“The disabilities awareness training program is refreshing and innovative! Every teacher in every school district would greatly benefit from this program to better their awareness and teaching practice for all students with and without disabilities. In my five years of experience as a middle school science teacher, I have been to many professional development seminars and workshops that touch on issues surrounding students with disabilities. None come close to providing the real life, tangible, hands-on experience you get from the Cromwell Center . I will be a better teacher and mentor for my students and I highly recommend it to all school districts. You are doing something right by your teachers and students if the Cromwell Center enters your building.”
“I cannot tell you how much I wish I had this training when I was beginning in Teach For America. Instead of trying to teach me all there was to know about every type of disability, you helped me train a set of emotional and intellectual muscles that would serve any teacher well with any student with any disability. There are students who were in my class who I know would have been better served if I had this training.”
“I think the training provided an excellent space for future and current educators to explore issues related to diversity - specifically educating students with disabilities. The training is very interactive, which allows all participants to hear the perspectives of others and be heard themselves. Many of the activities are transferable to the classroom, including the activities related to standing up for people in our lives who live with disabilities to the activity that plays upon and forces us to recognize our own natural biases. Any educator who works with or will work with all students - disabled or not - will benefit from this experience.
“I appreciate the thoughtfulness with which you approached the topic-- no pat answers or gimmicks. Likewise, I appreciated having a few great activities that I can use with adults and kids alike.”
“I thought it was a great session that actually exposed some really age old teacher frustration of recognizing that everyone is different and everyone has potential, but how to engage it appropriately when teachers are already feeling over-extended. It is quite the art. The topic of disability is truly a tough one to tackle given the diversity within the designation and only wish that this could be turned into a full blown course at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for students to not only expose and identify biases and unspoken messages in their classrooms, but to also engage in discussions on how to meaningfully address them."
“I thought the activities were particularly relevant for the purpose of generating ideas for practice in my future classrooms. I thought they were particularly effective in helping make common assumptions about disability more explicit and testing those assumptions, encouraging recognition about the way that disabilities are viewed, and even invoking a sense of the way that being disabled in one way or another might feel. I particularly liked the focus in the first exercise on the strengths or extraordinary abilities that individuals with disabilities often have. The value of the activities is tremendous with regard to something that I can remember and implement in settings that I am in the future.”
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