TNP and Illinois Culturally Responsive Teaching & Leading Standards

The Illinois State Board of Education recently promulgated The Illinois Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards, setting guidelines for educator professional development to encourage self-reflection, anti-bias training, and to provide educators with the tools required to support students of all identities equitably and with empathy. 

The Nora Project wholeheartedly supports these efforts. In our five years of working with schools, we’ve learned that when it comes to disability, many teachers never received anti-bias training themselves, much less basic disability rights or awareness education. It’s therefore no surprise that they often bring ableist beliefs and practices to their classrooms, even if well-intentioned. These beliefs can perpetuate the segregation and marginalization of students with disabilities, foster feelings of shame in students with disabilities instead of pride in their identities, and impart the idea to all students that disability is a problematic anomaly to overcome, rather than a natural form of diversity to embrace. 

We’re proud to offer professional development and curriculum that aligns to the language and spirit of The Illinois Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards. The standards identify key stakeholders in this work--educators, students, and families -- to all of whom we provide culturally responsive disability-related support. We recognize that to be provided with a set of standards to guide teaching and leading is only the first step in transforming the classroom environment to be one where all students feel a sense of belonging. The Nora Project’s programs and teacher tools provide the language and resources educators need to make these standards come to life in their schools. 

Educators

The Nora Project introduces teachers to the concept of ableism, often for the first time in their lives. After a recent Points-to-Ponder series, one participant remarked, "The concept of disability being a part of diversity and an expected part of the human experience was mind blowing to me. Possibly more than anything else I have ever learned about disability thus far in my 20 plus years of teaching and 9 plus years of parenting.” Of course we go further than simply talking about ableism, introducing teachers to new theoretical models of disability that prioritize access, emphasize strengths and possibilities, and value ability diversity. And we help educators build inclusive learning communities by giving them co-teaching strategies, a primer in universal design for learning, curriculum with built-in supports for all learners, and scripts and tools for creating safe spaces that encourage vulnerability, self-advocacy, and peer support.

Students

Our classroom curriculum provides multiple levels of instruction for students of all ages and abilities around personal identity, intersectionality and multiple-marginalization. Indeed, we position disability as the great intersector, impacting people of all walks of life and colliding with other movements for civil rights and justice in powerful ways. Our program explicitly validates all backgrounds and ways of being, emphasizing that "there is no such thing as normal." All of our programs teach empathy and friendship skills to encourage collaboration, problem-solving, and perspective taking in relationships. Utilizing student-led learning strategies, our lessons encourage student advocacy through upstanding (Primer), film making (Storyteller), and applying the engineering design process to impact social change (STEMpathy).

Family and Community Collaboration

The magic doesn’t stop inside the walls of the school building. As the Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards articulate, family outreach is critical to students’ social-emotional wellbeing and their feeling of belonging in their classrooms and communities broadly. That’s why our programs encourage family participation by not only providing robust parent communication and at-home resource materials, but by building opportunities for parental involvement into the curriculum itself. 

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Without the right training and tools, educators miss an opportunity to improve not only academic outcomes for students with disabilities, but outcomes central to their feelings of self-worth, belonging, and value. Currently partnering with more than 45 Illinois schools, The Nora Project hopes to help more state educators level up their approach to disability inclusion and meet the requirements of the Illinois Culturally Responsive Teaching & Leading Standards with respect to disability.