The Nora Project's Summer Training 'Reshaped My Thinking' Teachers Say
The Nora Project’s 2020 summer training ‘reshaped my thinking’ teachers say
“We will never see a program like The Nora Project that’s publicly-funded.”
— Dr. Jen Newton, Ohio University
“Any time you have to reflect, admit your mistakes, and be willing to learn, it’s heavy material.”
— Heather Pearl, Director of St. James Preschool, Verona, WI.
“The training has really reshaped my thinking, not only in the classroom, not only around The Nora Project in general, but as a person.”
— Danya Sundh, GenEd teacher at Rockland Elementary, Libertyville, IL
This article was written by Mike Putnam as a reflection on the impact of The Nora Project’s 2020 virtual Summer Training Camp. You can meet more of the educators who earned Nora Project certifications this summer on the Our Teachers page of our website. Our top performing schools at Training Camp can be found on the Our Schools page.
“There’s a gaping hole in our education regarding disability,” said Lauren Schrero, Executive Director of The Nora Project. “Teachers are my generation and we weren’t taught about disability—we learned about it by inference. When disabled kids are physically excluded and nobody talks about disability, kids without disabilities infer that disabled kids don’t belong.”
And the problem hasn’t gone away. “Inclusive classrooms are still extremely uncommon,” said Ms. Schrero.
Dr. Jen Newton, professor of special education teacher candidates at Ohio University and Nora Project collaborator, sees similar problems. “Special education teachers are really ableist,” she said. “They talk about ‘their babies.’ They’re over-protective and sometimes think of themselves as saviors. Who does that serve?” Dr. Newton asks.
And this is the problem. No matter how good The Nora Project’s curriculum is, if teachers bring biases into the classroom, kids will learn them.
Just like the rest of us, teachers don’t know what they don’t know. Unconscious and implicit biases pervade our society. “Ableism is just like every other kind of bias: race, class, gender, whatever--those people are less valuable,” Ms. Schrero said. So the summer training program “was designed to solve problems with biases that we saw in our teachers.”
“We make sure we have eyes and ears on our participating schools to make sure that the kids are getting out of this what we put into it,” said Katy Fattaleh, Senior Program Director and veteran curriculum designer at TNP. “It’s very important to us that the integrity of the curriculum is maintained.”
“It allows you to be real and raw”
But getting teachers to see their own biases, admit their own mistakes, and commit to doing better is not easy. To meet this challenge the staff creates a community. “This training is like a family,” said Ms. Fattaleh, “and we want the teachers to be part of it. And throughout the year they say that back to us, ‘This is a family.’ Teachers don’t get to feel like that very often, it’s a great bonding experience.”
This safe, family atmosphere helps teachers take a harder look at themselves than they might otherwise. One of the first steps is to provide some vocabulary — “ableism” and “allyship,” for example — to get everyone on the same page.
“My biggest takeaway was learning how to be an actual ally,” said Heather Pearl, who, as Director of St. James Preschool in Verona, WI, attended the training. “We assume we’re being an ally, but are we really? The training made me think about how often I was being ableist and making decisions without talking to the kids or their families about what really is best for them. That was eye opening for me.”
Danya Sundh, 4th grade GenEd teacher at Rockland Elementary school in Libertyville, IL, who also attended the training, agrees: “I’m used to this theme like ‘It’s okay! We’re all different, but we’re still alike.’ That’s fine, but there really are big differences! Those frank conversations really got my wheels turning—I know now that I have implicit biases and I have to work really hard to undo and to relearn.”
As these professionals make clear, the training challenges teachers to confront their own mindset around disability and to adopt what TNP calls the Ability Inclusion Mindset (AIM). This entails an array of elements:
Learning about the medical model our society uses to interpret disability (disabled people are ‘broken’ and need to be fixed) as opposed to the social model (what disables a person is a society that excludes them, that is not built for them).
Learning to pay attention to the child, not their diagnosis, and always “presuming competence” rather than inability.
Learning that all classrooms have kids with disabilities whether they’re diagnosed or not, whether they’re visible or not: ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety and other mental health conditions. These exist in every classroom.
Learning to normalize and destigmatize disability as a neutral and natural part of human diversity. Helping teachers understand that disability isn’t unfortunate or negative, that disabled people don’t wish they were “better.”
Learning that disability may feel big and scary, but it’s just information. You can talk to a preschooler about disability just like you can talk to them about race and gender. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s a part of life: we will all experience disability if we live long enough.
Let there be no mistake—this is not easy work. “We try to put things in the training that will challenge people’s experiences,” said Ms. Fattaleh, “and some things might make them uncomfortable.”
“It was a hopeful, yet raw experience,” said Ms. Sundh. “You take a hard look at yourself, and realize there’s a lot of work to be done. That can be a little scary. But it’s hopeful because the training is giving us lots of tools and resources to help us make change.”
“Any time you have to reflect, admit your mistakes, and be willing to learn, it’s heavy material,” said Ms. Pearl. “They did a great job of creating a community that allows you to be real and raw, you just don’t get that a lot.”
Centering Disabled Voices
One of the most novel elements of the training and one of the most popular with the teachers was the “Nora Talks” videos and Panel Discussion. These five presentations centered disabled people’s voices and wisdom enabling them to tell their own stories in their own words.
“It’s commendable,” said Dr. Newton, “that The Nora Project has created a space where disabled people can talk about their experience and teach teachers about what they’re missing. As an able-bodied, white, cisgender person, you have to make space for other voices. Lauren [Ms. Schrero] has done that—and that’s where she’s done something that’s really different.”
One of the presenters, Mitchell Robins was 17 years old, autistic, nonverbal, and used a letter board and iPad to communicate. “Teachers assumed,” he said, “I was developmentally delayed and treated me like a baby. They didn’t give me age appropriate work or challenge me to do my best. They told me terrible things about how stupid I was and that I couldn’t learn anything. If you couldn’t speak, would you like to be talked to like a toddler?”
Such presentations disrupt our stereotypes about disabled people and the variety of challenges they face. For example, most people believe mobility problems and wheelchair use is the most common form of disability. While this is true, it is nevertheless a small fraction of a wide spectrum. According to the CDC, only about 14% of people with disabilities have mobility-related disabilities.[1] Thus, representing that spectrum with presentations like Mr. Robins’ and others adds a critical component to the TNP training.
Reflecting on this presentation, Ms. Pearl said: “One thing I learned was that no two people with disabilities are the same, so you have to be reflective and intentional because the students are never going to be the same year to year.”
The Training Never Ends
“Most curriculums available give you a three-hour training session with a program consultant,” said Ms. Fattaleh, Senior Program Director at TNP, “but really they’re just a sales rep—definitely not a former teacher.”
Ms. Pearl agrees: “A lot of times teachers are handed a curriculum and told to go teach it.”
For TNP, the summer training is “a kickoff,” said Ms. Fattaleh. Each school has a program leader who is required to check in with TNP program directors throughout the entire school year. “It’s one of the things that we’re very dedicated to,” she said. “If they have questions they can pick up the phone anytime and they know who they’re talking to because they’ve already met over the summer. We talk to some teachers every week.”
“We definitely have what we need to get started,” Ms. Sundh said, “but the thing about TNP is that we’re never done. We check in with them; we continue to communicate. I think they actually want us to be asking more questions after we finish [the training] than when we started.”
“We know how change happens,” said Dr. Newton, “it requires sustained engagement and sustained reflection, and TNP has committed to providing space for that.” Ms. Sundh confirms:
“The training has really reshaped my thinking,” she says, “not only in the classroom, not only around The Nora Project, but as a person.”
That impact extends to students: Executive Director Schrero states, “We offer clear, rigorous curriculum with ongoing training that’s easy to implement and it actually shifts the way that students engage with one another. We have impact data to prove it.”
Yet the resources required to mount and sustain this kind of change are significant. “Our dedication to process makes growth complicated,” said Ms. Fattaleh.
“We will never see a program like TNP that’s publicly-funded,” Dr. Newton argues. “We won’t pay teachers to think and talk and reflect and engage in learning. TNP is providing all the things that teachers need and don’t get—and it benefits our students, it benefits their community, and it benefits kids without disabilities.”
[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, Sep. 16) Disability affects all of us. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html