Index for Inclusion

We had to work for a few weeks with the "Index for Inclusion" by Tony Booth and Mel Ainscow. The first week we had an activity that we would focus on an part of the index where we found interesting and present it in the class in groups of 4 of 5 people. We would alternate between groups and everybody would have a chance to talk about it. It was my first with such an activity, the alternation in people presenting the different parts made everybody focus on different points and sharing it with the class, everybody having an understanding of all the different points eventually.

And later we had to pick a statement from the index and use it to interview the school staff and students to see if the inclusion was used in the school. Our topic was: "The buildings and grounds are developed to support the participation of all." The purpose of our investigation was to find out if the school facilities were build to support the inclusion of the kids with disabilities.

Our teacher kindly arranged meetings with some of the teachers in a school that I have been to observe many times. Our groups' teacher had a traditional Southern American male name "Merle" but she is female. Although she was quite nice to us, we were worried that we were being trouble for her because she wasn't used to being interviewed in English, happily other teachers helped us translating some of our questions. The part of the questioner that involved the  school plan were related to school administration, we couldn't get an appointment with some one from the administration, so I have decided to go back to school next day and make a different questionnaire like survey with the teachers and parents. Comparing the teachers' and the parents view. After I have spend a couple hours at the school, interviewing teachers and parents I have realized that the teachers and parents had completely different ideas of the environment of the school. I have put the points where teachers and parents disagreed, the teachers seemed to be optimistic but parents were not content with the kids education environment.