Happy Holidays to You from KIT!

Wishing you and your family a holiday season filled with love and peace. 

What Can You Learn from Jury Duty?

 I just finished my jury duty service. I seem to get jury duty a lot (I had federal jury duty this past summer), and yet I have never been selected to sit as a juror in a trial. I’ve heard it is a good experience and while I am not at all opposed to doing it, I do admit to feeling a little put out when I am forced to miss work to appear in the jury pool. Each time I hope that I will be sent home just before lunch so I can make it to the office without missing too much. This time my name was called as a prospective juror at 2:00pm. As I rode up in the elevator to Department 48 I still hoped that I would not be selected and would be relieved by 4:00pm or so. As it happens, I had quite a moving experience as I walked into the courtroom and took my seat. My perspective completely shifted due to something that happened in my own family.

A number of years ago my younger brother was run over by an 18-wheeler while on a motorcycle. He was air lifted to the trauma center and remained in the ICU for some time. His recovery was slow and painful, and the physical effects will be with him for his lifetime. He sued the oil company whose driver had not followed the rules of the road, leading to the accident. I spent many hours in the courtroom during the trial. It was an emotional and disturbing process. I remember hoping every day for a jury of reasonable citizens who would do the right thing when presented with the evidence. As I walked into the courtroom yesterday all of those feelings came flooding back to me. I realized that the people involved in this trial deserved thoughtful, reasonable people to actively listen to everything presented and with a clear and open mind make the best decision possible. I realized that it was my duty to be that person, if selected as a juror. I had a much greater understanding that these were people involved in this unfortunate situation and what was decided would have a real impact on their lives. My personal experience created a sense of empathy for others.

As I reflect I realize that in our work at KIT we often help people connect their own experience in their families with the philosophy of inclusion. When people can imagine how they would like someone in their own family who has a disability to be welcomed and accepted by the community, that is often what helps them become more accepting of people with disabilities.  One of my great mentors and a KIT co-founder, Dr. Mary Shea, often says that disability is one of the only minority groups with open enrollment. Thus, you can join the population of people with disabilities at any time, and so can any of your friends or family members. In training sessions this is often when we see the spark of connection in the participants. This is the “ah-ha” moment for many as they resolve to treat others the way they would want their own family members to be treated. I have also had many people tell me that after enduring a temporary disability, for instance a broken leg that requires them to use a wheelchair or walker, they have a greater sense of what it is to live in the world with a disability. They always say, “I get it. I get what you do now.” And while it is true that a temporary disability cannot truly simulate the experience of a lifelong disability, it is a powerful empathy-builder.

And that is what it is about, right? We are humans here on this earth, having life experiences all the time that shape who we are and how we interact in the world. At KIT we realize that changing attitudes towards disability, and helping people understand that disability is a natural part of life is critical to our work. Once attitudes have changed and people are more accepting they will find ways to ensure that everyone in their child development center or after school program is welcomed and supported. It becomes intuitive. I was grateful this week to see how personal experience affected perception in my own life. I will never look at jury duty in the same way again. 

Celebrating Inclusive Schools Week

                                 I am wearing my I Am Norm tag- get yours here and wear to celebrate Inclusive Schools Week!

This week we are almost in the middle of celebration season. Sure, we celebrate year round, but when else is celebrating so apparent? Lights everywhere, music, catalogs and cards filling your mailbox and certain foods that we only indulge in at this time of year. Celebrating is an important part of our culture. This week, I am going to spend some time and effort celebrating something else that I think is very important to our culture now and in the future, and I encourage you to do the same. “Inclusive Schools Week is an annual event which is held each year during the first week in December. Since its inception in 2001, Inclusive Schools Week has celebrated the progress that schools have made in providing a supportive and quality education to an increasingly diverse student population, including students who are marginalized due to disability, gender, socio-economic status, cultural heritage, language preference and other factors. The Week also provides an important opportunity for educators, students and parents to discuss what else needs to be done in order to ensure that their schools continue to improve their ability to successfully educate all children.”

If you follow KIT’s work then you know that our focus is inclusion in the out-of-school hours. We teach people who work in early childhood, before and after school and enrichment programs how to include children with and without disabilities. But that does not mean that we are not huge advocates for inclusive schools. KIT’s vision is that children with disabilities are welcomed and supported in all aspects of community life. The school is the centerpiece of the community. Outside of the family it may be the first place a child with a disability has to experience being included. It is the place where a child can understand and begin to know who they are in the world. It is where we as a society begin to support them in their journey to becoming an adult that contributes back to their community. Being included sends a powerful message. Being excluded or segregated or whatever you want to call it also sends a message to a child. Believe me, I know the state of education as it stands. I know that we are all about standardized tests and increasing achievement. I know that inclusion requires teachers to be prepared and given additional support and that we are operating with less money than we have in the past. But I believe that by promoting inclusive schools, we are encouraging what we know is best for children. We are making a statement that every child can learn and giving every child the chance to experience true diversity.

Won’t you join in me in promoting and celebrating Inclusive Schools Week? Visit the Inclusive Schools Week website for ideas and planning tools, or check out what our friends at I Am Norm are doing to celebrate. Or watch Malia describe it for herself.

Inclusion is...in school and out of school, and in every part of community life. 

Thankful

I think Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday. A day devoted to giving thanks for the abundance in our lives- what could be nicer than that? Both personally and professionally, gratitude is an important part of my daily life. I am intentional about practicing gratitude every single day, and I do it in various ways from writing and list-making to meditating on it. Check this out for ways to begin your own gratitude practice.

I find it very helpful to replace discouraging thoughts with those of gratitude. Things are tough in the world today, and it can be easy to be dragged into despair. As inclusion activists we are horrified when we see stories like this. It tells us that there is much more work to be done, and fuels our passion. A few too many of those, and not enough like this and it can be hard to get out of bed in the morning. We need to see that our efforts are making a difference. This is where gratitude comes in for me.

Here are 10 things I am grateful for in my work this year:

I am so thrilled with the commitment that the US Military Child & Youth Programs have made to inclusion. We have been working closely with them all year and it has been an incredible experience for all of us at KIT. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to go to the Pentagon to speak about our work with the incredible people in the Office of Child & Youth Programs and Office of Special Needs.

I am so happy to know that there are disability organizations like The Ability Center of Toledo, OH who are changing their model to more community inclusion. Last spring The Ability Center held a two-day KIT workshop for a large group of recreation and child development organizations in their greater area.

Organizations like Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital are also becoming firmly rooted in inclusion. They hosted a National Keys to Leadership conference on the topic of inclusion this year and Girl Scout leaders from around the country came to learn and share their own practice of inclusion.

Corporate foundations like Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF) continue to support inclusion. Celebrating their 20^th Anniversary this year they awarded 20 agencies with Inclusion Champion Awards and KIT was one of them. Thank you, MEAF!

There are so many individuals making a difference, and we were so lucky to have Jon Williams and Teresa Hayes-Williams come all the way from Japan to speak at our national conference in October and share their personal journey of inclusion. It was incredibly moving, and I invite you to watch the recording by creating a free KIT account here (note- there is a small fee to view).

Our KIT founder, Gayle Slate, recently hosted a reception of past KIT supporters to update them on our doings of the past couple of years. The event was so well received and we were so grateful to have the opportunity to thank our original supporters for guiding our early development.

I am a big, huge fan of the work of Micaela Connery and Unified Theatre. This work is showing middle and high school kids that everyone has something to contribute and that focusing on ability is really the way to go. See Micaela’s work here and here and here. I am so grateful that this year Micaela asked me to join her board of directors.

Young people are so important to the inclusion movement, and that is why I am very grateful for the passion and energy of the I Am Norm campaign. Every time I promote it somewhere (and especially when one of the youth advocates is there to speak about it themselves) people get incredibly excited about it.

We are thankful to have been recognized as finalists in the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) San Diego’s PEAK Performance Awards this year. We were recognized alongside Mailboxes, Etc. and HD Supply- two giant corporations, and it was fun to be the little engine that could.

Finally, I could not be more grateful for the incredible team of people I work with at KIT. They care so much about this work, and they express it in ways that are positive, joyful, fun and empowering. People respond so well to KIT’s message, and I know that it is in large part due to how the KIT staff communicates it with such verve. I cannot imagine doing anything else, with any other people and I literally wake up every morning with a smile on my face because I have the incredible good fortune to work for KIT.

What are you thankful for in your work this year?

The Power of Two

I recently learned something about staffing and organizational behavior that I am calling "the power of two." KIT has been experiencing rapid growth over the past year, and we have added staff throughout the year. We are now lucky enough to have 2 digital content producers who work on social media, our website, our learning management system and translating our curriculum into a variety of digital formats. These two creative talents taught me this lesson, which I believe can be applied to any type of organization. Maybe another way to think of it is the "Noah's Ark staffing model." Here is how it goes- previously Michael was our solo digital content guy. He has a lot of expertise in his field and while we are all interested in technology and social media we do not speak his language. When he talks to us he probably always feels like he is teaching us! Which he kind of is. Enter our second digital content expert, Dora. The second Dora and Michael were introduced to each other I saw sparks fly. Because they share the same knowledge, experience and interests they can collaborate with each other in a way they can't with the rest of us. Seeing them work together, and what they have already produced with each other as a resource has really taught me the "no person is an island" lesson. It makes me think that two is more than twice as good as one, in some situations. It also makes me think that we should be intentionally creating these synergistic relationships among staff members, so that they each have their own sounding board. When I think about the organizations we serve, I think the child, youth and recreation providers would also benefit from this kind of pairing. It isn't mentoring, but more a peer-to-peer relationship that fosters creativity, problem-solving and shared experience. Now that I have learned this lesson, I hope to be able to use the information to plan for staffing. It's also something I will use when helping our affiliated organizations plan for and sustain their inclusive practices.

Visualizing Inclusion at KIT's National Conference

Next week hundreds of people from around the world will be traveling to San Diego to attend KIT’s 7th Annual National Conference on Inclusion. As you can imagine, this week is full of the little details that come with hosting such an event. We are packing swag bags, assembling name badges, getting the program to the printer and on and on and on. But, since this is the 7^th annual conference I am familiar with the growing feeling of excitement and anticipation. There is really nothing like gathering so many people devoted to caring for children into one space and exploring the issue of inclusion. It is always such a moving experience for everyone.

One of my tasks this week is to prepare my comments for the first morning of the conference. I always like to use my time at the podium to frame the learning experience for the participants. I want to help them break their pre-occupation with the outside world and settle into a space of openness and curiosity. In the past I have shared the concept of the “beginner’s mind.” This year, I am considering conducting a few moments of subtle activism by asking the group to close their eyes and visualize what inclusion looks like in its truest form. I think that if we can start the conference by envisioning how we want our child care environments and communities to look, feel and be we will be in a more open space for absorbing the knowledge of our presenters. In subtle activism a group of like-minded people come together to positively influence social change, perhaps through meditation, visualization or prayer or some other form of subtle consciousness-raising. Gathering hundreds of inclusion practitioners in a hotel ballroom to visualize inclusion could be very powerful and propel our efforts to change the world!

This year I also have the pleasure of introducing one of my heroes as our keynote speaker, Micaela Connery, Founder and Executive Director of Unified Theatre. Her own activism is a real inspiration, and if you aren’t there to hear her live I hope you check out the virtual version that will be available in November. 

A Daily Reminder from a Blow Dryer

Every morning while doing my hair before work my eyes settle on a tag on my blow dryer. It says “Warn children of the risk of death by electric shock.” And every morning this causes me to consider the enormity of the responsibility parents have in raising children. My next thought is always about the role teachers and child care providers play in helping children grow and develop. It’s about remembering to warn children of risks like a blow dryer in a bathtub and it’s about teaching skills like sharing with your friends. The big goal, of course, is to help children become happy, confident adults that contribute to our society by sharing their unique gifts and talents. It’s an every day, every minute endeavor. I think it can be easy to forget the end goal when we are trying to get through the day-to-day challenges. Two children struggling over the same toy can be very annoying to us as adults, if we have forgotten that our role is to teach these two children the skills necessary to share. Remembering that behaviors are opportunities to encourage skill-building in children can be a helpful way to maintain our composure.  Let’s consider all the tools and skills that are necessary for you to get through your own adult day. Here are just a few:

·      Dealing with disappointment

·      Listening while others speak

·      Being empathetic

·      Compromising with our spouse, partner or colleagues

·      Setting aside our own interests for the greater good

·      Being patient while waiting in lines

·      Cooperation in the workplace

·      Effectively communicating your needs

This is a list of skills I used before 9:00am today! And, at the risk of repeating the classic All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, these are all skills we help children learn in our child care and youth recreation programs. They need us to show them the way. They need us to lead by example, and also to be very understanding when they haven’t yet mastered a skill. There is so much to teach these small beings. It’s a big and important responsibility. I try to remind myself of this every morning as I prepare for work.

Inclusion is…teaching skills