This is from the 2024-25 edition of the Knowledge Forum.
Parent, teacher, and artist
By Andrea Cameron
I stood in front of my senior English class, leading a discussion on chapter ten of The Handmaid’s Tale. I had always known this day would come, that I would be teaching my own son about this powerful book. Hands flew up from students eager to comment on the politics of women’s clothing when I saw the familiar sight of my son’s arm rising in the air. The only thing was, this time, he wasn’t raising his hand to contribute to the discussion, he was raising it because he was having a seizure.
What’s a teacher to do when her son has a seizure in the middle of her class?
Keep teaching, of course.
Well, also hold onto my son to keep him in his chair while allowing the class to continue.
And why didn’t a tonic-clonic seizure disrupt a high school class?
The reason is simple. It’s because at least half my students had attended school with my son since they were in early elementary. They had seen his seizures countless times and were confident they could be managed in the classroom. Over the years, they themselves had helped my son. They had also enjoyed many ordinary childhood experiences with him. They had been to his birthday parties and he to theirs. They had laughed through water balloon battles together and played King of the Hill at recess.
Our mutual comfort came from one simple thing: inclusion. My son had been included with his peers from the start. Frequent seizures did not distress them. When they worked in groups, many students also knew how to accommodate Kieran’s visual disability and sensory accommodations. In my classroom, when they prepared for formal debates, they knew Kieran would possibly require a classmate to read his arguments, and so prepared accordingly.
This is the power of inclusion. If we had removed our son from his same-age peers, his seizures would seem scary to his friends and they would likely feel powerless to help. Instead, my son often told me the two places he felt most comfortable was school and home. This doesn’t mean his inclusive experience came easily. There were times he felt left out and there were times he chose to remove himself. There were field trips that needed accessibility consideration and there were still teachers who would not make accommodations. To us, these advocacy demands were worth it.
The benefits of inclusion for my son are obvious. First, he received a high-quality education that prepared him for first year university. Second, he learned how to accept support for his seizures and disability from educational assistants and even familiar classmates. Finally, he is confident in himself.
But there are broader benefits. I think about his teachers, most of whom were amazing at accommodating Kieran’s disability while challenging his intellect. They learned from him. I think about his classmates and their comfort-level with epilepsy, visual disabilities, and neuro-divergence. When they become parents, professionals, employers, or caregivers, this experience will have deepened their compassion and their understanding of meaningful support.
Yes, my students read, discussed, and wrote about literature and that is essential work. But more importantly, they built a community. Every classroom is a community, a place where people learn and work together, where things function best with mutual support. This gives us hundreds of thousands of classroom communities across Canada and each one is an opportunity for inclusion.
Student and Artist
By Kieran Shea
Inclusive education means people like me are not left out. That means students with disabilities belong in classrooms with everybody else. When students with disabilities are removed from regular classes, they miss the chance to make friends and learn with a wide variety of people. For example, I took everything from Hospitality to Grade 12 Philosophy. And yes, I required accommodations to be successful. For example, I have always used a scribe because I find voice-to-text frustrating. I also use audiobooks for literature. Because of my frequent seizures, I had an educational assistant with me at all times. It’s my right to have an education. In order to reach my goal of attending university, I needed one-to-one support so I could attend the classes I required.
My grade 12 year was tough. Dylan was my new educational assistant. He was actually the son of my old EA. I’d been with my old EA for five years and it was hard to have that change in my last year of high school. Dylan was great (and he’s a great friend to me still), but it was a real adjustment for me. I didn’t take too kindly to the change. As a person with a disability, saying “change is good”, does not apply to me. It takes me a long time to settle into new situations. When life gets stressful. I have a hard time explaining my emotions. During these times, I focus in on my interests, especially Lego.
While I really liked my new EA and my teachers, I went from loving school to not wanting to go. It might have something to do with my dad’s medical issues. Last year, my dad had a challenging year with his health, causing him to miss my eighteenth birthday and prom. It was pretty tough.
One of my classmates recognized I was having a hard time. This mystery person also knew I love Lego. One day, after a resistant start, I arrived in my philosophy class to discover a Star Wars Yoda minifigure on my desk. I looked around but no one acknowledged it. I wondered if it was my teacher, Mr. Deeves. He’s a funny guy who liked to make me laugh so I thought it could be him.
The next day, there was a Ninjago minifigure. It went on like this for weeks. Every day, there was a new figure on my desk. Everyone was curious who was doing this. Dylan tried to watch closely and figure it out. Mr. Deeves insisted it was not him and he didn’t know who it was. Like a ghost, whoever was doing this, was determined to not reveal themselves. I knew I would have to be quite the detective.
One day, near the end of the semester, Dylan learned the identity of the minifigure- giver. It was my new classmate who arrived at my school that fall. This student told me he was passing along his favourite minifigures to me. He said knowing how much I was looking forward to the little treat at a difficult time in my life, ensured he got to class also. He confessed he had some significant attendance issues in the past. Knowing I was eager to get to class to see the minifigure encouraged him to get to school as well. Lego united us at a difficult time. And maybe that’s the power of inclusion. My classmate and I quietly supported each other. His minifigure surprises helped me survive a difficult time, and knowing I was counting on him helped my classmate attend class and get the credit. We are all better together.
Kieran Shea has been drawing monsters since he was three years old. Over the years, he has accumulated thousands of monster drawings exploring every possibility of emotion, imagination, and characteristic. Andrea Cameron is a painter who creates colourful backßgrounds onto which the monsters are projected and traced. Andrea then adds colour to the monsters to create vibrant paintings. This collaborative team merged their talents in 2019 and have been making monster paintings ever since.