Seeing Teaching Through a New Lens
By Tara Ruckman, Academic Behavior Coach
The Theater of the Classroom
Do you feel like you don’t understand why your class can’t grasp the concept that you are teaching? The lesson was engaging and it was like a theater in your classroom. You definitely put on a show. You did everything they taught you in college — plus everything they didn’t teach you — and they still aren’t getting it! You changed your voice, you added inflections, and you strolled around the room like you were a character in the story. And yet, while you’re on your classroom “stage” acting out this beautiful lesson, all of the sudden the crowd starts booing you and throwing whatever trash they have handy in your direction. It’s definitely not sunshine and roses they are throwing at you. It’s bad behavior and this terrible non-verbal stare like you used to get at home growing up when you did something wrong.
Have you ever heard the saying “I would rather be disruptive than dumb?” Think about that for just a minute. So many of our kids fear appearing dumb when asking for any kind of help, including admitting that the content is not accessible to them. That would mean they are different. That leaves us educators, up in the front of the classroom, getting booed and a perfect, engaging lesson falling apart.
So I ask myself, what do you mean my lesson isn’t accessible? I have all the bells and whistles and my perfect visuals on the board for the students to access the meat and potatoes of the lesson.
Accessibility is defined as making everything in the theater meaningful, functional, and usable by all the students in the room. I couldn’t figure it out — what was it that I was missing? I reflected, I adjusted my activity, adjusted my voice, and engaged most of my students, but still, the lesson didn’t stick for everyone in the class. Years went by and this lesson was forgotten. It went to the wayside and I didn’t really have another thought about it. I figured it wasn’t me, the student just didn’t have the ability to comprehend the meat and potatoes that were presented on the board.
The Ah-Ha Moment
This spring, the bomb dropped and the ah-ha moment struck me. We don’t all get this moment, nor do we want this moment in the way it happened to me. It is a moment that will change my teacher’s theater forever.
It is the moment that I had my right eye removed and became a person with monocular vision. My binocular vision is gone and it made the meaning of accessibility very personal.
Have I been doing it all wrong for years?
A week after my surgery for eye removal, a friend of mine sent me this beautiful video with music, pictures, and quotes. As it neared the end, I moved the video closer and further away from my face. Imagine a person needing reading glasses adjusting a book back and forth to try to find the best place to be able to see the writing. The tears started flowing down my face in frustration because I couldn’t read it. There was no angle, no distance, that I held that video so that I could read the beautiful quote. Why? I could read other texts with my very good monocular vision. It was the background, the black background with the red font. There wasn’t enough contrast!
It happened again, with a black pair of sandals in the evening on my brown wood floor. They blended in and I couldn’t find them. Then again, when I couldn’t read the directions for the sauce on the Easter ham because it was a purple background with black writing. Tears rolled as I couldn’t read the instructions on my own. I couldn’t see any of the font — the font didn’t have contrast and blended right into the background. Maybe it will change over time as my brain adapts to monocular vision or maybe it will be like this forever, just as a color-blind person would see it.
I was an intervention specialist and in special education in the past. We have spoken about accessibility at meetings. However, none of those conversations really changed anything in my practice. When I experienced inaccessibility personally, it hit me that I had never thought about the type of font in my instructional materials, the color of the font, or fonts against backgrounds. Losing my eye was my ah-ha moment. My theater visuals on the board were not accessible. I am now seeing the theater through a new lens, a single lens that is bringing a different light to so many things!
Planning the Remake
Like every good production there is always a remake — updating it, maybe modernizing it, a slight change in the characters or twist in the story. Every good re-make starts with a reflection on what needs to be changed and updated. So, we reflect on the big picture. Just like most things in life, it’s hard to admit mistakes. The re-make has to be better than ever so it’s time to pull up my big girl panties and admit where I think I may have gone wrong. Here is what I came up with for a solution-focused remake of the classroom theater.
Creating a Culture of Acceptance
The classroom is set up for inclusion. We talk about inclusion and we push inclusion, but do we focus on acceptance enough? Do we model acceptance, do we teach acceptance, do we create a psychologically safe environment so that if a student has some differences, we aren’t trying to hide them but instead we try to embrace them?
Let’s revisit this quote: “I would rather be disruptive than dumb.” Do we make every student in the classroom feel as though they can share their differences and not feel dumb, embarrassed, afraid to ask for help, or communicate their needs? In the remake, I am creating an environment of acceptance and embracing our differences. I personally will not hide my prosthetic eye, I will model to the students that this is a difficulty I will overcome. It’s not my disability, it’s my new eye-abilities. Just maybe now, instead of getting booed and the non-verbal stare in my theater, I will create a theater full of questions, open dialogue, and sharing. A theater where my color-blind student will share about what it was like to be color blind and maybe he will have communicated to me and not been embarrassed that he couldn’t read the notes on the board because of the contrast.
Preparing the Stage
Like any good theater, you must ensure that all the seating is comfortable and attainable. If the seating isn’t right you are bound to have disruption before the show even starts. Let me tell you — this matters! I put glow-in-the-dark strips on low-contrast doorways so I don’t get bruised on my right side. Check the lighting in your classroom theater. Is it bright enough or maybe too bright? Sensory-friendly shows are a must. Are you on schedule? there’s nothing worse than coming to a show and discovering that the time was moved. That will really upset the students (or, you know, the people with the tickets to the show, since we are talking about the theater).
Change The Program
Last but not least, the program and the props. What is the font like? Is it big enough that everyone can read it? The spacing looks good, but is there enough contrast between the background and the font color on the graphics on the board?
The materials to go with the notes on the board are like real-life 3D props that the audience can pass around and look at. The audio should be set at a level that isn’t busting the eardrum and putting the front row into sensory overload. Perfecto! I have multiple ways for the audience to receive the content, the audio, the visual, and the program is all set at a level that is accessible to all. The remake is complete, the culture of acceptance has been practiced, the stage is prepped, and we have made all the adjustments to the program and materials. The remake will be better than ever, and no matter what lens the students are looking through, the brain will interpret just how beautiful the theater is.
So I leave you with this:
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” — Helen Keller.
Tara is co-author of Amazon best seller Control the Chaos: What it Takes to Create Order in the Classroom and Teach Executive Functioning Skills. She is also a co-host of Control the Chaos Edu podcast. She is a Certified Crisis Prevention Intervention Instructor, Youth, Teen, and Trauma-Informed Yoga Educator, Resident Educator Program Coordinator, and an Academic Behavior Coach for fourteen schools. In addition to her roles in the public school system, she is also an adjunct Professor for Ashland University. Tara is key to embedding and implementing Tier 1, 2, and 3 behavior interventions. She has a Master’s in Special Education mild to moderate and moderate to severe. She completed the Applied Behavior Analysis certificate program at the University of Cincinnati. She enjoys dissecting intense behaviors through functional behavior assessments and turning them into comprehensive behavioral intervention plans to support student progress. She also loves the proactive teaching of desired behaviors for students that need that support! With her new vision impairment, you will now find her talking about perseverance, acceptance, and accessibility when she is not busy talking about behavior in her day job!
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