Capitalizing on Human Resources

By Alisa Bender

As I was sitting in our co-teaching partners meeting last week, I admitted my short-coming to my partners. Lesson planning: No problem. Pacing guide: Easy breezy. High expectations and caring relationships: Got it. But extrinsic motivation for inclusive students: well, I know I don’t keep up with those systems. I can start, hype and remind, but keep up with it, maintain it so it works – not so well. My partner, Michael Madormo, got excited and responded, “No worries, I love those things.” With animated hands and wide-eyes, he continued, “I’ve got it.” The next day, he had poster draft, talk script, tickets, prizes and tracking system ready to go.

Here lies the underlying revolution of the co-teaching model at James Campbell High School (JCHS) in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. The teachers not only accommodate the fact that each teacher is different, they capitalize on these differences. The authors of Now, Discover Your Strengths, say this is in fact the way of great organizations.

The JCHS co-teaching model has results; the Special Education students are currently outperforming students at other public high schools. Since inception of the co-teaching model, Special Education students are performing roughly 20 percent less then General Education students on assessments, including the Hawaii State Assessments Quarterlies and school common assessments.

Our goal is reducing the performance gap to 10 percent by year 2013. The gap in performance used to be greater with zero proficiency in any assessment for Special Education students; but the channeling of teachers and building around their strengths has started the dramatic jumps and closing of the performance gap between Special Education and General Education.

For JCHS, inclusion has been strategic and built entirely on people bringing their strengths into a classroom. Teachers know how each person, a co-teaching partner, brings unique and enduring talents. They allow for the growth of their partner’s strengths. For these reasons, teachers are also given differentiated training and support by their ICLE consultants, Dr. Larry Gloeckler and Patty Laney, school administration and inclusion facilitator.

JCHS is capitalizing on strengths rather than forcing teachers into a stylistic mold; we do not take people’s strengths for granted or focus exclusively on minimizing their weakness. It would be like forgetting students’ strengths and spend all our time shoring up their weakness through programs and prescriptions. In the 21st century and beyond, we know all students -- and at James Campbell High School, all teachers -- will achieve if we are systematic in strength-building, along side of strengthening and stretching skills and proficiencies.

Alisa Bender teaches at James Campbell High School, in Ewa Beach, Hawaii.