I've (Been to) Kansas City...Kansas City (There I Was)

At KIT one of our big hopes is that people who learn about inclusion will take their knowledge and spread it around. It’s obviously great if people learn new techniques to include children with disabilities and go back and use them in their own classrooms and programs, but it is even better if people take the message and philosophy of inclusion and share it with their colleagues so that it completely permeates an organization. We’ve seen organizations be absolutely transformed by inclusion- the concept of ensuring that every child is welcomed, valued and supported.

A wonderful example of this “psst…pass it along” is the after school program called Kids Country in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. Over the past several years Kids Country has been a National Affiliate of KIT, a program that is generously funded by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF). To say that we have been impressed with them would be a big, big understatement. In addition to doing the hard internal work of examining their own programs to improve inclusiveness, they have also been spreading the word about the value of inclusion far and wide in the state of Missouri. At our recent National Conference on Inclusion we honored their efforts with our highest honor, the KIT Leadership Award.

The staff of Lee's Summit Kids Country accepting their award.

This past weekend I attended the Missouri School Age Care Professional Development Institute (PDI), where I was a keynote speaker and presenter. This year’s PDI was organized by the staff at Kids Country and held in Kansas City. I was absolutely blown away by how the Kids Country staff incorporated inclusion as a theme throughout the event. Their passion for access and inclusion was obvious in their large-scale decisions (keynote speakers) and even in the smallest details (wonderful quotes about inclusion in their conference program).

Me with Tyler Greene- check out his video

So, thank you Lee’s Summit Kids Country! Spending the weekend with you and the dedicated professionals from the state of Missouri was an absolute gift.

Inclusion is…taking your passion and sharing it with others.

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Hard work vs. Heart Work?

Recently one of our KIT supporters mentioned that she noticed that I hadn’t updated the blog since early August. Oh my, has it been that long? Lest you think I’ve been on an extended vacation, I will let you know that there has been a lot happening at KIT that will be revealed at our National Conference on Inclusion September 29-October 1. I hope you will be there to hear about and see all of our recent developments! Yes, there is still time to register.

Speaking of conferences, last week we had the pleasure of co-hosting the LEAD conference with our dear friends at the San Diego Zoo. It was great to be able to attend sessions on accessibility in arts and culture organizations. LEAD has always made a commitment to model accessibility at the conference by using multiple methods to translate the information to different learners. One method is CART (Computer Aided Realtime Reporting, although other versions of the acronym exist), in which a transcriber types everything a presenter, panelist or audience member says in a session and it is visible to the whole audience on an electronic display board. It is an accommodation for people who can’t hear the presentations, but it is also beneficial for supporting people who learn visually. I found myself both listening and watching the display board. It was by watching the board, and noticing a typo, that I had a moment of illumination. In the opening session someone who was introducing one of the speakers thanked them for being a “hard worker.” The incredible Chuck, who was the primary transcriber throughout the conference, typed “heart worker” instead of “hard worker.”

Interesting. Is a hard worker equivalent to someone who has a strong heart for the work? Can you work hard without putting your heart into it? If so, then how much is the effectiveness of your efforts related to the amount of heart you put into it? In my experience, those people whose hard work is driven by their heart are not only the most effective, but perhaps also the happiest in their work.

Inclusion is….heart work.

Discuss.

The arts and inclusion...a natural fit

This summer I’ve been going back to my roots in the arts…and it feels good! I’ve long said that the arts are a natural place for inclusion. In the arts all contributions are valued and the uniqueness of people and their perspectives is seen as a definite advantage. The time I spent teaching dance, drama and directing plays with children of all abilities was a period of amazing personal growth for me. I was the teacher, but I swear that I learned much more from the kids I worked with than they learned from me. I am very proud of the work I did at San Diego Junior Theatre, where I was the Education Director for 11 years, and even prouder still that welcoming and supporting every child is still a priority at the theatre. The photo above is from a production I directed of The Magic Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. The adorable kids in the photo are now in college.

The chance to be back with my theatre peeps this summer has been very fun and given me a lot of the warm, fuzzy feelings that I miss from the old days. In June I co-presented with Diane Nutting and Elizabeth Broder-Oldach from Imagination Stage at the VSA International Conference. Truly, they did the bulk of the presentation and I just stood there with a stupid grin on my face. I was so proud of them, and of KIT and the difference we are able to make in the world for children with and without disabilities. Diane and Elizabeth shared what they had learned about inclusion, and gave some very practical strategies for implementing inclusion in an arts organization. We’ll repeat this presentation at the American Alliance for Theatre and Education conference in San Francisco (where we will be wearing sweaters in August- did you know it will be 56 in San Fran this week?).

Finally, in the artsy summer activities, KIT is co-hosting the LEAD (Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability) conference with the San Diego Zoo and the Kennedy Center August 25-28.

Behavior- Not Just for Two-Year-Olds

Right now I am sitting at Gate A19 in the Dallas/Ft Worth airport, and taking a few moments to reflect both on the past few days and the past couple of hours. Let me start with the last few days. I was in the DC area to present a general session at a conference of almost 200 child and youth development professionals. The topic was “Exploring Challenging Behavior”. I spent two-hours explaining that “behavior is communication.” We are all communicating through our behavior all the time, I told the group. I used the example that as my audience, I was reading their behavior during the presentation. Droopy eyes? I surmise they are sleepy and introduce something energizing to wake them up. It’s the same with children. When they behave they are communicating their wants and needs to us. The difference, I explain to the group, is that as adults we have cultivated some coping skills so that we can deal with life’s challenges. Children may not yet have the ability to say “I’m feeling frustrated” and so they show you in any number of ways, some of which can be very unappealing.

So, my speaking engagement went well, and I am up early on Sunday to catch my flight home. The originating flight leaves 40 minutes late, which I know will make it very likely that I will miss my connecting flight. We are not given any information about why we were delayed in the first place, or what will happen when we arrive in Dallas. I overhear conversations like “I heard there are no more flights to California today” and I start to feel my stress level increasing. My connecting flight is scheduled for 12:30pm and the plane hits the ground at 11:55am. I’ll make it! Then, we spend 10 minutes taxing into the gate and another 5 minutes waiting for the runway staff to clear some structure from in front of the gate. “There’s still a chance,” I think. We are coming into terminal D and my next flight is all the way over in terminal A. Rats! Then the guy in front of me stops in the aisle to answer his cell phone while exiting the plane, and by now I am very upset and it is starting to show. I am visibly fidgeting and I know that my face is revealing my frustration with both the situation and the guy who is holding up all the anxious people behind him. I run like I am being chased through a jungle by a hungry tiger and I just miss my flight. And I do mean “just.” By probably two minutes. By now I am almost in full-fledged toddler-tantrum mode. The woman in line in front of me asks me a benign question and I give her a terse reply. I am very, very close to full-fledged meltdown. I feel my eyes get moist as I ask the gate agent for help. After getting a new boarding pass (for a flight that was just two hours later), I head to the women’s room to dry my tears and take a few deep breaths.

I suddenly get the irony of the time I spent this weekend teaching people about children’s challenging behavior, and then displaying quite a good dose of it myself. Where were those coping skills I supposedly had developed? I actually practice a lot of yoga and meditation, where the goal is calmness no matter the circumstances. I certainly had failed the airport test. As human’s we are tested when life does not meet our expectations. We can feel stress when we are not in control of our circumstances. It does not matter if you are four-years-old or, in my case, 41 years old. As adults, I told my audience, we are helping children build skills when we support them in their own behavior change. I think I am going to have to do a little extra work with my own inner child!

Inclusion is…understanding that behavior is a method of communication.

KIT a Hit at the LEAD Conference in DC

On August 14 I traveled to Washington, DC to attend the LEAD (Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability) conference. I was asked to co- present at this conference with my friend Sheri Sherman from the San Diego Zoo. We had a great time and our session was a hit. We presented on the building of bridges between the participants and their frontline staff and between them and their upper management. There were many sessions throughout LEAD on interesting topics I don’t usually get to hear about. One of the sessions I attended was on assistive technology. There are incredible items people have created to make museums, theater, and the arts more accessible. We were able to hear about these items, where they are being used and of course the cost so we can save up to have our very own. We were even able to test them out! Apparently they will be coming soon to Disneyland. What is it? Oh yes, sorry it is a hand held device, about the size of an iphone, (a little bigger) and it captions a predetermined script on an exhibit or attraction for those with hearing loss or who are deaf, in addition it can audio describe for individuals who are blind or have low vision. The changes in accessibility are quite amazing due to these types of technology.

Did you know that KIT will be co-hosting the LEAD conference next year with the San Diego Zoo? If you are a museum or cultural institution this would be a good conference for you to attend. The dates are August 26-29, 2010 in San Diego!

(pictured are Nili Mathews, KIT and Sheri Sherman and Bob Dillon, San Diego Zoo)