Conference Agenda

"We're Always An Afterthought" - Beyond A Curriculum For Most

Throughout developments in curriculum, in many instances has been to form and develop the curriculum for most learners in school education rather the diversity of all.

In Scotland in the 21^st century this was challenged by a process formed among policy makers and a group of special educators and other support staff to formulate a curriculum for all being able to take account of the diversity among learners.

This story tells of the process that contributed to moving from a curriculum that fits most to design a curriculum for all. A story not yet told was how Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence sought to reverse the view of some learners as requiring separate special treatment rather than a holistic approach to planning learning in its totality.

Previous guidance. on the curriculum only took account of diversity of needs in a supplemental way. Practitioners at the time regarded this approach as if such settings were an afterthought.

For instance the national guidelines for 5-14 Curriculum and Assessment for English language were not universal. They had identified “a few varieties of educational needs. It will require to be supplemented and is offered only to promote further discussion.”

Practitioners in special schools or involved in offering support for learning across Scotland viewed this supplementary approach as inadequate in terms of national guidance.

Fast forward to the first decade of 21^st century and developing a new national curriculum subject to general public debate and aimed to address past inadequacies in an universal manner as a curriculum for all. There followed a collaboration at a national level between policy makers , school inspectors and practitioners from across a broad spectrum of special educators to avoid diversity as an afterthought.

There followed a discussion of avoiding divergence in curriculum-making between a curriculum formed toward knowledge- based epistemological approach that lacked relevance for many learners.

A counter view placed a weighting towards a curriculum focused on personal and social development drawing on aspects of individual’s self-development, understanding based on learning from their experiences.

This personal narrative outlines the development of this story of policy-making, considers the role of key actors and highlights the approaches to curriculum policy making undertaken by this group in the development of Curriculum for Excellence.

In 2017 the European Agency drew upon a project considering ways to raise the achievement of all through inclusive education amongst projects from Poland Italy and Scotland. The place of curriculum making aligned to personal development was noted in the project and its follow up work.

Recent shifts in demographics in Greater Vancouver schools have crept up on educators who suddenly find themselves in elementary classrooms with no native English speakers, increasing numbers of refugees and immigrants (taken together, called “newcomers”), have ADHD, autism, physical disabilities, mental health issues and live in poverty, with classmates who are learning above their grade level. As with many urban schools in Europe, superdiverse schools in Vancouver may have 80 different languages. With Trudeau’s announcement that 1.5 million newcomers will arrive by the end of 2025 (Dickson, 2022, Nov.1), teachers must learn not only about students’ culturally and racially diverse backgrounds, but ensure democratic inclusive practices apply to each child (Li et al., 2021).

Fifty years ago in Canada, children with disabilities were excluded from attending school; just 25 years ago, children lacking English were ignored until they began to “catch on”. “Inclusion” and “participation” were gradually developed through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) and strengthened by the United Nations’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), especially for children with disabilities demanding equal education. For the first time, these rights were linked to inclusive philosophies and even laws that required inclusion (Paré, 2015). Today, newcomers to Canada are seen as a solution to Canada’s labour shortage, yet they must navigate complex challenges. Learning conversational English takes 3-5 years, 4-7 for academic literacy, and 10+ years for disadvantaged students (Garcia, 2000).

This paper focuses on what teachers can do now, not waiting for newcomers to “catch on”, but taking advantage of the energy, curiosity and joy most children exude. Many teachers’ walls are covered by art that reveals an astonishing array of interpretations of objects of interest. Art has been called a universal language (Eisner, 2006); think about paintings in Lascaux and how we still comprehend them. Gadamer (2003) believed that preverbal art induces a transcendental state of mind, even permitting us to re-live past memories. For children with traumatic experiences, the arts “speak” through a symbolic language that gently releases bad memories.

For these reasons, I chose to explore whether art workshops in two highly diverse classrooms would increase inclusion for students with multiple learning needs and advance their academic interests much earlier than their English language levels would normally allow. Therefore, my main research question is the following:

--With considerable barriers to education entrenched for some refugee and immigrant students, will a blended art pedagogy more quickly help them overcome factors that exclude them, in particular, a lack of English language fluency, sense of belonging, emotional processing of migration experiences, and possibly, earlier access to academic areas of the Canadian curriculum?

Three theoretical frameworks support this study. First, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as a legal and philosophical framework, is tied to human rights and upheld across all sectors in Canadian society. A philosophy of inclusion developed through the 1990’s, formally established in Europe with the Salamanca Statement (1994), also strengthened inclusion through the Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006). Two further frameworks that offer support are Mertins’s (2009) disability theory which reverses common thinking about children with disabilities as being “less”, or, “defective”, and instead, describes disability as due to environmental causes, and simply a difference. Lastly, Mertin’s (2003) idea of transformation questions the meaning of inclusion in schools and aims to ensure collective decision-making when the child is not able to communicate their wishes. These frameworks move away from the medical model and work to expand our understanding of the range of learners in schools which results in transforming society’s views of their abilities and rights.

Scotland and Norway have much in common both today and down through the centuries. Though Norway is four times larger by landmass, both populations today are around 5 million. Norway is held up as an example for Scotland to emulate in Education, in upland land use – as SW Norway and the Scottish Highlands have much in common, and as Scotland continues to contemplate independence. Ownership of the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, have over the centuries belonged to either Norway or Scotland and the Western seaboard of Scotland right down to the Firth of Clyde near Glasgow have many Norse place names reminiscent of the era of the Lordship of the Isles and Viking activity. Even many of our Scottish Clan surnames are Norse in origin.

Over more recent years, Scotland and Norway have both become increasingly multicultural. In Norway – the immigrant population rose from1.5% of the total population in 1970 to 14.7% in 2020. (Statistics Norway 2020). Today in Scotland 7% of the population are non-UK nationals. Our schools, in both countries, are indeed becoming increasingly diverse in population, language, religion and culture. In both Scotland and Norway, by far the largest group of immigrants in 2022 are from Poland, followed by Lithuania, Sweden, Ukraine, Syria and Somalia in Norway and the Republic of Ireland, Ukraine, Italy, Nigeria and India in the case of Scotland.

Those coming from EU/EEA countries have perhaps a greater shared cultural understanding and many immigrants have lived in Norway or Scotland for years and have therefore acquired the local language.

In both countries there is also a presumption to educate all children in an inclusive mainstream school setting rather than educate some children in Special Needs Schools. This often leads to a much greater range of children in the mainstream school, from both the home and immigrant population, who are neurodivergent or have more particular physical or behavioural needs requiring additional attention, and understanding, from the teaching and any support staff in the one classroom.

Today’s classroom teachers need to be well versed in inclusive classroom practice to accommodate the needs and aspirations of all the children in the classroom. Inclusion itself is a problematic term, especially when consideration is given to inclusive pedagogy, inclusive education and inclusive practice. (Florian 2011) In Scotland GIRFEC (Getting it right for every child), a Scottish Government National Guidance Model aims to support teachers as they work to support children and young people. Two of the values in this model are:

• Valuing difference and ensuring everyone is treated fairly.
• Considering and addressing inequalities.

In the current Norwegian National Curriculum for Knowledge Promotion in Primary and Secondary Education and Training’ (Ministry of Education and Research (2017), inclusion has had to broaden out from being about inclusion in a classroom setting, to consider the Sámi people as indigenous people. Within the Core Values section is added, ’respect for and solidarity with the diversity of Sámi culture’.

This paper will consider how inclusive practice in two curricular areas not only aids particular children, with additional support needs, but benefits all of the pupils. The two main areas of consideration are:

1. EAL learners in the music classroom in Scotland
2. Challenges for pupils with Dyslexia accessing EAL in Norway

In the Scottish situation EAL learners are acquiring English as the lingua franca of the country and the language of learning in the school. In the Norwegian situation EAL learners are learning English as an additional second language but it is not the general language of learning in the school.