Strategy/Activity Idea(s)????

Question

Teachers --
How do you help your general ed. students become more accepting of your special needs students? Do you have a particular strategy/incorporate a certain activity that has proven successful for you? Please reply with your idea(s). Thank you :-)

Answer 1

I have found that when I model accepting behavior, my students also practice accepting behavior. So just act the way that you want your students to act.

Answer 2

I totally agree with the first two answers. Acceptance must be genuinely modelled.
Find out from the student's former teachers/parents/siblings a particular strength that the student has and then engineer an activity that would allow the student to showcase this so that his/her peers could see him/her being successful. Most of the gen ed kids already have this acceptance.
I've done this dozens of times with kids who had art ability, music ability, knowledge of arcane topics. I remember one who could imitate bird calls so I incorporated that into an activity and the other kids kept asking him to teach them.

Answer 3

The best way is first to be completely accepting yourself. Make sure you are showing no issues yourself (even if you have them).

A lot depends on the grade. I have found that kids are usually quite accepting of physical special needs and special needs that are quite clear (as in a severely autistic child). What they seem to be less tolerate of is kids that "seem" normal but are LD, etc. Then it's a fine line between explaining to a child that someone else has different needs, and divulging private matters.

I have not found a particular strategy - but in general I tried to create a classroom where I fostered a sense of community and and kindness and the rest should fall out from that.