Tag Archives: inclusion

In Response: Jewish Day Schools’ Dirty Little Secret

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Written by Meredith Englander Polsky
Director of Training and Advocacy, Matan 

In her article, “Jewish Day Schools’ Dirty Little Secret” (The Jewish Daily Forward, February 8, 2013), Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi is spot on in almost every regard. Among the many unfortunate truths she describes, in fact, the only faulty one is that this is some kind of well-protected secret. In fact, there is no secret in the fact that Jewish Day Schools, by and large, are not an option for children with special needs.

Just this morning, at my daughter’s Jewish mainstream (non-special education) nursery school, I was talking to a mom about nothing in particular, when our local Jewish Day School came up in conversation. “Oh,” she said. “I love that school. I always thought my kids would go there. But I know they can’t because of their issues.” Very matter of fact. These are her first children, they are 4, she is not a professional in the Jewish communal world, and she has not been through the system yet. But she knows. They can’t go there. I refrained from asking what she loves about a school where her children are not welcome.

I, on the other hand, am a professional in the Jewish communal world. Almost thirteen years ago, long before I had children of my own, I started a Jewish non-profit organization because I noticed that there was a huge segment of children who did not have access to a meaningful, appropriate Jewish education. Throughout the past thirteen years, I have lived, breathed and slept Jewish Special Education (which, ironically, isn’t even really a field). So it’s no surprise that the issues Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi raises in her article resonated with me. The very basis of her article is what I discuss, work on, write about, think about every single day. But something about her article made it impossible for me to do anything else until I could get my thoughts on paper. Something about her article made me certain of things that I have been contemplating for a while now.

It’s February, and as Jennifer noted, we are in the midst of Jewish Disabilities Awareness Month. For those of us in the field of Jewish Special Needs, this is our hectic time of year – like tax season for accountants. We’re busier than usual raising awareness, promoting programs, celebrating the Jewish institutions that are doing something to recognize the month, and getting out whatever message is on the agenda of our particular organization.

But here’s the thing. Anyone paying attention to the op-ed’s, blog posts and social media threads of Jewish Disabilities Awareness Month knows that the same names pop up over and over and over again. There are dozens of individuals doing the work of tens of thousands of people. To Jennifer’s point, Judaism teaches that every Jew is created in God’s image. This teaching is so well-known, particularly among Jewish educators, that it’s almost become colloquial. So why does anyone tolerate the exclusion of up to 200,000 Jewish school-aged children with disabilities and special learning needs? Why isn’t there more outrage? Why can a parent, in casual conversation in the halls of a Jewish nursery school, be so matter of fact about the fate of her children’s Jewish education?

Dozens of people who live, breathe and sleep “Jewish Special Needs” cannot continue to be the only ones at the center of this conversation. Yes, they (we) can use our collective knowledge base and provide information, resources, tools, guidance, support and anything else that would benefit a particular school or community. It’s our job and our passion and, on the whole, we’re very good at what we do. But we need equal partners. We need parents of children who do not have special needs to step up and say that they won’t accept a Jewish community that discriminates based on ability. We need funders to take initiative before their grandchild, son, daughter, nephew is diagnosed with Autism or Dyslexia or Attention Deficit Disorder or mental health issues. We need Jewish graduate schools to recognize that if they don’t provide a track – or even a single class! – on special needs, we can’t possibly expect our future leaders to be prepared to lead a congregation or a school of diverse learners.

If it ever was a secret that Jewish education excludes based on special need, let’s assume that the cat’s out of the bag. If as a community we have invested any energy in keeping that secret, let’s now turn the tables and invest that energy instead in changing attitudes, bringing more voices into the conversation and challenging Jewish educators to be in the presence of the diversity of God’s creations when they teach that everyone is created in God’s image.

In With the In Crowd

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This article was originally published in Tablet Magazine, August, 2010 – By following the link to the actual article, you will also find many worthwhile comments.

As I write this, kids are going back to school almost everywhere but in New York City. The first day of school isn’t until September 8 here, and thanks to Rosh Hashanah, our second day isn’t until September 13. I think our last day of school this year will be around Tisha B’Av.

Something else is different for my kids this year: They’ll both be in inclusion classes. “Inclusion” is when students with special educational needs spend all or most of their class time with non-disabled students. My kids’ public school is starting “collaborative team teaching” classes for the first time—that’s when a special-education teacher and a general-education teacher work together with one class that combines both populations.

Maxie is one of the kids with special needs. She has motor, speech, and other challenges. Josie, on the other hand, could read young-adult novels in second grade and scores sky-high in standard measures of achievement. I think they’re both brilliant (and beautiful and hilarious, and here, let me show you our vacation slides), but they learn in very different ways. And I think this model of education is going to work beautifully for both of them.

There’s been a seismic shift in the way public schools approach kids with special needs in New York City. In the past, most were shunted off to self-contained special-ed classes. Kids with less severe learning issues were helped using a “pull out, push in” model, in which a learning specialist takes the kid out of class for a while or shadows them in the classroom, quietly helping. This method, of course, means that a kid misses out on a lot of classroom life. Maxie had pull-out-push-in assistance last year. I predict that collaborative team teaching will help her feel a greater sense of community.

Private schools have historically been a lot less interested in kids with special needs. Many still counsel out kids who need extra help or tell parents to pay for specialists’ services on their own, and if the kid can’t keep up, too bad. Sadly, this has also described Jewish day schools and synagogue Hebrew schools.

I recently chatted with Dori Frumin Kirshner, the executive director of Matan (the name means “gift”), an organization that supports Jewish communities in educating children with special learning needs.

“The Orthodox have always taken on responsibility for educating all Jews,” she told me. “But Conservative, Reform, unaffiliated, and non-denominational institutions—well, the going attitude was, ‘Sorry, we can’t handle that. Bye. It’s not you; it’s us.’ The latent message, of course, was, ‘It’s you.’ ”

Things are slowly changing. More Jewish organizations are calling Matan for help, and a number of Jewish day schools are trying to be more embracing of kids with learning differences. “There’s a big difference from 10 years ago,” Kirshner said. “But it still takes time, attitude change, and advocacy. Clergy, early-childhood, and educational directors, the president of the shul, they need to step up more and take the full responsibility off parents’ shoulders. This is everyone’s bag. It’s a health and human services issue, an educational issue, and a cultural issue—because there are so many kids out there with no entry points to the beauty of Jewish culture.”

Inclusion, Kirshner said, was a policy equal in importance to the civil rights movement. “You don’t have to be from the South or African-American to feel in your kishkes that it’s wrong to leave children separate,” she said. “I feel strongly—just as my mom, a white Jew who grew up in Shreveport and marched and got arrested for civil rights felt—this is wrong. It’s wrong to tell people there’s no room for them at the Jewish communal table. They have to start adding other chairs.”

Of course, inclusion—in both secular and Jewish settings—isn’t easy. It takes teachers who recognize different learning styles and plan for them. It calls for professional development for teachers—general and special educators alike—to help work out how best to foster cooperative learning and peer tutoring. It requires smaller class sizes.

And most of all, it needs a schoolwide commitment to true diversity and community. “There’s a social benefit to discovering that everyone has strengths,” said my kids’ principal. “It’s important to be able to work with different kinds of people, to care for people who are different from you, and to see school—and life—as more than just a rat race and a competition. We had a kid with autism in one class who had an incredible instinct for spelling and grammar. He was the best grammarian in the class, and kids really gravitated to him for that and then found other commonalities.”

My kids’ school has a leg up in introducing inclusion classes because it already has mixed-age classrooms. Teachers are accustomed to multilevel instructional approaches and individualized education. Maxie will be in a 1st-2nd grade inclusion class, and Josie will be in a 4th-5th grade inclusion class. I hope collaborative team teaching will help Maxie with her special needs and help Josie with hers (namely impatience, hyper-competitiveness, bossiness).

My mom, a professor of Jewish education, laughs at how many parents, when considering Jewish day schools for their kids, only want to know what high schools or colleges the graduates get into. (Of course, this is true at non-Jewish schools too.) It can be a lot harder to convince competitive upper-middle-class parents that inclusive education can be good for their precious, advanced little flower.

But it really can be. Even “gifted” kids can benefit. “Done well, inclusive education taps into the depth a kid is capable of,” my girls’ principal said. “Many gifted programs simply offer accelerated learning from a grade level or two up. But keeping curriculum across the grades open and wide-ranging means that every kid can reach the heights he or she is capable of.” One kid may be just learning spelling, while another is writing a novel, and good teachers help both. “There’s a saying,” says the principal: “Good special-ed teaching is good teaching.”

Too often, unfortunately, “gifted” education brings to mind the following story: A guy runs to his rabbi yelling, “Rabbi! Rabbi! I learned the whole Torah by heart!” The rabbi replies, “And how much of it penetrated your heart?” In other words, it’s not only the acquisition of knowledge we should be concerned with. It’s g’milut chasadim, too—kindness, mutual support, and solidarity.

There are times when inclusion isn’t appropriate. “Learning Hebrew or tfilot can work better in a self-contained setting,” said Kirshner. “For instance, if a kid has serious ADHD or Tourette’s in addition to a spectrum disorder. And sometimes parents of kids in mainstreamed classes will tell me no one ever invites them for a play date. A self-contained class can be a meaningful social setting.”

Gifted kids are special-needs kids too; they also benefit from special enrichment. But, Kirshner warns, “ ‘gifted education’ shouldn’t universally be the way your kid learns.” Inclusivity, done right, is beneficial to all students. And, as I said, it’s not easy.

But I’m confident that Josie and Maxie’s school is ready. Pairs of special-ed and general-ed teachers have spent the summer doing professional development and learning the most effective classroom set-up, structures, and pedagogy. I’m hopeful. And as Kirshner puts it, “We’re all gonna have a special need sometime. We may lose our hearing; we may break a leg. By engendering the values of inclusion, the fact that we all have something to contribute, we create a better world.”

 

 

The King’s Speech

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Written by Matan Executive Director Dori Frumin Kirshner, this article was originally published in the New Jersey Jewish Standard.

If you have not yet seen the film “The King’s Speech,” don’t wait any longer.  I think it should be a requirement.  Without divulging more details than necessary, “The King’s Speech” depicts the real life experience of King George VI, who struggled with a significant speech impediment during the time before he became king.  His wife finds him a speech therapist who labors with the future King for years.  The film succeeds in bringing to the screen the tremendous conflict between this potential personal agony and his predestined duty.

Before viewing the film, I was not aware that any of Britain’s Royalty had struggled with anything more than infidelity.  It makes perfect sense, though, that some percentage of a dynasty would face certain challenges.  The Learning Disabilities Association of America reports that at least 15% of the population has some form of a learning disability.  The CDC’s research tells us that 1 in 110 individuals – and 1 in 70 boys – is diagnosed with Autism.

ADHD, dyslexia, and Asperger’s, all part of our 21st Century lexicon, have been part of the human story long before we had terms with which to label them.  Early on in the Book of Shemot (Exodus), God tells Moses that he is charged with leading the Jewish people out of Egypt.  In turn, Moses (loosely translated) responds, “God, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t speak so well.  I have a stutter and being a public figure might not be the right job for me.”  God tells Moses, “Yes, I am aware of that because I created you this way.”  In other words, God was remarking, “I see all that you are capable of, not simply the things you struggle with.”  Because God recognized Moses’ unique abilities and did not define him by his disability, that is how the Jewish people came to view him as well.

Moses and King George VI demonstrate that learning differences and challenges need not be obstacles to achievement and success.  But what was it that allowed these two great leaders in history to overcome their struggles?  As it turns out, their formula for success is neither complicated nor expensive and can be summed up by 3 main components.  Each leader required:

  1. the unconditional support of his family
  2. an adept champion or therapist who was ready and able to intervene
  3. his own willingness to accept his imperfections without permanently diminishing his determination.  Even royal and Biblical icons are not  perfect.  None of us is.

And yet, all too often in Jewish education, we turn away children – and potential future leaders – because of learning differences.  What would our history be if Moses had been denied his role or King George had not reigned because of an impediment?  What kind of community are we if children who learn differently are met with rejection or indifference?  If at least 15% of people struggle with some sort of learning issue, can the Jewish community afford the price of apathy?  What will become of these 150,000 American Jewish school-age children and their families?

Every time we fail to meet these students and families with the integrity, professionalism and support necessary, we’re essentially saying, “You’re not worthy of a Jewish education.”  In fact, it is our failure, not theirs.  And, it is indefensible.

To be sure, this kind of inclusion demands support – financial, human, educational, and more.  Yet, those are mere details once the greatest impediment to change is no longer an issue – that of attitude.  In the world of special education, and religious special education in particular, the keys to success are built on creating an environment where parents, teachers, counselors and clergy embrace all learners with support and encouragement.  Qualified and compassionate educators who are sensitized to different learning styles will create unique curricula and develop unbreakable bonds with children while meeting individual needs.  If we actually truly believe we are all created in the image of God, this should not be so hard to implement.

Whether the story is told by Spinoza or Spielberg, on the pulpit or the Big Screen, about leaders of religions or nations, Jewish or gentile, every person has the right to learn.  Our job is to ensure that even those who learn differently can do just that.  If it necessitates removing obstacles or building bridges, changing curricula or sensitizing teachers, our past models and frankly demands that we provide opportunities to learn – math and holidays, Hebrew and English, piano and Bar Mitzvah – for all people.  With the proper support, determination and belief, individuals with special needs will surpass your expectations.  The real question is, can we surpass theirs?

February is the month where Oscar nominations are announced and Jewish Disabilities Awareness is addressed.  While I am not a movie critic, “The King’s Speech” gets two thumbs up and is worthy of an Oscar nod.  One for being a great movie, the second for reminding us that education is not only for the “typical” and elite – but for ALL who want it.

Dori Frumin Kirshner is the Executive Director of Matan: For Every Child.  For Every Community.  The Gift of Jewish Learning.

 

Inclusion and Parshat Ki Tisa

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I’ve had the privilege of being involved with Matan since 2001.  Since that time, the organization has changed its tagline multiple times. It began as Matan: the Gift of Jewish learning for Every Child. This tagline saw the educational experience that could be provided to a child with special needs as the ultimate gift. Currently the organization’s tagline is Matan: For every child. For every community. The Gift of Jewish Learning. I’m not sure how much other people pay attention to taglines or mission statements, but as somebody with a Masters degree in nonprofit management, I have come to believe that they are extremely important, especially if they change or evolve. In the case of Matan I take extraordinary pride in that evolution.  My pride comes from that fact that not only am I a board member who has seen the organization go through a positive shift, but more importantly because I am a member of the Jewish community with disabilities.  I believe the shift represents a transformation of the communal understanding of the role of people with disabilities within our community and the importance of including those of us with disabilities.

Let me explain, when Matan began it was generally understood by those involved that Jewish education was a gift and that by putting it in a form in which children with special needs could participate, we would be able to provide access to the Jewish community for these individuals and their families. In other words, inclusion was seen to benefit primarily people with disabilities and their families. The new tagline, while acknowledging the benefits of inclusion for people with disabilities and their families, also acknowledges the far more profound, and in my opinion, important benefits of inclusion, those experienced by the community as a whole. By understanding that the mainstream population, whom should be more accurately described as those who have yet to be diagnosed with a disability, can learn something from us, the people with disabilities, it empowers us and more accurately reflects reality. This concept that every individual has something to contribute to the community is effectively articulated in Parashat Ki Tisa which this year will be read on Saturday, February 19th. The Parsha discusses that the children of Israel are required by God to take a census. Rather than counting each person, all who participate in the census are required to donate no more and no less than one half shekel. By insisting that each person regardless of wealth donate the same amount the Torah is demonstrating that each person is equally valued. There is no difference based on perceived ability. Furthermore by choosing the value of a half shekel rather than a full shekel the Torah seems to be suggesting that each person can only reach its full potential when he is included communally with others.

It is my hope that our celebration of Jewish Disability Awareness Month and North American Inclusion Month this February will inspire us to embrace people with disabilities and inclusion within the Jewish Community, not only in February but throughout the year.

Jason Lieberman serves as a board member and treasurer of Matan. Diagnosed with both cerebral palsy spastic diplegia and inattentive adhd, jason is a tireless advocate for the full integration of people with disabilities in all aspects of jewish life and community

 

I Am a Person Just Like You

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My name is Jacob Artson and I am a person just like you.  I am part of a wonderful Jewish family, I go to our local public high school where I am in regular English and social studies classes, I play sports, I love to travel, I enjoy hanging out with my friends, and I care about making this world a better place.  The only difference between you and me is that I have lots of labels attached to me like nonverbal, severely autistic and developmentally disabled.

It is true that I have many challenges, but there are lots of myths and misconceptions about autism out there.  Many purported experts claim that individuals with autism are not interested in socializing.  This is totally ridiculous.  I love people, but my movement disorder constantly interferes with my efforts to interact.  I cannot start and stop and switch my thinking or emotions or actions at the right time.  This can make being in a big group very lonely and that is the worst thing about autism.  So next time you see someone like me at your synagogue or at your event, remember that they probably feel really lonely and you could be the person to make their day by smiling at them and letting them know that they exist.

Another myth is that the majority of people with autism are mentally retarded.  In fact, our bodies are totally disorganized but our cognitive skills are intact and our minds are hungry for knowledge.

Every person alive is encumbered by challenges and blessed with gifts.  I used to think that my ratio of challenges to gifts was higher than most, but now I realize that my challenges are just more obvious.  I have learned that autism can have its advantages.  For example, I get a VIP pass at Disneyland and I get to kiss all the beautiful counselors at camp and pretend I don’t know any better.  On a serious note, not being able to speak means that you spend lots of time listening.  In fact, much of what I know I’ve learned from listening to conversations that other people didn’t think I could hear, or listening through the wall to what the teacher in the next classroom was saying.   People often ask me how I became such a good writer. The answer is that my inability to speak gives me lots of time to contemplate and imagine, and it also forces me to hear everyone’s perspective and think about it because I cannot interrupt or monopolize the conversation like people who have oral speech.   In the autism world we say that not being able to speak doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything to say.  In my experience, the converse is also true – just because you can speak doesn’t mean that you have anything worth saying.

Since I have been asked to write about including people with disabilities in the Jewish community, I want to share with you the ways in which autism has affected my participation in Jewish life.   My family has been my greatest support from the day I was diagnosed.  My amazing twin sister Shira is my best friend, hero, chief source of entertainment, and fashion consultant.   My Ema is my rock and has never let autism be an excuse for failure.  My Abba has been my spiritual guide and is also really fun to be with.  Even though I know they love me, they have carried a tremendous burden and I always feel guilty about that.  Unfortunately, the Jewish community has not always helped ease their burden or mine and often has exacerbated it.

I have found great support in God and Torah.  Our people’s wisdom has helped me through difficult times and guided me as I strive to become a productive member of society.   My bar mitzvah was special because everyone there accepted and celebrated me for exactly who I am.  I wrote a siddur commentary and everyone in attendance took turns leading the prayers and reading my words.  At the end of the service, everyone came up on the bima for Adon Olam.  I will carry in my mind and heart forever the picture of everyone there smiling at me.  I had wonderful experiences when I was in a Jewish preschool and later kindergarten, even though my teachers had never had a child with autism in their class.  What made those experiences successful was the way the teachers modeled inclusion for the other kids.  They treated me as a person made in God’s image and not as different in any way. In kindergarten, I had amazing peers.  They were mostly Persian and inclusiveness is engrained in their culture.  They tried all year to get me to interact with them even though I was usually too excited to focus.  I’ve also had wonderful buddies from The Friendship Circle, attended several Jewish camps, participated in a Jewish musical theater program called The Miracle Project, and prayed at Koleinu, a service at Temple Beth Am for kids with special needs.

But there have been obstacles as well. Believe it or not, there is a hierarchy even within programs for kids with special needs.   Because many Jewish programs in my community are geared for so-called “higher functioning” children, the first reaction is often that I am too disabled to attend.  So whether I’m invited seems to depend on the particular director that year or whether my parents decide to complain and fight for me to participate.   Most of these programs could easily accommodate people like me with a little attitude adjustment.   My family’s efforts to include me in synagogue life have also been a source of great stress.  When I was younger, I went to synagogue every Shabbat but the other kids ignored me.   My synagogue started a Shabbat morning service for kids with special needs and that gave us a community of sorts, but now I am a teenager and need to find my own place.   I was invited to speak at IKAR, a small synagogue in our community, where I was welcomed just like any other member.  I was not given ice stares when I got too excited, so my family joined.  The kids there say hi to me even when they are not getting community service credit for interacting with me.

The public schools and secular programs I have attended have been much more welcoming and are built on a model of mutual respect rather than pity.  The Los Angeles public schools are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic, and they too seem to have a culture of inclusion.  The kids at school treat me like family and pull me into everything they do.  I go to a secular camp for autistic kids in Aspen every summer and everyone is welcome there.  We do cool things like go tubing and kayaking and I am able to participate in everything because I know they will work with me where I’m at.  In my secular inclusive sports program, Team Prime Time, the director has taken the time to allow for sharing on several levels, so the kids all respect me for my intelligence and understand how hard I’m working to make a basket or kick the ball.  I have also been part of their new volunteer training and have spoken about autism at school, but I have never been invited to participate in volunteer training for any Jewish program I have attended.

So here is a final thought I would like to leave you with:

The best peers and aides I have had didn’t have any special background.  It doesn’t actually take any training to be a leader who models inclusion.  It just takes an attitude that all people are made in God’s image and it is our job to find the part of God hidden in each person.

I used to get very upset and offended at the idea of being someone’s  mitzvah project or community service project.  But now I see that I also have a role to play in helping create the messianic future. It is easy in our affluent society to become dazzled by the material opportunities and  privileges that we have been born with.  But I have had to struggle from the day I was born to do many things that other people take for granted. Because of that, I have experienced God’s love in a way most children have not. So maybe we are each other’s mitzvah project because I can help them see the glories of the world that they have never noticed, and they can teach me how to look like other kids. All in all, who is getting a greater benefit?  In the end, together we bring God’s glory to all of humanity.