Inclusive education: a way to think differently about difference | Peter Walker | TEDxAdelaide

How and where we are educated shapes our perception of disability and difference. For the change society needs, we must challenge the model of segregated schooling. Peter's engaging talk explores how decisions in our adult life can be positively affected by an inclusive education experience, backing up research that shows positive educational and social results for students with and without disabilities. We truly learn better together.

Segregated education is rising in popularity in Australia and some other parts of the world. Peter Walker’s view is that this isn’t working. He comes to the issue as former principal of a special school in New South Wales. Peter is now a lecturer in special education at Flinders University and is completing his doctorate on the subject. He is also the president of the South Australian chapter of the Australian Association of Special Education.

[peterwalker]

I've completed the Closed Captioning on this video now, so I hope this opens the message up to a lot more of you.

[mikedunajew]

Thankyou Peter!
Disability isn't something that should be separated in education. Inclusive modes of operation for education will eventually lead to a more inclusive society in general :-)

[InspiredJeevanshorts]

What a sentence...
We need to think Differently without a difference ❤️❤️❤️

[pandaamachine]

Spoiler Alert: Every individual student is different. No single child learns the same. Difference is quite factually a reality of life. Universal Design for Learning acknowledges this. It’s just so strange people are discussing how education should or could or would be inclusive. If you’re ableist - that defines inclusion. What about sexism? Should women be included in education? Racism? Should education should be inclusion to only non minorities? Historically, education has excluded education to socially marginalized groups/identities. However, today, the debate of disability still lives on. Segregation and discrimination is still normalized for disabled. Today, being disabled is still rationalized as grounds for discrimination, oppression, segregation, and inequalities. It’s amazing. Intersectionality - it acknowledges one can both benefit from and be oppressed by the system. We can fight one form of oppression while perpetrating others. Identities don’t exist in a vacuum.

[babatrio]

Great job Peter! Really interesting and thought provoking. We never realize or think consciously about, how much our surroundings/experiences growing up, influence our current thinking and behaviour towards others. Maybe our so academically driven education system needs to have an adjustment to include the whole child, like for instance in Pestalozzi's Philosophy.

[dilnashaji]

Great talk about inclusive education. I appreciate your effort.

[InspiredJeevanshorts]

Amazing talk ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I loved it ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[carolynholmes]

Thank you, as a mum of a young child with autism this is so informative.

[DarrylSellwood]

A vid that Senator Pauline Hanson needs to watch, . Well done Peter Walker!

[clarkburt]

What this video is unfairly assuming is that a student in a special setting is not getting the same experience as mainstream students! Special schools still provide opportunities for interschool sports, theatre productions, fates and social events. "It was great" was a quote from the first day at a school for autism, yes? So, while Peter has good intentions, I argue he misses the most important thing about current problems with inclusion (it's not leadership), it's teacher training. Mainstream teachers already have enough to do without also needing to know behaviour strategies when a teenager gets up, runs around the room, and takes off all their clothes, or the student who pulls down anything hanging on a wall anywhere in the school or classroom. Yes, there is a need to improve inclusion in mainstream schools, but it needs to be through the teachers, and not through undermining the great work that educators do in specialist settings today.

[RobloxGenius]

I know a kindergarten teacher who had in her class a child with equizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She went through a big deal of stress causing her to loose her first pregnancy. I am actually working in a early childhood center and we have a child with autism. This child pushes the babies and throw heavy toys to the air. I am so afraid that he can hurt the rest of the kids.

[bodhitsal]

I couldn't understand his accent at I feel sad