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The Application of the 3-D Model

The model developer was requested to prepare students attending a southeastern Texas school district for the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general classroom. School administrators and teachers found many of those students were alienated and separated from the group. The students had very little sense of belonging. Over a period of several weeks, group discussions were conducted with the students, classroom teachers, the school principal, teacher assistants, and parents. Students were encouraged to embrace and demonstrate a disposition to care about others, with or without disabilities. The emphasis on the disposition to care was far better than telling students to care. By imposing a policy to include all students in the group, the students would become technicians of friendship rather than real friends. Once students began developing their dispositions for caring, their desire to include students with disabilities would become increasingly evident. Given that peer influence is a factor in student behaviors, an emphasis was placed on the disposition of caring among all students. Consequently, the program prepared the entire class to be more caring and then introduce the idea about the caring for students alienated, separated, and isolated from the group. During Phase 1-D, four activities were presented to affect the students' dispositions. The activities included discussions about the connection between caring and heroism, positive and negative peer pressure, a student's need to belong, and the demonstration of good and bad deeds. Following the four activities, students began to identify and discuss particular peers who were alienated and separated from their classroom and from their school group. This initiated the Phase 2-D of the model in which students were provided knowledge about other peers with particular disabilities that tended to alienate and separate them. Once they better understood the students at risk for alienation, Phase 3-D commenced with the students being taught skills designed to develop more effective interactions and communication. It was during the third phase that the students with and without disabilities began supporting and benefiting one another more directly.

Phase 1-D/Activity One: Encouraging Heroism Through Caring

The primary focus of this activity was to create the disposition to care. This was done by introducing the concept, hero, as a stimulus for the demonstration of caring. Too often, students limit the term heroes to movie stars, great athletes, and those who save others' life. While most students dream of being a hero, very few expect themselves to reach such lofty heights, especially at such an early age. This activity broadened students' definition of heroes, and increased the desire among students to demonstrate heroic acts through caring for one another regardless of differences that often alienate, separate, and isolate.

At the beginning of the activity, students were asked to define hero. Typically, students defined hero according to the aforementioned limitations. When it was suggested that one of the attributes of a hero is someone who shows caring, students began to express with enthusiasm examples of heroic demonstrations. Thus, the disposition to demonstrate caring was clearly introduced and reinforced. As students began identifying examples of caring, they began to think about those who lacked the proper care among the student body. The students began to recognize those schoolmates who needed heroes. Once this realization emerged, the students' sensitivity for those alienated and separated from the group became more evident.

Phase 1-D/Activity Two: Encouraging Leadership and Risk-Taking Through Positive Peer Influence

The primary focus of this activity was to encourage leadership and risk-taking. Often, students refuse to care because of negative peer pressure. Many students would exhibit caring more often if it were not for other classmates who tease, harass, and ridicule. Weisman (1986) suggested that students would be more inclined to communicate with students with disabilities except for negative peer influence. Gleason (1991) concurred by stating that prejudice, discrimination, and lowered expectations occur when other students adversely affect their classmates who communicate with students with disabilities. Subsequently, an activity designed to promote positive peer pressure and anticipate the negative peer pressure became important.

At the beginning of this activity, students reviewed and discussed ways they could demonstrate heroic behavior. They were asked to identify examples of caring based on their learning from Activity One. Students were encouraged to imagine and discuss the thoughts and feelings associated with acts of caring directed toward others and selves. A discussion followed about the results of such caring acts. In some instances, students described positive consequences. In other instances, the students described negative consequences. For instance, students explained that the demonstration of caring toward peers have resulted in ridicule and alienation. The students were encouraged to discuss their thoughts and feelings about this consequence. Students were encouraged to accept the challenge to demonstrate caring regardless of being criticized by others. The disposition of leadership and risk-taking were associated with this action. This discussion became preparation for future expectations - to care about others regardless of differences and/or inabilities. By the conclusion of the second activity, students begin to express greater concern for classmates and express a greater propensity to resist those who ridiculed them for caring.

Phase 1-D/Activity Three: Encouraging a Sense of Belonging Among All Classmates

The primary focus of this activity was to teach the students about the sense of belonging. The sense of belonging has long been considered an important and basic need of students (Glasser, 1990; Dreikurs, 1968; and Albert, 1996). Students are more prone to include others when they recognize belonging as a basic need. They become more empathic to others once they identify and assume the role of those being excluded. This identification was encouraged through discussions and role-play.
At the beginning of the activity, students discussed their needs. They began with basic needs, such as food, shelter, the sun, air, and parents. The need to belong or to have friends was not something considered as a basic need. Once the need to belong was introduced, the students discussed thoughts and feelings associated with personal separation, isolation, and alienation from their peer group. The students also discussed reasons for the separation, alienation, and lack of belonging. The students explained that the lack of belonging often occurred as a result of their classmates' differences and lack of abilities. Following the discussion on the explanations of alienation and separation among peers, the students discussed strategies for including classmates. Rather than limiting their friendship connections, students began to demonstrate new ways to include those who normally did not belong. This was more easily accomplished as students learned to resist negative peer pressure, promote positive peer pressure, and caring as an act of heroism, discussed in Activities One and Two.

Phase 1-D/ Activity Four: Encouraging Good Deeds

The primary focus of this activity was to encourage students to demonstrate good deeds and discriminate between good and bad deeds observed within the school environment. Too often, educators become preoccupied with antisocial behaviors or bad deeds rather than focusing more on pro-social behaviors. This is usually because the bad deeds create the most disruption and gain the most attention. Consequently, it is the bad deeds that become reinforced while the pro-social behaviors or good deeds go unnoticed. This particular activity encouraged students to exercise the dispositions of leadership, risk-taking, and caring. Teachers were instructed to label the demonstrations of pro-social behaviors or good deeds and reinforce appropriate actions.
At the beginning of this activity, students made a list of bad and good deeds demonstrated toward others. Discussions ensued about alienating classmates, limiting friendships, excluding classmates because of their differences or lack of abilities and differences, and showing too little caring for others. Students were encouraged to document times when caring occurred among students with and without disabilities. This documentation reinforced the attention paid to more appropriate behaviors.

Phase 2-D/Activity Five: Encouraging Understanding of Specific Differences Among Students

The fifth activity was designed to increase students' understanding of particular students with disabilities whose differences alienate and separate them from the group. The discussion revolved around those schoolmates who lacked a sense of belonging. Once students develop the disposition to care, they more quickly identify schoolmates who appear alienated and separated. Typically, the students find that differences and inabilities tend to alienate and separate them from their schoolmates. This understanding increases acceptances among students toward their schoolmates. Examples of differences that may alienate and separate students include a variety of physical, social, mental, and emotional disabilities as well as characteristics such as body type, facial appearance, gait, voice quality, and the like. Students may have previously questioned the unique physical characteristics of a child with Down syndrome, the social interactions of a peer with autism, or the communication skills of an individual with a hearing impairment. They learn that differences and abilities do not have to interfere with the development of healthy relationships.

Phase 3-D/Activity Six: Encouraging the Enhancement of Skills Designed to Increase Effective Relating/Communicating

The sixth activity was designed to develop skills necessary for successful communication and interaction. Students with and without disabilities were taught how to relate and communicate effectively toward one another. There were cases where students with and without disabilities developed good relationships once the disposition to care emerged and an understanding about differences and abilities that alienate and separate students became more apparent. In other instances, the development of dispositions and the acquisition of understanding was not enough. In those cases, the students were taught how to relate and communicative more effectively. For example, the student with Asperger's syndrome was taught how to stop and listen by watching for visual cues presented by students without Asperger's syndrome. The latter students learned a variety of techniques necessary to foster communication. Likewise, students who processed information more rapidly learn to slow their pace for classmates who processed information more slowly. Those techniques did much to enrich the communication among all students and thus facilitate acceptance and a sense of belonging.

Conclusions

The inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom will continue to be controversial and debatable. This is especially true for those who treat inclusion as a product or outcome rather than a process. The "Three Dimensional" model of inclusion, with it's focus on preparing the students without disabilities to include their peers with disabilities, provides a framework designed to give each a better opportunity to understand and accept one another.

A model for the inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom should be deliberate and comprehensive. Time must be spent in preparing students to understand and accept others through knowledge of differences and similarities, developing skills needed for caring, and providing activities that aid in the formation of positive dispositions. We cannot always expect students to care without guidance. We cannot always expect students to take the initiative to befriend those alienated and separated from the group (Hemmeter, M. L., 2000).

However, we can expect students with and without disabilities to relate and communicate more effectively once they are taught the disposition to care for those who lack a sense of belonging among the peer group. This way, students learn to go through the motion with emotion. The disposition of caring becomes the catalyst for all students to "reach out" and feel the fact that some students within the school environment are alienated, separated, and isolated from the group and that the elimination of alienation become a most important superordinate goal within the school environment.

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