In many ways, the lives and experiences of students with disabilities have improved since the late 1970s when federal legislation requiring an appropriate public education for these students began to be implemented. Christian day schools, however, have been slow to accommodate the needs of children and youth with disabilities, often focusing only on students with learning disabilities or relatively mild impairments. Christian colleges and universities were also slow to offer programs to prepare teachers to work with individuals affected by disability, perhaps doing so for financial reasons rather than recognizing special education as a legitimate Christian ministry. What message does this give to able-bodied students and families and to individuals and families who deal with disabilities on a daily basis? How does this oversight prepare people to live in a world where disability is “normal”?

Jesus’s deep compassion toward people oppressed by the social and religious leaders of his day—the poor, widowed, disabled, diseased, or others cast aside by the culture—features prominently in the Gospels. Likewise, the Old Testament is replete with statements of God’s care for such as these, and the expectation that God’s people embrace that same godly concern for their welfare and inclusion. What implications can be drawn from this for the task and impact of Christian education, especially regarding students with special educational needs?

Christian teachers are tasked with helping students understand their responsibility to have an impact on their world, even though that “world” may seem small and their ability to affect others may seem limited. We want to help our students see the world through God’s eyes, to adopt an inclusive worldview and a lifestyle that recognizes all people, as those created in God’s image, have worth and value despite any limitation resulting from impairment. We want this lifestyle to be displayed in actions and interactions that communicate acceptance and celebration of difference.

Obstacles to an Inclusive Worldview

Case law, Supreme Court decisions, and federal mandates based on constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process since the mid-1970s have lessened the physical barriers limiting access to a free and appropriate education for students with disabilities. Mere access, however, does not mean that students with disabilities are truly included as an equal part of the classroom community.

Wolterstorff held that the task of Christian education includes both development and healing. But for many students with a disability, rather than being an arena of healing and reconciliation, school can be a place of conflict. Able-bodied students may hesitate to build a relationship with classmates with unconventional minds or bodies, particularly if sensing skepticism or discomfort on the part of a teacher who merely tolerates their presence because of legal mandates.

The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to the truth of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4). Though Paul was speaking specifically of the gospel being hidden from unbelievers, this blindness also includes failure to recognize that all people are created in the Imago Dei. This leads to viewing others hierarchically, and increases the potential for wrongdoing toward those judged to be of lesser importance. Part of the reasoning for this is what has been called a normate bias—an unquestioned worldview that carries the idea that people with disabilities are less than normal. This bias intensifies the difficulties faced by people who are disabled. To model the kind of healing that Wolterstorff described, administrators, teachers, and students must recognize the intrinsic worth of each individual regardless of her or his ability level. Breaking the normate bias begins with challenging the tyranny of normalcy and the language of “lumping” and tragedy.

The Tyranny of Normalcy

The normate bias structures our perception of reality: Being able-bodied is thought “normal,” making disability “unconventional” or “abnormal.” Disability, then, challenges our perception of normal and can generate fear and mistrust of difference. This unhealthy emphasis on normalcy contributes to discrimination toward people with disabilities and disregards people’s God-given uniqueness. However, normal simply means “average” or “expected,” making people who are not of average height, weight, age, or intelligence “not normal.” The extensive diversity found in creation and David’s description of humans as individually designed or crafted by God (Ps. 139:13–16) makes the concept of normal meaningless. People do not deviate from normal; difference is normal. Describing someone as “normal” or “abnormal” is inconsistent with Christian teaching. The resulting pressure to be “normalized” may come at the expense of the needs and desires of the individual who has a disability.

Normalcy and deviance are socially constructed concepts. In the same way, identification and interpretation of impairment, and recommendations for remedial services are entrenched in cultural values (e.g., what is regarded as “gifted” or “retarded” behavior is determined by one’s culture). The normate bias may inadvertently be reinforced when special educators make decisions as to what is best for the student, sometimes without consideration of the individual’s or the parents’ desires or perception of need. People with disabilities are often able to determine their own needs and should not be regarded as helpless. Disabilities are not in themselves “evil” nor should they be considered “blemishes that must be eliminated.” Because there is no “normal” way for humans to be, and because disability is common to human experience, disability may actually add to a person’s life and provide a more diverse and rich world.

The Tyranny of Language

Labeling, Lumping, and Marginalization. Words used to describe a disabling condition easily morph into a label for the individual, thereby influencing the attitudes and behaviors of others toward that person. Casting the individual in an unfavorable light creates a divide between the labeler and the labeled. The problem is not specifically the word (label) used but the ideas or images associated with the word, often based on limited or incorrect information, erroneous assumptions, and lack of association with someone with an impairment. When words become categories into which people are lumped (e.g., LD, EBD, retarded, autistic, and so on), the personhood of the individual is not acknowledged and a culture of disrespect created. Being lumped into a collective category (“the disabled”) is reductionistic, disregarding individual differences and leading to characteristics observed in one person being improperly generalized to others, such as speaking loudly to a person with a visual impairment. Recognition of the impairment or disability is important, but the assumption that this categorical descriptor alone interprets the person reflects a prejudgment that is not Christ like.

For people who are able-bodied, disability is like a foreign culture. “Bound” by the culture of able-bodiedness, persons with disabilities may be seen as deviant and in need of “fixing.” The implicit presumption is that able-bodied persons are superior to those with a disability, and that remediation is necessary to enable the disabled person to become like (acceptable to) the non-disabled. Some teachers may believe students with disabilities must earn the privilege of entering the regular classroom by demonstrating they no longer need special education services. Or teachers may fail to recognize the legitimacy of ways the student has learned to compensate for limitations imposed by the impairment—ways that seem “foreign” to the culture of the able-bodied.

Even terms like “special” and “exceptional” can marginalize the student. Though these terms can describe something outstanding in a positive sense, when used to describe students with disabilities, they tend to be associated with relative powerlessness. Focus falls on how the student differs from the majority of students behaviorally, cognitively, academically, physically, or socially. The label special education or student with special needs may be understood as implying weakness or inferiority, especially since these terms are not self-selected, but assigned by school officials, psychologists, or medical doctors. Such labels set students with disabilities apart from the majority or, conversely, allow the majority population to distance itself from those with disabilities. Expressions such as physically or mentally challenged may be seen by someone with a disability as condescending, trivializing the person’s experience. Even “brave” or “extraordinary” may present a distorted image with which few who are disabled can identify.

The Language of Tragedy. Association of disability with tragedy is revealed in words often applied to people with disabilities, such as “sufferers” or “victims.” The tragedy model “disables” by not acknowledging the person’s self-identity and assuming that people with a disability can neither be happy nor enjoy an adequate quality of life. The normate bias may lead to seeing persons with a disability as “un-abled” and needing help or pity, which masks feelings of superiority and an assumption that the individual who is disabled has little to offer. Replacing the language of tragedy with more liberating language may enable people with disabilities to take pride in their lives and contributions to humanity. This requires both an altered understanding and expectation of people who are disabled and the availability of appropriate supports and services.

Moving Beyond the Obstacles: An Interdependent Community

Rather than bringing people together, the language of inclusion itself may actually devalue students with disabilities by drawing attention to the academic, behavioral, cognitive, physical, or social difference which initially led to their exclusion. Thus, negativity continues to influence how students with disabilities are viewed: Because of their perceived difference, “we” must make efforts to include “them.”

Implementing inclusive practices has led to academic and social benefits for students with and without disabilities, but findings show that inclusion is not happening as envisioned. Teachers often have reservations about having “special needs students” in their classroom. Students with disabilities and their parents also have expressed concern about emotional or physical bullying by peers, patronizing attitudes of teachers, and isolation within the classroom.

While the promotion of inclusion has brought physical access to classrooms generally, in many cases only the physical wall has been removed. Special education services may be provided in the regular classroom by a special education teacher or paraprofessional, creating a classroom-within-a-classroom rather than a welcoming environment. More than legislation and litigation is required to move from merely adopting an inclusive attitude to becoming a place of belonging for all students.

The general failure of inclusion can often be attributed to the absence of adequate preparation and support for stakeholders in the student’s education, concluding that simply dumping students in regular classrooms without addressing issues of exclusion, teasing, curriculum modifications, peer support, and pedagogical differentiation dooms inclusion to failure. Although teacher education programs generally provide instruction on differentiated instruction, universal design, collaboration, and co-teaching—techniques that can facilitate inclusion—these procedures are seldom employed, presumably because of pressures and restraints of the existing school culture. The current emphasis on response-to-intervention to identify and serve students with special needs has significant implications for the role of general education teachers, but often raises concern about increased responsibility and workload.

Inclusion and School Culture

The goal of inclusion should focus on changing schools to become more responsive to the needs of all students by helping teachers accept responsibility for the learning of all students and equipping them to teach children previously excluded from the regular classroom. McLeskey and Waldron identified changes required by inclusion to every aspect of school:

• Change that alters the daily professional activities of teachers and administrators.
• Change that alters how students are taught, what they are taught, how they are grouped to receive instruction, and who delivers that instruction.
• Change that challenges traditional attitudes, beliefs, and understandings regarding students with disabilities and other students who do not “fit” into the typical classroom in a school (12).

Without responding positively to the challenge of traditional attitudes, beliefs, and understandings of disability—and students with disabilities—teachers have little incentive to use such proven techniques as differentiated learning and universal design, or to see the professional benefit to collaborative relationships with their counterparts.

Inclusion and the Theology of Interdependence

Inclusion is best understood as a state of being that gives rise to a sense of belonging and acceptance. That state of being is encapsulated in a theology of interdependence, which honors the value of all individuals, recognizing that each and every person contributes to the community by being, not by doing.

At least two portions of scripture present the biblical ethic of interdependence. One is Paul’s analogy of the human body and the church (1 Cor. 12). Paul recounts our interdependence as members of the body of Christ—each serving a different function but all belonging to one another, just as the parts of our physical body form a whole. Interdependence is the cornerstone to Paul’s explanation of how those parts of the body thought to be weaker are, in fact, indispensable (1 Cor. 12:24–25, esv). Interdependence and mutual concern result in the needs of each “part” being met. This principle readily applies to the inclusive classroom, where honor and respect pertain to each individual regardless of ability or disability.

The second depiction of interdependence is Genesis 1–2, where we read that God created man and woman in his own image and positioned them as trustees of all that God had created. God declared “It is not good for the man to be alone. “I will make a helper as his complement” (Gen. 2:18 hscb). God’s provision of a companion perfectly suited to Adam indicates that the man and the woman needed each other—not out of dependency in which one is superior to the other, but as interdependent equals, a partnership bringing completion or wholeness. Applying this image to the inclusive classroom negates the “my kids/your kids” idea, which raises a barrier between regular education students and teachers and special education students and teachers.

Characteristics of an Interdependent Classroom Community

An interdependent community is one in which students with and without disabilities enter into a community that facilitates the reconciliation and healing of which Wolterstorff spoke. A theology of interdependence promotes the culture or ethos Christian teachers seek to establish (in a Christian or a public school): one that actively seeks to heal the hurts caused by the tyranny of normalcy and language. Restricting a classroom to those who are of average ability may facilitate ease of teaching, but creates an artificial environment. As Kunc noted, “When inclusive education is fully embraced, we abandon the idea that children will have to become ‘normal’ in order to contribute to the world. Instead, we search for and nourish the gifts that are inherent in all people” (38).

An interdependent community is one that acknowledges our need for one another and recognizes learning to be a communal activity, not an independent undertaking. “If ‘inclusiveness’ is to be more than a slogan, our practice must lead to acknowledgment of common humanity in the image of God and to the discovery of what it means to be ‘present’ to one another. Mere affirmation is not enough . . . upbuilding one another in love is the point” (Saliers 29). Valuing each individual requires acknowledging that each person is unique, whether able-bodied or differently-abled, and regarding difference as something to be treasured. Negative attitudes toward disability and people who are disabled, whether originating from ignorance, stereotype, prejudice, or the unintended result of special education practices, are challenged by the biblical view of what it means to be human, and acknowledgment that bearing the image of God has nothing to do with whether one is able-bodied or disabled.

An interdependent community is one that understands the importance of reciprocity and mutual support. Inclusive classrooms must be characterized by mutual respect and a sense of belonging for all. Failure to appreciate that students with disabilities may also possess gifts and abilities that can assist their able-bodied peers reveals an implicit assumption that those with disabilities are inferior, contributing to psychological (spiritual) separation. Reciprocity recognizes that having a disability does not mean always being in need of assistance. A theology of interdependence fosters a culture in which the abilities and gifts of every student are identified and shared with others, while also acknowledging that all students have areas of weakness; limitations of some are not overemphasized while remaining blind to others’ (or our own) shortcomings. Diversity, and the contribution of each member, is welcomed and celebrated, promoting a sense of responsibility to, and need of, one another. Community does not mean uniformity; each member remains a unique individual. “Belonging is . . . facilitated by valuing the unique contributions that each person makes to the community’s well-being. Although each person’s contribution may be somewhat different . . . all contributions are recognized, appreciated, and celebrated” (Walther-Thomas et al. 7).

An interdependent community is one characterized as caring and relational. In a classroom community that embraces difference as “normal,” there is a clear understanding that all students need and benefit from friendships. Relational interconnections become pervasive and each member of the community is regarded as essential; every student feels valued, safe, and cared for.

If the importance of interdependence and community is undervalued, the classroom may promote a sense of isolation, distress, or powerlessness (or distance, discomfort, and weakness) for students with a disability. But when diversity is welcomed, and relationships (friendships) between students with and without disabilities are consciously nurtured, meaningful change in the educational experience of all students will result. Each student occupies a valued position, and everyone shares responsibility for meeting students’ needs. Friendships develop as students share experiences and learning. Social networks are established and strengthened as students with and without disabilities positively relate to one another in and out of the classroom. 

Implications for the Teacher and the Classroom

Teachers are called to work with a student population that is increasingly diverse racially, ethnically, linguistically, physically, and cognitively, while at the same time facing decreased resources. But the reality of the situation, and the recognition of interdependence, necessitates change. Teachers are in a significant position to impact students and promote an inclusive worldview—a worldview beginning in the classroom but transported into life-experience.

Christian colleges and universities offering programs in teacher-education have an even greater role to play in promoting an inclusive worldview by emphasizing differentiated instruction, response-to-intervention, collaborative teaching, and universal design, which includes adaptable goals, materials, teaching methods, and assessment techniques that respond to the needs and abilities of individual students. Future teachers need to understand the need for flexibility in curriculum and activities to accommodate differences in students’ abilities, learning styles, and needs rather than requiring students to adjust to a specific approach and standard. All students fall along a continuum of learner–learning differences that necessitate adjustments in approach and/or expectation. Less stress should be placed on “teaching” students and more on how to promote “learning” in students. Effective inclusive classrooms are person-centered, rather than subject-centered, and encourage learning in community. Person-centered schools understand learners thoroughly, recognize that differences are the norm rather than exception, and are able to weave differences into the fabric of their learning community.

Several principles guide classroom and instructional structure in interdependent learning communities:

Biblical Advocacy. Biblical justice requires advocating for the rights of those regarded as weaker or oppressed, including those who have traditionally been excluded from classrooms, schools, and society. While not denying that a physical or cognitive impairment can result in functional limitation, “disability” often results from society’s lack of accommodation for people with unconventional bodies or minds. This suggests that the classroom itself can become disabling if insufficient or inappropriate efforts are made to include students who have an impairment, and underscores the teacher’s role in making the classroom ethos inclusive. Creating an inclusive classroom (and world) builds from a biblical understanding of what it means to be human, recognizing the value of all people, and acknowledging our own vulnerability and limitation. All human beings, able-bodied and differently-abled, are God’s image-bearers, created with intention and purpose. Teachers need to examine their own attitudes, reimagining what “normal” and “different” mean, and helping their students to do the same.

Cultural Humility. Resistance to including students with disabilities in the classroom may reveal a prideful attitude on the part of the teacher: “Students with disabilities are not good enough to be included in my classroom”; “I am trained to teach ‘regular’ education, not ‘special’ education.” Cultural humility is best understood in the context of becoming more culturally competent and globally engaged, given the increased diversity of the classroom. The principle of cultural humility also applies to inclusive education through its commitment to self-assessment, which can result in dismantling the implied uneven balance of power between the temporarily able-bodied and persons with disabilities. It counters the assumption that the able-bodied are of greater value than people with disabilities, the presumption that they accurately understand what students with disabilities need or want, and the supposition that they know the best (or only) method to develop the skills or knowledge thought needed. Cultural humility encourages teachers to be more reflective, to acknowledge their own weaknesses and vulnerability, and to search for or develop new ways of teaching to “reach” persons with disabilities.

Disability Awareness Training. Although individuals with disabilities are more visible in schools and communities today, the need continues for direct intervention to remove the barriers of ignorance and unfamiliarity with disability and defeat the tyranny of language that undergirds the normate bias. Focus must be on changing attitudes of the able-bodied rather than insisting that persons with disabilities be “rehabilitated” or “remediated” in order to fit into the classroom. This includes teaching “difference” from a biblical perspective, promoting the tolerance needed to live in a diverse world, providing accurate information about disability, and highlighting the abilities of individuals who have a physical or mental impairment. This will help dismantle barriers while simultaneously promoting acceptance, enabling more positive interactions, and allowing true friendships to develop between able-bodied students and those with disabilities, thereby building classroom community.

Disability awareness training for students who are able-bodied has a positive impact on all involved and both challenges and expands narrowly defined conceptions of disability. Strategies designed to counter the view of disability as negative or tragic include teaching the subjectivity in labeling someone as “different”; discussing disability-related language; critiquing representations of disability in films, cartoons, children’s and classical literature; and addressing disability rights as part of a social studies class.

To better prepare teachers for inclusive schools, disability awareness intervention should begin in the college or university. Collaborative teaching should be modeled by faculty in general and special education, consciously breaking through the invisible barrier that often exists between programs, even in Christian universities.

Conclusion

Ultimately, rather than a tragedy faced by an unfortunate few, disability is a human problem—part of the collective experience of what it means to be human in God’s world. “Disability” describes the largest, most diverse minority group, yet also the most inclusive—affecting people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, and socioeconomic levels. It is the only minority group that persons can join at any time, through birth, accident, illness, or aging. Because disability is part of the real world, students should not be insulated by excluding people with disabilities from the regular classroom, nor should teachers avoid addressing issues of disability in their teaching and worldview. Since disability is a normal aspect of living in a fallen world, teachers play a significant role in expanding students’ understanding and appreciation of all of humanity. Effective inclusion begins with valuing the individuals who have been excluded, and including every learner as a respected member of the classroom and school community, with gifts to be shared and celebrated as well as weaknesses to be addressed.

Effective inclusive education is rooted in a Christian worldview that acknowledges all people as created in God’s image and seeks to promote human flourishing. It is responsive to the academic, social/relational, and spiritual needs of all students. It reaches out to all students by creating a hospitable and welcoming classroom environment. Effective inclusive education makes a difference in the classroom, the school, the community, and the world by altering how people with disability are viewed, promoting acceptance of others, and contributing to the healing and reconciliation that we desire.

Works Cited 

• Anderson, David W. “Inclusion and Interdependence: Students with Special Needs in the Regular Classroom.” Journal of Education and Christian Belief 10.1 (2006)
• ———. Toward a Theology of Special Education: Integrating Faith and practice. Bloomington, IN: WestBow Press, 2012
• Gormas, Jan, Robert Koole, and Steven Vryhof. “Learning as Reconciliation, Learning for Reconciliation: New Dimensions for Christian high schools.” Journal of Education and Christian Belief 10.1 (2006)
• Kunc, Norman. “The Need to Belong: Rediscovering Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” Restructuring for Caring and Effective Education: An Administrative Guide to Creating Heterogeneous Schools. Eds. Villa, Richard. A., et al. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes, 1992
• McLeskey, James, and Nancy L. Waldron. Inclusive Schools in Action: Making Differences Ordinary. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2000
• Saliers, Don E. “Toward a Spirituality of Inclusiveness.” Human Disability in the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Practice. Eds. Eiesland, Nancy L. and Don E. Saliers. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998
• Stegink, Philip. “Disability to Community: A Journey to Create Inclusive Christian Schools.” Journal of Religion, Disability, and Health 14 (2010)
• Walther-Thomas, Chris, Lori Korinek, Virginia L. McLaughlin, and Brenda T. Williams. Collaboration for Inclusive Education: Developing Successful Programs. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000
• Wolterstorff, Nicholas P. Educating for Life: Reflections on Christian Teaching and Learning. Eds. Stronks, Gloria Goris and Clarence W. Joldersma. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002