No More Barriers
What barriers do you have to overcome? What things are standing in your way? If we eliminated the barriers, would you excel?
Take this example. If 2 people are all trying to look over a high fence to watch a baseball game and one is tall enough to see over the fence and the other is not, don’t provide a stool for the shorter one to stand on. Instead, what would happen if we eliminated the fence? Not only would both be able to see, but we are also eliminating the barriers and accommodations needed to make the game equitable and accessible for all.
Here is another example. If a student doesn’t do well communicating orally, eliminate the need to communicate orally. There are other ways of communicating such as through a communication book that includes pictures or through the use of ASL. Instead of forcing a barrier on students in terms of the ways they learn such as to benefit us as the teacher, let’s eliminate the barriers and benefit the students as learners.
We all know about learning styles, but why in the classroom do we tend to focus on learning styles which may not benefit all learners? Sure we can eliminate some of the barriers by including different modalities of learning, but the problem still persists. If a student who is hard of hearing uses an FM transmitter to hear better, the problem of hearing perfectly still exists, therefore a barrier to learning still exists. Sure we have sought to eliminate the issue, and yes the student is hearing better than he or she would without it, but what if we eliminated the auditory barrier all together? If we had the student learn by taking in the information visually, we eliminated the barrier of auditory learning altogether.
In education, by implementing UBD (Universal Backwards Design) we not only reduce the number of accommodations and supplementary instruction used, but we get more inclusion in the classroom as well. By designing our instruction focused around our lowest tiered learners first rather than those that are high achievers we include everyone in the discussion and learning process. I am NOT saying that we need to “dumb down” our instruction, as levels of Kosta’s should still exist, but instead, we focus our instruction around an “all” instead of a “some” or “most”.
If you think back to the example of auditory learners, most will be able to learn that way, but if you eliminate the need for all to learn auditorially and instead switch to visual learning, all students MAY be better able to succeed. Of course, I am not saying that all students learn best visually, but I am saying that all students may be able to learn visually and excel.
If we focus on the CAN instead of the cannot, not only do we increase learning, eliminate deficits, and provide outcomes, but we stand for equitable learning outcomes for all students. By eliminating barriers to learning we can ensure that all learners have a fair shot at being able to view and participate in the ball game of education.
