KIC S3E1 "From Kibbutz to Classroom: A Journey in Inclusive Education" Featuring Eliezer Yariv

In their conversation, Toby and Eliezer Yariv explore the principles and challenges of inclusive education, drawing from personal experiences and professional insights. Eliezer shares his upbringing on a kibbutz, highlighting the values of equality and community that inform his approach to teaching. They discuss the implementation of universal design for learning (UDL) in classrooms, emphasizing the importance of proactive planning and individualized support for diverse learners. Toby and Elie stress the need for empathy, creativity, and real-life examples in teaching, advocating for inclusive practices that prioritize students' varied needs and experiences. Ultimately, they promote inclusive education as not just a title, but a philosophy that benefits all learners, fostering a supportive and equitable learning environment.

Websites from the podcast:
UDL Guidelines https://udlguidelines.cast.org/ 

18 Things https://inclusionworkshops.com/inclusion-principles/ 

#TobyKarten #EliezerYariv #Karten’sInclusionConversations #KIC #Inclusion #InclusiveEducation #UDL #TeachingInclusion #DiverseLearners #EducationForAll #InclusiveTeaching #EquitableEducation #TeacherResources #InclusionMatters #EmpathyInTeaching

For more information please visit https://inclusionworkshops.com/

Transcript

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Hi everybody, welcome to KIC Karten's Inclusion Conversations, and I have the honor of speaking today with Eliezer Yariv, and he had contacted me through a wonderful medium, and that's called an email. And suddenly our distance became less, he is, he was born and he grew up in a kibbutz in Dafne, Israel. He is married with three sons, Elie's earned his BA MA degrees in psychology at the University of Haifa. He studied for his PhD degree in education at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom in back in 2002. His doctoral dissertation, which I love the title and I dislike it at the same way, well, maybe we could talk about that, managing challenging teachers when it should be managing challenging students because attitude matters so much. I think he'll agree with me, let me continue with his bio. And he acknowledges the people he learned from, which I think is something that all educators need to embrace. He was supervised by Dr. Marion Coleman and Professor Paul Cooper. And Yariv has served for more than 30 years as a school psychologist in several educational psychological services, and he taught for 20 years at Gordon College of Education in Haifa. Well, that's not all because for the last three years, Professor Yariv is the head of a master's program in education and inclusive education at Giv at Washington College, again in Israel. And I love your mean research topics and it relates to teachers' professional difficulties, which I call challenges, and to classroom management and school discipline, which led to our connections and about universal design for learning, because that's going to be the topic of this conversation. He's also an author of four books, Discipline and Dialogue, Silence in Class, I've Got Eyes in the Back of My Head, love that title, and Classroom Management, edited together with Dr. Devorah Gurov. And his upcoming book, I am very excited to read that, it's going to be entitled For All and For Each, Inclusive Education. And it's the first textbook in Hebrew on the subject. So Elie, Ezell, Yariv, welcome to Cartons Inclusion Conversations. It is a pleasure to have you here. Thank you, Toby. I'm glad to be with you on your podcast. You know, I'm going to begin our conversation and I know my passion and I think yours as well and many of our listeners, that's why they're here for this podcast, is inclusion, inclusive education, but that definition is a tough one. And I'm curious, under what circumstances did you become the head of inclusive education in a program in Israel? That's a good question. You know, Toby, we always begin with our youth, with our childhood experiences, and mine was rather different from what you or many people live in. I was born and grew up in Kibbutz. Kibbutz is a rural settlement in which all people live in full equality. It means that we as children received the same clothing, the same food, the same education. We were not allowed to purchase anything for ourselves. That was quite tough in terms of being an individual. I always felt that I'm part of a group, part of my kids in the same class. And not only that, but we lived in a children's house. It means that I saw my parents only two hours a day and most of the time we lived together, we slept together in the children's house. That was the place where we ate and learned and fell together. So in a way, I was not an orphan, but I had a family, but my family was not that kind of, you know, so important in my life. Not only me, I mean all the kids that I lived with. So I grew up in a very unique situation in which, you know, the community was more important than the individual. Would you believe that in my school, for example, because of equality, because the idea that we are part of the community, we did not have, almost, we did not have examinations, we did not have grades, we did not have any documents in which our teachers evaluated our achievements. Nothing of that. They were not given the opportunity to do the matriculation examinations. In general, the education was not that, it was very experiential. We had a lot of field trips and things like that, but nothing of the kind of race toward the career that you may feel that you are. So if you ask me, did you have examination, is grades that important? From my experience, the answer is no. And please note that I'm a professor. It means that I question the idea that achievements and grades and examinations are that important. So we lived in a community, in a group where everyone was equal. Everyone had the opportunity. I recall that in my class, there was one boy who was probably somewhat behind, and he remained with us throughout all the 12 years that we learned together, although he had difficulties. So from my experience, it is possible. It means that that is my beginning where my education began, and it is not about who is best, but how we are all together, do together and feel together and being together and playing together, that's it. So that is the beginning of my childhood. And later, you know, I run my, you mentioned my station or places that I work in. About five years ago, I was offered by a college in the southern section of Israel to develop and open a program of inclusive education for a master's degree. By that time, I felt that I'm quite compatible with that task because I'm a school psychologist. I have been helping for so many kids and parents and teachers and school. So I'm quite aware of, you know, all the psychological aspects of children, those, the regular one and those with disabilities. So I am probably fit to the job. It took me some more months to realize that I need to develop my own ideology. What is inclusive education and why it is so important? And only then I realized that the, that my role, my new role correspond with my childhood. It comes with the idea that yes, equality is important. Yes, everyone can be together. Yes, it's important to give everyone equal share and opportunities. And only then I realized that I have not only the psychological aspect, the psychological expertise, but also the profound experience. What does it mean to grow up together and to give everyone a decent share? Thank you. That was so beautifully put for our audience to gain the perspective of so many things. I was jotting so many notes as you were talking because there, I think, are several takeaways from what you just said, specifically knowing the what and the why. And, but even before you know more about what inclusive education is for this child, for that child learning together, I think you have to have that moral fiber inside of you, which you have, and I think maybe let me ask you if you would agree with me that that's one of the most important ingredients for inclusive education to be successful is attitude. How you believe that the child can succeed, but even though we're all learning together, we might not all learn the same way. Would you like to add to that statement? Of course, I accept that idea, but we need to realize that as a school psychologist, we are socialized to look specifically on one individual, try to evaluate, to assess, and to assist with difficulties, so our attention is given to individuals, and we are not that accustomed to think about how to bring up all the kids with basically the same kind of conditions while giving everyone all she or he needs for that sake. So there's a gap between the psychologist perspective and the educator's perspective. But you seem to have both in your experience now, so that's a good cocktail, I think, for many of our students, and our conversation, the last one we had, and it was just about universal design for learning, and that's when I had said, hey, would you like to be a guest on the podcast, because I think that many people could gain from that broad experience and your perspective on inclusive education. When we think about inclusive education and UDL, specifically the topic we were going to talk a little bit about, it wasn't universe UDL, it was UD, universal design. It was an architectural term that started from an architect, Ronald Mays, and, you know, they always say that necessity is the mother of invention. He himself had polio, right? So there's a saying, you don't really know until you walk a mile in someone else's moccasins, right, or walk a mile in his wheelchair, and understanding that access. What does access look like? And just getting in the door and sitting there is not going to allow learning to occur. There has to be more, and so UDL, universal design for learning, entered the school system as well when we're talking about what does the environment look like? How are we going to, you know, all the books are in the library, but can someone in a wheelchair access them as well on that shelf, literally and figuratively? So UDL is something that you questioned me about and said, is it just a textbook term, you know, because a lot of times teachers get overwhelmed by what is known as evidence-based practices, but UDL is a nice framework for everything that follows supported by neuroscience. Do you think that you have embraced that with the students that you are instructing in your inclusive education program and in your research in your book? You know, in my mind, the main barrier, the main obstacles for teachers or educators differs from the architectural situation where everything is observable, it's a physical setting, et cetera. Now, when children learn, it is not written on the row that they understand what is taught or they don't. Imagine that we had two lights, one is red and one is green, and whenever the teachers speak to the children and the red light shines, then she knows that he doesn't or she doesn't understand, and if the green light turns on, everything is okay. Now, teachers don't have that kind of information about how kids grasp what they try to acquire, what they try to teach. And it is not the wheelchair that can pass a staircase, for example. When kids enter the classroom, the teacher doesn't have the information, do they understand? And why UDL is so difficult, because the idea is fascinating, but translating it into practice is so difficult. Challenging, agreed. Challenging. And that's the attitude that I want teachers to have, that even though I don't know a lot about it, I know I need to know more. And if we put it as something tangible just, you know, for those people, and we will put many links to this podcast so our listeners could find out more about UDL in terms of school settings from pre-K through graduate level as well, and I think adults need that philosophy as well, that we all like different kinds of engagements, different kinds of action and expression, different kinds of representations, you know? I'm teaching fractions. Somebody might, a student might dislike math, but if I take out that pizza pie, suddenly they understand what one-eighth is because it's equated to a slice of pizza. If we're going to use something simple like that, I think UDL is a nice way to have all of the learners gain the slices in the way that they learn best. You could add more sprinkles to this food analogy here or choose another. What are your thoughts on how we could better diminish the challenges that teachers face when they try to incorporate UDL in the classroom? Do you have some thoughts on that that might help our listeners? The main challenge is how teachers can take in their mind or think about every pupil they have, especially while planning the lesson so that they know that is it Rachel or John, who is the one, who is going, or what kind of difficulties they may face, how easy they will acquire the talk materials and so to speak. Now, I think that the preparation of teachers, the three years in which they learn or five years in which they learn to become teachers is not enough and it should take a long time to adopt the idea that whenever you prepare a lesson, you should have at least three, four, five pupils whom you know that need something else and try to think how do I teach that pupil or another one and how do I help them acquire. Now, I know that the more varied the lesson is, the better, but it's not that simple because you have only 45 minutes or 60 minutes and you have very limited time and very limited opportunities, so you need to be very careful about the planning of the lesson. Yeah, I so agree with you because that proactive approach that you mentioned is essential and we're not looking to increase what teachers do in terms of their time. It's a lot on teachers' plates from different directions with directives from different administration, from different practices in school districts across the United States, across Israel, across Mexico, across Canada, across all countries, but the attitude is what you mentioned, which I think many people need to embrace is teach and learning with the student in mind and the student doesn't look one way. The student will not all learn the same way. Some students we know, and this is part of it, they like to touch the learning. You know, some students like to move while they're learning. Variability, I think, is addressed very nicely and variability is a given. Whether or not the United States, we have that IEP, it's called an Individual Educational Program. In other countries, there are different initials, but what you mentioned is knowing the student and that I simply say, no matter what country you're in, a learner profile, highlighting the student's strengths, highlighting the student's interests, highlighting the student's challenges, and then thinking of ways to circumvent that. If we know a child can sit longer than seven minutes without fidgeting, we're going to provide things that give that child access, maybe going up and scanning a QR code for more information or working in cooperative groups if they're more collaborative in nature as well and planning ahead of time is our friends. And I don't know, correct me if I'm misinterpreting this, but when you see the planning, you're not just talking about for that 40 or 50-minute lesson, but are you talking about like a unit of study? I don't want to overwhelm everyone. Let me give another example to the challenges. I think it's important to acknowledge how teaching is not that simple. During my career as a school psychologist, I've done more than 800 psychoeducational tests. In each of them, I ask the child the question, tell me, please, when the lesson ends, by the end of the lesson, to what extent do you understand or have you understood the material? I show them with my hands, is it full or partly or not at all? And most of those children whom I tested showed me or told me that they hardly understood any parts of the lesson. Now, what happens is that they leave the class. They are frustrated. They even don't know to say what happened. They don't understand, but also the teacher don't know that, say, five or six or even 10 of these children who have just sat in her class did not understand. Why do I say that? Because it's very easy to tell about the three principles of UDL. It's okay. But to be a good teacher, you need to collect information throughout the lesson all the time and try to be sensitive to the opportunity, to the chance that not all your pupils have understood the material. Yes, yes and yes. We call that data, looking at the data, understanding, progress monitoring, and what will you do? One of the PLC, Professional Learning Community, questions is what will you do if they haven't all learned it? And what will you do for the kids who did learn it and need to know more? And variability is wonderful. The light bulb shines and one student might be the brightest in one area and another student might be the brightest in another area. And I think that the wonderful thing and the joy of teaching, joie de education or whatever, and whether it's special, general, I think everyone's regular education. I dislike in the United States legislation where they term that word regular because it implies the others irregular. I don't think it is. I just think it's different. I think we need to know and have all students brightly shine. But they're not going to do that if they're not given the circumstances and the opportunities. And you know what you said, physical access. I myself, I saw a student in a wheelchair who was included in a class and they were all doing cooperative work and they were all in a circle. And physically, this student was outside the circle of his peers. Physically, the wheelchair was outside and here I was observing the inclusion classroom. And when they were told to turn and talk to appear, he turned and talked to his pair. Excuse me, bing, bing, bing. You don't have to have an educational degree to say that this is, as in the Frayer model, a non example of productive inclusion. I thank you for your perspective and for saying that. I think that a lot of things that we need to take into mind is student interest, student background, students prior experiences. The same way that you shared how your experience on a kibbutz shaped you into that philosophy of everyone being together. And I think that's a beautiful takeaway for our audience here to realize that inclusion is more than getting a grade on a test that's 80 percent. It's about even if the child started out knowing 20 percent and then they're up to 60 percent, they've tripled what they've learned under our direction by honoring who they are, what they need and kind of like how we're going to do it in that part of it. I have something that is inclusion principles. I'm a very firm believer in the inclusion principles and 18 things. It's on my website talking about structure, awareness, compassion, professional collaboration and reflection. Would you like to talk about any of these principles and how it applies and how you would recommend that our educators go about making sure these are realities in in their learning environments? Yes. And it doesn't have to be all. No, no, no. Let me give you an example. OK, I'm not sure about each of them because I don't have the time to screen it, to read, to watch and decide, but I believe that we are almost narratables. We love stories. We understand stories, be it in a video, be it in a book, whatever it is. I believe that there are ways in which we grasp or we understand information much better than other ways. So if you teach, say, geography or you teach biology or if there are whatever subject, if you can turn any material into a story, there are better chances that the pupils will understand it much easier than in other cases. Now, the story doesn't have to be necessarily on the material set. You mentioned the idea that you teach fractions with the slices of pizza and enough to say don't ask what happened to me yesterday when I went with my kids to the next pizza area. And you give them a kind of a question or a exercise with a story and it all of a sudden becomes more it is more engaging. It is more a simple and useful idea how to use. So you showed me a list of sort of a do list, what to do, how to teach. But, for example, you say show concrete, representational, abstract and visual. What is it, examination? Examples, yes. Examples, I'm sorry. Marvelous, provide academic accommodations and modifications that help. You know, it is phrased in a very abstract manner and teachers most of the time need the practical, useful tools to to translate these. Yes, yes and yes. And that's why when we do this, I do things like, you know, that list is hyperlinked with a math video and and showing how you do things like that, because we know that in different ways we learn. And I think that you're not going to do everything the same way for the same child, because even though you're teaching the same concept and you have high expectations. What you just said was so vital because it connects to the affect, how students feel, what motivation. And that goes for the graduate students who are learning to be teachers and the students that they teach, because the concepts are important. But if they don't bite into it and see a way that it is not abstract, but it's practical, it's not more work for them or the students. It's just a different approach. Yes, definitely. You know, yesterday I spoke, I had a discussion with my grand child. She is 10 years old. OK, and we spoke about social conflicts and I told her a story about a colleague of mine who had difficulty when she was in elementary school. And I'm sure that she will recall that story and all the lessons that I tried to apply to it, how it is important to be in good connections, what happened when someone, when a friend all of a sudden stopped talking to you and things like that. So what I say is that that's my passion for is the idea that I try to to realize what might be the most clear example that I can give someone to understand anything. And I believe that, you know, it's difficult to say complicated things with simple words, but the simple words are so, so important and the stories are so important. You know, there was a psychotherapist, Milton Erickson, who led his therapies with stories and it was his way to teach his clients the most important lesson with the most vivid examples that they could realize and they can recall for many years. In my mind, a good teacher is someone who, how do you say, try to realize what might be the most simple and clear examples and explanation you might give, what kind of environment you can create for a child, for a pupil to learn by himself, to develop his own skills, to do a research project, things like that. So I believe that teaching is all of us are both together, very complicated and very simple. Thank you. Thank you for simplifying that in a way that everyone should view it as connections in a way, connections to who you're teaching, connections to reality, connections to things like those universal design learning principles. And that's just the framework. But inside that framework are the people and the stories. And Eliezer, Yariv, I thank you so much for being part of Kick podcast and sharing your expertise with the audience. Are there any closing remarks that you would like to say? One of the lessons that I've learned through my job as the head of inclusive education is that inclusive education basically is not just the title. It is the best education a teacher can teach. It applies for everyone. It is good for any subject matter, for any age, any school, any country, any language. I mean, that is the idea that once we do it, we are in the best position to teach kids and to let them grow up. So that's my final remark. Thank you. Thank you, Eliezer Yariv. I wish you continued successes in your field. Thank you for being our guest. Thank you, Toby. He can feel the stairs and hear the words unspoken. Not so unaware of a world that thinks he's broken. And who never even knew a kid with a different point of view. No, they never really knew a kid with a different point of view. Copyright 2024, Karten's Inclusive Conversations. Thank you for listening. Check out other episodes on all major platforms.