of disarming these insecurities and incompetence that adults could feel in terms of advocating for children with special needs.

Melanie McLaughlin: Right.

Jenny Woo: Give me some more examples or resources as far as I'm a parent, I have a child with special needs and I am looking to enter into say, Elementary school, or you can even provide examples for Middle School or other schools. What type of questions do I need to ask the school administrator? What Information do I need to look for from a school in order to know whether this is the right environment or support system for my child?

Melanie McLaughlin: The first thing is that I find that parents learn best from other parents. Parents of children with disabilities learn best from other parents of children with disabilities. I think seeking those people out in your community and finding out what the school environment is for them is really important. One way to do that, at least in Massachusetts is every community is required to have a Special Education Parent Advisory Council, a SEPAC. If your community doesn't have a SEPAC, you certainly can start one. It is mandated by law. It's an organization that helps its parents and also helps to advise the district on special education programming and information. We hold the co-chair of SEPAC in my town, and we hold monthly workshops. You can go to these workshops and learn everything from basic rights and special education to anxiety or how to work your IEP. Just a myriad of topics. If your district doesn't have one, you can go to another district that has one. The Federation for Children with Special Needs is an organization that was a parent training institute that was created out of some legislation in the '60s on that President Kennedy created as a result of having a sister with an intellectual disability. He created these parent training information centers around the country. They also have parent training so you can train and take an advocacy class yourself there or they have the mass SEPAC where you can find out where the SEPAC meetings are across the state and what they're doing in those meetings across the state. They also have a parent call-in line that you can call in anytime to ask questions. Ex: "does this seem right or is this OK?" Any of those things. There are also places that you can go to find educational advocates like SPAN: Special Education Advocacy Network, span.org. Also, another really great resource one that was this huge game changer for me and Gracie was Mass Families Organizing for Change. MFOFC.org. has a family leadership series, and so I took that and that was once a month. You would literally get an overnight stay at a hotel, you would attend a Friday session and a Saturday session, and everything was completely paid for. The only thing that they asked was that you go to all four sessions and then your sessions ultimately would culminate in a visit to the State House where you would meet your legislator and tell them what you thought about any particular legislation around disability and give you a voice and your story to the legislators so that they could know how these things affect people personally. Mass Families Organizing for Change was a real turning point for me and advocacy. That was at a time where Gracie was not being offered full-time preschool and it was clear that she had a significant developmental disability and intellectual disability. All of the research shows that early intensive education has better outcomes in the long run. It shows that for typically developing students and of course for kids with special needs and so why wouldn't she require a full-day fully inclusive preschool which she did and so we actually had to file for a hearing with our school district to petition for a full day inclusive preschool. We ended up settling which most of the cases do so we can't really talk about the terms of the settlement. But we can say that our school district created a full-on inclusive preschool and Gracie was the first cohort.

Melanie McLaughlin: Another way you can see what school districts are doing is for example, in Massachusetts, parents can look at the Bureau of Special Education Appeals which is the DSEA. They can look there and see what districts have actually had to go to court and how did they settle. You can also look online at the Department of Education and see profiles for your district. A lot of times people assume that because a district is a level one which is the highest performing district on the testing that it must mean that they're a great district, but it actually can be the opposite. I often find in those scenarios, people are rigid and they're really all about the testing. So they don't want anything but students that are going to test well, which is often what we find in charter schools as well. Too often you know our students are those students. 

Jenny Woo: Yeah. Wow. Amazing resources and great tips. I want to leave you with one last question, and this is a question that I've been hearing here on there from friends. From parents with multiple children whereas one or multiple children have a developmental or intellectual disability, but the other ones are typically developing. I know your older two are typically developing. How do you manage as a parent in terms of giving all your children what they need and then the tricky part of managing their sibling dynamics and expectations?

Melanie McLaughlin: One of the things that we know about siblings of children with disabilities is that while they do feel sometimes slighted in terms of attention parents have to give to the child with a disability versus typically developing children, they also test much more compassionately on personality tests. They develop a ton of compassion and they develop a lot of understanding. I have one child who's an advanced placement and one child who has an intellectual disability, and then I have one child who is super athletic. Another child is not. Each of our children is different as every parent knows. We try to accommodate them in as many ways as we can. But I also think open communication is really important. For example, one time I remember I was at a speech and my typically developing daughter was there and I was giving a speech to a roomful of people about disabilities. And I said at one point that our daughter with disability Grace was the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn't mean it in that way but clearly, my older daughter heard it that way. And later on, at night I was at home and I was washing the dishes and I looked over her as it occurred to me at that moment. And I went over, and I said you know you know when I said that grace is the best thing that ever happened to me that you know what I meant right? And she burst into tears. I felt terrible and I said "no you don't understand. Grace is the best thing that ever happened to me because she taught me to love everybody unconditionally. And you're the best thing that ever happened to me because you were my first. You taught me how to be a mom. And he's the best thing that ever happened to me because he's my boy." She understood better but I think having that open communication and having that conversation is really important. I also tell her about one time I'll never forget she was in third grade. My oldest, my typically developing child was a third-grader. She saw a little girl on the playground that had Down's syndrome and so she left her little group of third-grade friends who were very clicky at that point as well and went over to play this little girl that had Down's syndrome and her friends followed suit. They were all playing with this little girl that had Down syndrome and apparently my daughter, my oldest went back into the school and asked the principal in the administration who this little girl was and I told her she happened to be a little girl that was in a kindergarten separate class, segregated classroom. My oldest daughter asked if she could volunteer in the classroom. And she did. She would volunteer and help these children get ready to go outside for recess. She would help them put on their boots, zipping their coats and all these things, and she was in third grade when she did that. 

Jenny Woo: You know, I have the feeling that perhaps, perhaps someday your daughter might actually make a speech herself and say something like Gracie was the best thing that happened to her in her life. With that said, thank you so much Melanie for being here.

Melanie McLaughlin: Thank you, Jenny. I'm so glad you're doing this. Tell the parents out there find other parents to support you because we all have a village and we need it as well.