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Personal Statement:
I was the first born in a set of triplets. From birth we were
treated as a unit. Strangers and family alike would refer to us as “the boys”
or the “Ault brothers.” It was common for people to identify us by one physical feature or a specific
character trait (I was deemed “the quiet one”).
The only place where I felt
treated as an individual was in school. However, the individual attention I
received was a consequence of my own failures as a student rather than any
unique traits or abilities inherent to me. While my brothers excelled in the
classroom, I struggled. When I was in kindergarten my parents were told that I
needed to be held back. In first grade, they heard the same thing. It appeared
I had a learning disability. I was eventually separated into a special education
classroom. My parents and a few of my teachers recognized that holding me back
would be difficult due to the fact that I was a triplet--they were concerned
about my future confidence and academic success when I got to middle and high
school. Instead, the school and my parents worked together to institute an
intensive intervention program replete with small group instruction, one-on-one
tutors, reading specialists, and academic counselors. This intervention lasted
five years. Their hard work paid off.
In 2013, I graduated from Marquette University with a Master’s
Degree in Global History. At the end of the ceremony, my father asked to hold
my diploma. I was the first person in my extended family to achieve this level
of education. When I put the diploma in his hands, he said that he regretted
that the teachers and specialists who worked with me decades ago were not able
to share in the moment. In that instance, I realized the lasting impact of special
education: the belief in a student’s potential no matter the odds; the power of
a future not built upon false hope, but one that is attainable.
For ten years, I held various positions in an array of
nonprofits. I was a teacher, an after-school program director, a youth counselor,
and a development director. Through the course of my career in nonprofits, I
have had the opportunity to study and
work in the Czech Republic, Moldova, Ukraine, and Nigeria. From 2011-2016, I
served as the director and founder of a small nonprofit organization called
Diaconia Connections, where I worked to raise over $78,000 for
aid and development causes in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and parts of
Eastern Africa. My experiences working internationally challenged me to be a
better cross-cultural communicator, to have empathy and seek understanding. By
learning languages (I speak Czech and Slovak) and befriending people very
different than myself, I became more aware of my privileges, prejudices, and
the way in which I represented
western power and hegemony (an unsettling realization for an individual working
in global relief and development).
In 2014, I received an invitation to teach at Pater Noster
Elementary School in Owerri, Nigeria. The understanding was that I would
volunteer for two months, learn about Igbo culture and language, and develop
lessons and programs for the students. Pater Noster is a private school with a
reputation for international exchange and creativity. Founded in 2010 as a
Pre-K through 6th grade elementary school, Pater Noster has since grown to 80
students with a full-time staff of 13 teachers. The school has welcomed three
volunteers teachers from the United States (including myself), and has hosted
three sets of FLAS fellows through Michigan State University’s African Studies
Center for Igbo Language. It was an offer that I could not refuse. At the
time,, words like “empowerment” and “agency” were common in my vocabulary. I
was concerned about “micro-loans” and “sustainability.” But when I witnessed
first-hand the dedication and care of my teacher colleagues at Pater Noster and
the seriousness with which Nigerian families take their child’s education, my
understanding of “agency” and “empowerment” began to change: a good education
and a quality school are the single most important tools for community
empowerment.
In 2017, I accepted a teaching position
with Rocketship Southside Community Prep as a Teach-for-America Corps Member
and enrolled in a Master’s of Urban Education program at Cardinal Stritch
University, with a focus in Special Education. I currently teach in one of the
most-impoverished cities in the country (Milwaukee, WI) and work with predominantly
Spanish-speaking students from immigrant families. As a special education
teacher, I firmly believe that every student can learn. That every student can
teach. And that they all have talents, ambitions, and dreams. If we are serious
as a country and global community about poverty reduction and equality, then we
must offer a quality education to all students regardless of their culture,
location, or physical and mental ability. It’s why I’ve proposed this project.
I want to work alongside Nigerian teachers to develop with them a training
program that will give them the skills and knowledge necessary to provide more
inclusive, research-based teaching practices into the classroom—practices that
have been proven to enhance the learning of all
students, including those with physical, cognitive, intellectual, and
emotional disabilities. Simply put, all students should have an opportunity to
succeed and pursue their dreams. They should be afforded the resources and
support needed to be educated, to attain their career and life ambitions, and
to live as independent, civic-minded individuals. Through the hard work of my own teachers,
I’ve been able to live the privilege first-hand. And I know there are students
in Owerri, Nigeria, that deserve that chance as well.
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Statement of Grant
Purpose
Graduate Application,
Urban Special Education (Master’s Degree)
Research into whether
professional development trainings around inclusion can influence teacher
beliefs and practices would provide insight into how Nigeria can more
effectively educate all learners, including those with special needs. As
inclusion has become a focus of international educational policy, Nigeria has
adopted inclusive tenents into its national educational policy statements. Policy makers around the
world are beginning to understand inclusive education as central to human rights and
development. Significant barriers, however, prohibit
most Nigerian schools from implementing inclusive educational practices. The
following are widely-cited problems: limited funding for special education
training and resources; culturally-insensitive and ineffective assessment and
placement evaluations; negative cultural perceptions; a dearth of assistive
technologies; and a small number of properly-trained teachers. This project proposes to use an Intervention
Research method to investigate whether a low-tech, replicable professional
development model can improve inclusive practices in Pater Noster Elementary
School in Owerri, Nigeria, thus mitigating one of the barriers to Inclusion:
teacher training.
This project developed
from discussions with school administrators and teachers in Owerri during the
summer of 2014 when I served as a teacher at Pater Noster Elementary School.
Fellow teachers and school leaders spoke openly about their need for training
in educational strategies to enable them to more effectively educate students
who were exhibiting academic and social delays. To meet this need, I was asked
to organize and develop a series of three teacher trainings for an all-staff
professional development. While the trainings were received positively, I was
left wondering whether that form of professional development could be
reimagined to make it more culturally-competent, teacher-led, and replicable.
Since that time, I have received a Master’s Degree in Global History from
Marquette University and pursued a career in nonprofit administration and
education. At present, I am working as an elementary special education teacher
in the city of Milwaukee, WI, where I teach low-income, Spanish-speaking
students from migrant families. Further, I am currently enrolled in an
Educational Master’s Degree Program at Cardinal Stritch University, where I am
pursuing a degree in Urban Education with a focus in Special Education.
My research project will
be designed to measure the effectiveness of professional development in enhancing
the practices and beliefs of teachers around inclusion. To do so, the research
will consist of three components: 1) a Pre-Assessment of teacher beliefs and
practices; 2) a systemic intervention that will consist of the development and
facilitation of a professional development module; 3) a Post-Assessment that
will evaluate the effectiveness of the professional development module through
observations, teacher belief inventories, and a survey of student perceptions
about school connectedness and learning.
To initiate the first
component of the research, I will work with Pater Noster school leaders and
regional educational experts to develop a culturally-appropriate Beliefs
Inventory tool to obtain baseline information on the knowledge, skills, attitudes
and dispositions of Pater Noster teachers towards inclusive practices. The
beliefs inventory will be modeled off of the Options Relative to the
Integration of Students with Disabilities Mainstreaming (ORI), developed by
Antonak and Larivee (1995), along with the Scale of Teachers’ Attitudes Toward
Inclusive Classrooms Instruments (STATIC). In addition to the development and
use of a beliefs inventory, I will observe the teaching practices of educators
in the classroom, evaluating the frequency and use of inclusive practices prior
to intervention. Observational protocols will be modeled off of the Teaching
Dimensions Observation Protocol (TDOP) and the University of Michigan’s
Inventory of Inclusive Teaching Strategies. Through interviews with teachers
and through observations, I will gather
the necessary background information needed to construct an overall inclusive
profile of the school, which will be published in a report to the head of
school. The duration of this component will be 2 months.
The second component
involves the intervention. To do so, I will synthesize the information gathered
from the belief inventories and observations to develop a professional
development module that will train teachers in inclusive practices. I will work
with Pater Noster school leaders and regional educational experts to formulate
a culturally-appropriate professional development curriculum that will
incorporate best-practices in adult education, including but not limited to,
Universal Design for Learning frameworks that imbed multiple means of learning
alongside low-tech elements that incorporate action, expression, and
engagement. The professional development module will be designed to be low-tech
and easily replicable so that teachers can be trained as facilitators and offer
the professional development to both rural and urban schools. Once the
professional development module is written, I will then model its facilitation
through a series of 5 monthly installments at Pater Noster. Each session will
last between 3-5 hours, with targeted practice, coaching, and follow-up, during
the weeks between sessions. The duration of this component will be 5-6 months
and will begin at the termination of the first.
The final component of
the research will consist of a post-intervention assessment of the
effectiveness of the professional development in improving inclusive practices
at Pater Noster, whether the training has enhanced the knowledge and skills of
teachers around inclusion, and whether the intervention has positively
influenced student perceptions and attitudes about school connectedness and
learning. To gather the information, I will again model the beliefs inventory
off of the Options Relative to the Integration of Students with Disabilities
Mainstreaming (ORI), developed by Antonak and Larivee (1995), along with the
Scale of Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Inclusive Classrooms Instruments (STATIC);
and develop my observational protocol off of the Teaching Dimensions
Observation Protocol (TDOP) and the University of Michigan’s Inventory of
Inclusive Teaching Strategies. The duration of this component will be 1 month.
After concluding the
research components, I will synthesize my data and findings into a report so
that the research can be distributed and presented to educational leaders and
government officials in Imo State, Nigeria. I will also work with Pater Noster
staff, regional educational experts, and Nigerian Universities to publish the
professional development module into a curriculum book so that it can be distributed
to other schools in the region. Further, I will work with Pater Noster teachers
and school leaders to train them as professional development facilitators and
offer the training to other schools in Owerri and Imo State. In the United
States, I will seek opportunities to adapt the professional development to
offer it to rural and urban schools who are in need of training and guidance
around inclusion. I will also seek opportunities to publish my research in
academic journals.
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