#50 - Professor Linda Graham on Inclusive Education

Professor Linda Graham (Queensland University of Technology), Director of the QUT Centre for Inclusive Education, joins host, Leisa Reichelt to discuss research showing that universally accessible teaching and assessment improves outcomes for neurodivergent students and benefits all learners. 

Professor Graham shares her own experience of being pushed out of school, her pathway to university, and her commitment to changing education for students like herself and her neurodivergent children. 

She advises families to understand rights under the CRPD, the Disability Discrimination Act, and the Disability Standards for Education, emphasizing schools’ obligation to consult students and parents and address barriers rather than offer generic or harmful adjustments. 

Professor Graham describes practical accessible assessment and teaching strategies (clear task design, removing unnecessary visual clutter, defining key terms, using visual supports for instructions) and notes how academic barriers and bullying harm wellbeing and self-concept, contributing to School Can’t.

00:00 Welcome and Episode Preview

01:05 Meet Professor Linda Graham

02:19 Linda’s School Story

04:30 From Parenting to Purpose

07:30 Know Your Rights at School

14:07 Trust Your Child and Yourself

22:24 Why Schools Still Exclude

24:43 Research on Accessible Learning

29:16 What Accessible Assessment Looks Like

34:54 Accessible Teaching Strategies

41:59 Making Change Without Burnout

46:41 Resources and Closing Thoughts

People & resources mentioned in this episode:

• Professor Linda Graham on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/professor-linda-j-graham-82458522/
• QUT Centre for Inclusive Education - https://research.qut.edu.au/c4ie/
•  Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, General comment No. 4 on Article 24 - the right to inclusive education https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/general-comments-and-recommendations/general-comment-no-4-article-24-right-inclusive

Transcript

Leisa Reichelt 0:05

​Hello and welcome to the School Can't Experience Podcast. I'm Leisa Reichelt and this podcast is brought to you by the School Can't Australia Community. Caring for a young person who is struggling to attend school can be a stressful and isolating experience, but you are not alone. Thousands of parents across Australia and many more around the world face similar challenges and experiences every day. Today we are joined by inclusive education expert Professor Linda Graham, who is from the Queensland University of Technology. We are gonna be talking about some of her recent research that shows how teaching pedagogy and assessment that is made more accessible for our neurodivergent kids actually helps to improve the experience of school for all students and how designing these universal rather than individualized accommodations can really help the adoption of these interventions at school. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Professor Linda Graham, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast today. Really appreciate you taking the time.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 1:02

Thank you, Leisa. Thanks for inviting me.

Leisa Reichelt 1:05

Let's start off by just learning a little bit about you. Love to hear a little about your personal journey, what brought you to the work that you're doing, and tell us a little bit about where you are and what you're doing these days.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 1:16

Currently I'm the, Director of the QUT Centre for Inclusive Education. So that's in Queensland University of Technology. I've been at QUT for 13 years and, I did my PhD there as well. But, made QUT my home because it is the, for a long time has been the leader of inclusive education in Australia. And, and I wanted to do my PhD in inclusive education because, I hadn't found school education inclusive. I had, two neurodivergent children. Although at the time I started my PhD, the little one was, only two and I was in denial. So, yeah, basically I knew that school education isn't really made, like mainstream school education is not shaped for people like us.

Leisa Reichelt 2:19

We were talking earlier and you said that by year eight you kind of knew that this was not a thing that was gonna last for you.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 2:25

so yeah, what I was telling you earlier was that I still distinctly remember sitting on the, hot concrete, school assembly, thinking to myself, I cannot do another four years of this. And I was out by mid-year 10. Not of my own volition,

Leisa Reichelt 2:44

Oh, really?

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 2:44

No.

Leisa Reichelt 2:45

Did they kick you out?

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 2:47

yeah, basically as soon as I turned 16, that was it. Goodbye.

Leisa Reichelt 2:51

Wow.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 2:51

My principal told me that I was a waste of space, and that I would never amount to anything. And, for about six years, I believed him and I agreed with him. but then eventually I thought, yeah, nah. My dad, if it wasn't for my dad, I wouldn't be where I am today. He said to me after another phone call where I was laying out the problems of the world to him, he said to me, darling, you need to go to university. That's where people who think like you belong. So yeah, I did, I went to uni and I did a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Modern History because it was what I loved and I thought I'd be an English and History teacher, but I kept coming back. I was doing a minor in education, so in all of my education units, two things happened. One was that I fell out of love with English Literature and Modern History, and instead fell in love with the study of Education. And the second thing was that I realized schools hadn't changed, and that I would probably get chewed up and spat out the same way, if I became a teacher. so I had a baby instead.

Leisa Reichelt 4:23

Why not?

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 4:24

Which was a really good way of, of stopping everybody from asking me what I was gonna do with my life. And my daughter, had many, many medical problems. And, also by the time she was three was diagnosed with Aspergers and ADHD. And soon as I figured out what, you know, all of that was, I I actually remember feeling this cold clutch of dread around my heart thinking if, you know, that school was gonna be the hardest place for her. And it was really interesting because the pediatrician that we were dealing with at the time, who was a specialist in sensitive children and, you know, dietary impacts and all sorts of things, said to me, you look like an intelligent woman. You should go and get a job and put her in daycare because she is gonna have ADHD and will suck the life out of you. She said that to me when my daughter was seven months old. At that time I thought that ADHD was this thing that, you know, boys got when they had too much red cordial at the party. That was kind of the thinking in the, the late nineties, early two thousands. And so the first thing I did was went downstairs from Royal Prince Alfred down to their bookshop and bought four books on ADHD, read them and I went, oh God, there's my brother, sister, and I, and then shortly afterwards called my dad and said, dad, I'm really sorry.

Leisa Reichelt 6:05

Yeah.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 6:05

Really sorry for what we put you through.

Leisa Reichelt 6:08

Yeah.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 6:08

But, so yeah, that's me. and basically since then I've dedicated my life to trying to improve school education for young people like myself and my children, because I would not be where I am today, yes other than my father, but for the opportunity that education gave me. And I see so many young people, including my best friend from high school, who have not been able to take advantage of that so-called opportunity of the way that education is delivered. And it is delivered in ways that are appropriate for I think an ever decreasing number of children. And so yeah, my ambition is to try and change that because in fact, what we have demonstrated is that the practices that help neurodivergent kids, and kids with disability actually benefit everyone. So its a win win to do it.

Leisa Reichelt 7:19

It's just always the way with accessible design, isn't it? Like it actually might be designed to help people with particular access needs, but then it goes on and helps the entire population. It's such a common story.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 7:30

Yep.

Leisa Reichelt 7:30

Linda, for folks who are in families that are struggling with School Can't, and at their wits end right now, what do you want them to understand about what their kids are experiencing and why it's so difficult?

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 7:47

First of all, I want them to understand what their rights are. Its very difficult to advocate for your children unless you do know what those are. And, for them to hook in to various support and advocacy groups that can provide resources to help them know what their rights are. So the first thing I would advise them is to find out about the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and particularly General Comment Number Four on, Article 24, which is the right to an inclusive education. The Australian government, the federal government has signed up a signatory and has ratified the CRPD and the optional protocol, which means that it has agreed to be held legally accountable. So all of the, the State Governments sit underneath the federal government in that respect. And getting the State Governments on board as to making sure that they comply is an ongoing moving feast. But that being said, we do have that obligation. At the same time, we also have, the national Disability Discrimination Act and the Disability Standards for Education and what those require, educators are obligated to consult in the first instance with students and/or their parent. And what they're supposed to consult about is how students learn, what the barriers they experience are and which types of adjustments would help. Now that's a really critical, important piece of information for parents to know because it doesn't happen lot of the time. It doesn't happen. But it should, and it is something that parents can use to say, Oi, you know, this is meant to happen. And, what they need to forestall against is where schools will say to them, here are the adjustments that we are making for your kids, sign. Because if they haven't conducted a consultation process, they can't know what the barriers are for that individual student. And what you will find, because educators are overwhelmed with the work that they have, the adjustments are being done by a special education teacher or someone else outside the classroom. What you'll find is that the adjustments are maybe generic, extra time in exams. Or that they can be harmful. Oh, you only have to come to school part-time rather than fixing the problem. So what parents need to do is hold the school's feet to the fire in terms of making sure that adjustments are relevant and therefore effective, and they can't be, if students are not consulted, and if the adjustments don't address the barriers that are causing the problem in the first place. That's advice number two. And, finding out what your rights and what the obligations are. The second part of it is, and you know, the parents that you have, in your, audience. I don't want to, sort of teach them how to suck eggs because a majority of them will be very in tune with their students, or their children. But what can be challenging, I think, is that sometimes your children can be very different to you. And so my former PhD student and very, very dear friend Haley Tancredi, gave me a book at one point, which was called something about an apple falling far from the tree. It was basically about a neurotypical parent who had a neurodivergent child and the emotional and cognitive dissonance that occurs there because they don't understand what their child is experiencing. I think with our children, I've always been better able to understand them because in my case, the apples did not fall far from the tree.

Leisa Reichelt 12:28

Linda, I think even if you do have a shared neurotype with your kid, sometimes even just the generational differences can make it really different. Like when,

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 12:37

true.

Leisa Reichelt 12:38

When I was going through school, and as a chronic people pleaser from the early days, like the idea that you could just choose not to attend school, never entered my head. And whereas with my son, like he and I think COVID helped with this as well, right? Where a lot of kids just got an insight into like what it was like not to go to school and how life actually carried on and everything was fine. It's just like the mentality of today's kids is quite different because of social changes, generational changes, COVID, whatever. And I think even if you have a shared neurotype, it can still take some time to really sort of get into that head space and understand how they're experiencing it and how they're responding to it, and how that's maybe different to the way that, I might have when I was going through school.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 13:30

Yeah. No, you are, you're absolutely right. And I do think that things now are different from you know, 40 years ago when I was at school. Bullying then took place with the prank phone calls or someone putting an anonymous note in your letterbox or, doing nasty stuff like that. And of course from girls, the whispering campaign and, name calling, all that sort of stuff. Now you've got that plus, the cyber bullying aspect and the ostracism, And so that I think is an additional dimension for parents now to be able to deal with. I think one of the other hard things for parents, um, mothers, although you know I know that's a generalization, but mothers still shoulder the lion's share the emotional burden of child rearing. And of the hardest things for mothers to deal with and speaking from experience is that sense that your job is to protect your children. And something I felt very keenly when it was actually when my daughter started doing some daycare. It was very difficult in the beginning where she would go to daycare one day a week and it was very traumatic. I remember sitting there, watching, the daycare that we, got her into very fortunately, was at Macquarie University. And it had, two-way windows where you could sit and observe, like students doing a Bachelor of Early Childhood. And a mother, I used to sitting there and watch what the hell was going on. I'm just thinking, oh my God, how can I be doing this to her? Every fibre of your being as a mother is to prevent harm coming to your child. It can be very, very difficult to parse the difference between, what might be actually good for them and what might be not and where that boundary lies.

Leisa Reichelt 15:44

Well, and you're balancing two different kinds of harms, aren't you? Right. You've got the, the emotional harm that you see they're experiencing in school, but then, the whole of society tells you that by them not engaging in school, you are harming their future prospects. And, their ability to be a, a proper human in society and all of those kinds of things as well. So like, which harm is the worst.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 16:05

yes. So I do think that it's very difficult not to become overprotective, and what I know the parent audience will be sitting nodding when I say that they often feel a bit gaslighted about being overprotective. But one of the problems for us is that, you kind of have to be more protective than the average parent, and that can be perceived as overprotective. And it means that you doubt yourself.

Leisa Reichelt 16:46

Yeah, we have lots of mums who are told that their child's anxiety is their fault. You're anxious mum, and that's why your child's anxious. If you could stop being anxious, then your child wouldn't be so anxious.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 16:57

The first time I was told that was my daughter was five and a half months old, and, she had like all these feeding problems. She was almost impossible to feed. And, she was admitted into hospital And I, didn't, because she was my first child, I didn't really understand what was going on. But we were put in a room that was an observation room and at certain point, the, nurse came in and took her away from me and basically said that they believed that the issue was my anxiety. And so they were taking her away to feed her. And then they came back, they came back with this absolute basketcase on their hands, handed her back to me and went, yeah, okay, it's not you. And I was

Leisa Reichelt 17:51

Well, it was validating at least.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 17:52

Yeah. I told them, yeah, I could have told you that.

Leisa Reichelt 17:56

Yeah.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 17:56

Whether it's in the medical area or in the educational area, people's assumptions are hugely damaging. And one of the other things that I wrote about at one point, like back in 2010, was what I call Parallel Universe Syndrome. And I experienced that both in medicine, hospitals which have got their own culture, logic, time zone, everything. And I experienced the same thing, both in, early childhood care and school. The schema that professionals use to make sense out of a situation is predicated on the average person, you know, the average patient, the average child, and so forth. And so my message is to the mums that are listening and to dads is trust what you know because you know your child better than anyone and stand up for yourself. Stand up for your child and tell everyone who does not know your child and who is operating off a schema that is built on their own experience and on experience with typical children you know, educate them. My child's different and they have a right, and you have an obligation. And, everyone has that obligation under National legislation and international law. So we actually cannot allow, where some people get to avoid that obligation. I do think will make me unpopular, but I think one of the things that doesn't get said enough, is that when we think about interest holders, which is another, better word for stakeholders, but interest holders in the education sphere in terms of the size of the populations within those groups. Children and parents are the two largest interest holders when we come to education. The ones that have the, most vested interest, in

Leisa Reichelt 20:31

and the highest population. Yeah.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 20:33

Yeah. But they're not the ones, like we rarely hear anything about parents. We hear a lot about teachers and principals and, that is absolutely understandable, but in terms of political power, those groups hold more than parent and student groups. And what I think needs to be remembered, is that at the end of the day, education exists for the purpose educating and producing future citizens. It does not exist to give some people a job. It does that, that's not its primary purpose. It's primary purpose is to educate young people so that they become healthy, productive, happy members of our future society. And if we are not educating well, a significant minority. And when I say minority it, we're talking about a substantial number of young people who are still not being served well, by current mainstream education models. Now that is, I think, a really important impetus for people to start thinking again about what our education system is for and how we deliver it.

Leisa Reichelt 22:24

Let's dig into that some more, Linda, Why does our education system continue to not be as inclusive as it needs to be?

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 22:33

I would argue that it's not serving a lot of young people well. I think that currently what we have is some very obvious indicators of that, but I think it would be a mistake to think that those indicators and the young people that those indicators represent, are the extent of the populations that are not being well served. So let me explain what I mean by that. So if we were to look at certain indicators like, absenteeism, homeschooling numbers, which are increasing, increased enrollments in flexible learning options and in alternative education, increasing, use of suspension and exclusion, and the decline in the number of young people that are completing year 12. The number of young people that are doing enough to be in education, further education, employment and training after school. I think if we were to look at all of those indicators, we would see that there are particular groups within that who are represented by those numbers. Like, students with disability, indigenous students, children in out-of-home care, particularly ones that are all three. But we're also talking about boys particular boys. Those in lower socioeconomic communities. We're talking about kids in regional and remote areas. We're also talking about particular girls, so, they tend to be less visible than boys, but that doesn't mean that some girls are not copping it either. So those, if you like, those groups are kind of the headline figures, you know, the, the quintessential canaries in the coal mine. Right. But what our research has demonstrated most recently, we've just finished a major project that was actually looking at if we increase or improve the accessibility of school assessment and classroom pedagogy. If we do those things, does that improve the experiences and outcomes of kids with. I mean, you can loosely call them neurodivergent kids, but basically the two groups we were particularly interested in was students with ADHD and students with developmental language disorder. But, does it improve their school experiences and learning experiences and outcomes, in comparison to students without those disabilities? We did that for a really good reason. If what we've learned, over the many years in inclusive education and what we've been doing is that if you have something that is only for one group, chances are it won't get done. So, like differentiation and so on and so forth, or even adjustments, right? if it only has to be done by one group, it doesn't become mainstream practice. Right? So we wanted to know whether this approach would benefit everyone, because then there's much more chance of it happening, and sure enough it does. Now what we discovered was that it's not so the barriers that we were designing out of assessment and pedagogy, it's not that those barriers are peculiar to the groups like the, kids with ADHD and DLD, all kids are experiencing those same barriers. They're basically things that we do as educators that get in the way. The difference between the two groups is that the kids without disabilities have more resources to be able to overcome those barriers. Not that they aren't impeded by them. For the kids with ADHD and DLD, those barriers can actually completely shut down their ability to access and participate. It becomes incredibly frustrating for them. They feel dumb, they feel embarrassed. They miss a lot of what's happening. They get things wrong. Because, it's just not a productive way of teaching. And so we changed that up and what we found were significant improvements in experiences and outcomes for both groups. Some people have said to us, well, but if it improves, things for both groups, how are you actually leveling the playing field? Like, why should we do this? And I'm like, Like, everyone's doing better. But then I thought, okay, I think I know where they're coming from. And so the way that I responded that question is okay.'cause I think what they were saying was, you're still not equalizing the goalposts, you know,

Leisa Reichelt 28:12

Hmm.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 28:13

how's that equity? I'm like, right, okay. I mean, that's not what equity means, but, the educational significance of what we did meant that the kids in our neurodivergent group, the majority of them were no longer failing.

Leisa Reichelt 28:32

Hmm.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 28:33

So they were going from, you know, like a low C and so what we did was move them up. And we didn't change the task at all. What we changed were the linguistic and visual and procedural barriers that were buried in that task. So what we did was made it more comprehensible and clearer, and we provided supports to be able to help those kids begin the task, work their way through the task, finish the task. And so they were able to engage cognitively just as well as some of those other kids.

Leisa Reichelt 29:16

So what does more accessible pedagogy and assessment look like? If you were gonna compare, like before and after, what would a comparison look like?

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 29:26

I think what people need to get their heads around with, particularly with neurodivergent kids is that, I kind of understand this on a really deep level because I'm the same. And so the barriers that are barriers for those kids are, barriers for me as well. So I'm like allergic to them. And, so when I see, let's, let's talk about assessment tasks for a minute. When I see an assessment task that is full of text. Like, it's just like a, a steel door comes down straight in front of me. I can't deal with lots of texts, lots of information, no structure, you know, I'm just like, get that away from me. And it's actually difficult for me to read it. You have to fight that urge to just walk away, right? Now some people are perfectly comfortable with, you know, mess. I'm not, lots of our kids are not either. Actually, it imposes work for everyone to have to sit there and decipher the thing, right? The easiest area of accessibility in assessment tasks is visual. So with the schools that we're working with now, we're working with like 10 schools. So we're in both primary and secondary now. So we give them a template to say, okay, based on our research, which used eye tracking and student voice and all sorts of measurement, we basically said, right, this is what we've come up with as the least visually offensive template. What it does is it moves the task description right up the top. It eliminates all unnecessary information or like information that is not necessary for students to understand what the task is about and what they have to do. We took out, images and pictures that were there to try and make it engaging for kids, but what we showed through the eye tracking is that they don't actually look at it. It just takes up space. What that then does is it reduces space for you to be able to describe the task and what kids have to do. So, we used, a clear task description box at the top and, used a sort of semi bright color so that kids know this is where the important information is. One of the things with ADHD right is difficulty being able to distinguish important from unimportant information. Kids with DLD have exactly the same issue. So don't make it harder for them. We also supported kids vocabulary, which is a huge problem in high school especially. Particularly when you start getting into certain subjects like science, it's full of specialist vocabulary and so lots of kids get sort of shut out because teachers are teaching really fast and they're using terms that kids have never heard before. So they're not able to hold it in their working memory in order to put it in their long-term memory. So on the assessment task sheet, we've got a key terms thing at the bottom. So if there are important terms that are used up in the task description or elsewhere on that first page, that's given a definition down the bottom. So, that helps kids with developmental language disorder or kids with the background other than English. Because a lot of us don't remember as proficient speakers of English and adult vocabularies that certain words in the English language can be really difficult because they have multiple meanings. So on one of the assessment tasks we redesigned, the task told students to elaborate their stance. So just in that little phrase, there are two words that have multiple meanings. Elaborate depending on how it's pronounced can be either elaborate or elaborate right? Stance can mean your position on something or the position that your body takes when you're delivering a persuasive speech. In this assessment task, the word stance was being used multiple times and both meanings were being used. So what we did was we completely got rid of the word elaborate. And we put, what kids had to do in a much, more direct and simpler statement, very brief. And we explained, because stance still had to be in the rubric because it was being used for persuasive speech. We explained what the word stance can mean and took that as a teachable moment to explain that stance has two meanings. So it's those kinds of nuances. We don't often think about the barriers that can really mess with kids and their understanding. Now, basically what we've done in teaching is kind of the same thing. So if you think about assessment tasks as written language, and then you think about teaching as both spoken and written language, essentially what we've done there is to work with teachers to explain to them the fact that teaching is all language. And also about the ephemeral state of language because it dissipates into the air. As soon as you say it, its gone. And we're relying on is students to be able to take it in and retain it quickly as we say it. And if we throw little curve balls in there, like specialist vocabulary or if, you know, there's some sort of distraction happening or, we speak too quickly or not loudly enough, you know, if we don't build pauses into our vocal rate. Or if we don't reiterate important things, none of it's gonna go in. Definitely not for the kids who have difficulties with language, attention and so forth.

Leisa Reichelt 36:20

I'm also thinking, Linda, about, kids who have got fluctuating capacity and ability to be at school, and if you miss a lesson or you miss a couple of lessons, then you miss some key terms that then become assumed knowledge moving forward, that can be really problematic too.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 36:36

That is absolutely the case. And when, if you are anxious as well, that affects your working memory capacity because you have often these rushing thoughts going through your mind and you can also get anxious about the fact that you're not taking things in. So are ways that teachers can support students. One of those, so in our accessible pedagogies work, we've got those strategies, so visual supports. Since they debunked learning styles in the early two thousands, the research has demonstrated since then that actually everyone benefits from multiple means of representation. Which comes straight out of universal design for learning. But essentially what it is, is that if we only deliver information auditorially or orally, then we are placing a lot of load on that sense, right? But if we compliment audio instruction with visual supports, then they can see conceptually what's happening up here and they can listen as long as what's on the visual support doesn't kind of split their attention. The best way to use visual supports is that dot point version where you speak to the dot points so you're not distracting from what you're saying verbally, to use visuals like pictures, images, or whatever to provide some sort of conceptual understanding. But also particularly when a teacher will say give instructions for what students have to do. If I could change one thing with a magic wand, it would be that those instructions are never just oral because working memory being what it is and kids with ADHD in particular, having difficulties with attention, also more working memory, constraints than the average person. What it means is that the primacy, and recency effects of that are that they will remember the first thing. They'll remember the last thing, but they won't remember the thing in the middle

Leisa Reichelt 39:00

Hmm.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 39:00

and they get in trouble for it. So the way to solve that is you always have a visual support because the other thing that happens is, they might remember it when you say it immediately, but they won't remember it in five minutes time. So if there's a visual support up on the board saying, do this, do that, and then do this, they've always got it there. And they don't then have to talk to the person next to them, say, what were we meant to do? Or they forget and they go, that's a lost cause. Well, I'll just start chatting about what I did on the weekend, We actually did design Accessibility Design Principles. They're on our website, and in our book from the accessible assessment project. So, getting a bit more specifically, back into the issue of School Can't is that, these, barriers that these kids face in school. So far we've only talked about the academic side of that. We haven't talked about the social barriers. But those barriers, the, the academic stuff, wears kids down over time, it wears them down. But it also it impacts their self-concept. So there's academic self-concept, their identity, what they believe about themselves as to whether they are capable, intelligent beings. And that's why we've moved our work into primary. So we're really concentrating on upper primary and lower secondary right now. Because we started having some positive impact with, you know, kids in year 10 who were never even submitting assignments, like they would get an E, or a non-submit all the time. And like a teacher that worked with us, and I interviewed her at the end of the term, her and I were in tears during the interview, like happy tears, because she was telling me about a student, pseudonym called Michael. And she said to me, Linda, I've never been able to reach him. This term for the first time, he said, Miss, he was holding the assessment task sheet and said, Miss, I think I can do this. And he did. And he passed for the very first time

Leisa Reichelt 41:25

And that's just through the combination of more accessible teaching in the classroom

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 41:30

assessment task sheet.

Leisa Reichelt 41:31

yeah.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 41:32

And what we then started talking about was, what if we can make that happen earlier? What if the Michaels of this world can experience that hope and success earlier and the kind of confidence in themselves and independence in being able to not only do it, but to succeed in doing it. And so that's why we've started earlier.

Leisa Reichelt 41:59

Linda, one thing I thought I just wanna reflect on is that, we talk to people on this podcast frequently about what needs to be better in schools, and it very often falls back to teachers doing things differently. And a part of that is having more training and like teachers need to learn more about understanding how to be neuro affirming. And now you're saying teachers need to learn more about how to present their content more accessibly in the classroom, how to design more accessible assessments. How do we get past this overwhelm of going, a lot seems to hinge on the teacher and their ability and their capacity, and yet, as we know, most of our teachers are stretched thin.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 42:47

Yep. Well, and that's where inclusive education comes in. And I think, It's also where leadership comes in. And when I talk about leadership, I'm not just talking about school principals. I think school principals have one of the hardest jobs there are, but, I should say school leaders because middle leaders are this kind of often invisible life force, who are, not talked about as much as school principals, but they're really the ones that make shit happen in a school.

Leisa Reichelt 43:23

I think principals are very important in terms of culture setting, setting the culture for the school on whether or not this is a priority.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 43:28

Absolutely And empowering like identifying and empowering the right middle leaders and the right kind of priorities. Where I think ultimately leadership lies is with our Ministers for Education because I have been fortunate enough to see from close quarters just how the system works. If a Minister wants something to happen it will happen. And that's a double-edged sword right Because can also mean.

Leisa Reichelt 44:10

work for you and work against you

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 44:11

Yeah. So what it can also mean is that you've got very good people within the department who are saying, these are the priorities and things we should be doing, and this is what's evidence-based and so forth. And the minister goes, oh, no, no. I want, you know, God knows what. If we want, at the end of the day, for our society to have knowledgeable citizens who can contribute to our economy, to our culture and arts and so forth. And if we want a cohesive society, then schooling cannot just be about literacy and numeracy. Children cannot learn if they do not have wellbeing, if they do not have good mental health. And there's an awful lot within the school day that can affect their mental health. The relationships between children and the people that they spend the majority of their school day with, which is their peers and their teachers and so forth, is critical. Yet when, for example, we hear from young people who have been forced into homeschooling, and who experience School Can't. I hate the term school refusal, because that's not

Leisa Reichelt 45:48

amongst friends.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 45:49

Yeah. I was overjoyed when I saw School Can't emerge because I thought, yep, finally someone has nailed It and because the reality is that they just can't do it anymore. And that is despite all of the years about anti-bullying and this is another heads up to your parent audience, harking back to the Disability Standards for Education. Pay really close attention to the obligation that education providers have to eliminate harassment and vilification. Because that has never been achieved, you know, the, the incidence of bullying against neurodivergent young people and students with disability is huge.

Leisa Reichelt 46:41

Linda, we are gonna have to wrap up. but I really, really appreciate all the time that you shared with us and all of the insight and knowledge that you've given us. If people are interested in learning more about this inclusive pedagogy and inclusive assessments, where is a good place for them to go find out more about that?

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 46:58

So they can just look me up, and get in contact with me, or they can look at the QUT Centre for Inclusive Education website. So, we have a whole bunch of information out there and one of the things the parents have done very successfully is they've bought our pink book, which is Inclusive Education in the 21st Century, and some have started buying the Accessible Assessment and Pedagogies book for either their school principal or their child's classroom teacher and started that sort of conversation with them.

Leisa Reichelt 47:37

It's a great idea. Fantastic. Well, we will put links to the book and to other information and your contact details, Linda, in the show notes that go with this podcast so people can look into it some more and perhaps buy their favorite teacher or principal a gift sometime soon.

Professor Linda Graham, QUT Centre for Inclusive Education 47:54

Thanks,

Leisa Reichelt 47:55

Thank you so much, Linda. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I really appreciate your time. Well, I really hope you enjoyed hearing about the work that Linda and her team at the Centre for Inclusive Education are doing. I was particularly taken by the reflection on the importance of widespread adoption for these improvements and how that supports everyone to do better and increases the likelihood that they'll actually happen in the classroom. And I feel like it's something that we've heard in earlier episodes with some of our Occupational Therapy guests as well. So it's really food for thought. I've put links to the resources that Linda mentioned in the episode notes if you would like to dive in deeper. If you've found our podcast helpful today, I would be so grateful if you could take a moment to subscribe or give us a rating or a review. It really does help us get this podcast in front of other people with School Can't kids who haven't yet found the School Can't community and all the information and support that we can share. If you have some feedback for us or a suggestion for a future topic or a guest, or perhaps you would like to share your own Lived Experience story with us, which we would absolutely love, please drop me an email to schoolcantpodcast@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. If you are a parent or carer in Australia and you are feeling distressed, please remember you can always call the Parent Helpline in your state or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. Please do not hesitate to reach out for support. Thanks again for listening. We will talk again soon. Take care.