Ainsley Latour

“The biggest thing I learned this year is that it is not the process inside a beaker or a test tube that makes science hard to learn,” says Ainsley Latour. “It’s the way we use language to think about, debate and communicate concepts to students.”

Latour, last year’s winner of the Joseph W. Atkinson Scholarship for Excellence in Teacher Education, is now a dedicated young high school teacher who is passionate about science, language and inclusive classrooms at all grade levels.

She says she began to realize the fundamental importance of language to teaching during a Grade 10 science practicum with ESL students while she was studying at Queen’s last year. This perspective evolved through a summer working with gifted Grade 11 students in a residential science-research program, and has been reinforced by her experience at York, where she is currently enrolled in the teacher-preparation program for the education of deaf and hard-of-hearing students. The high-tech facilities at York help to ensure that everyone has access to the language of teaching.

In the York program, several teacher-candidates are deaf or hard of hearing. Some are culturally deaf, using ASL only, with each other and through interpreters. Others, like Latour, who has partial hearing in one ear, make use of a system of microphones and individual receivers or speakers around the room, which relay the teacher’s voice and verbal exchanges with students. While making presentations or working in groups, the different students must find ways to effectively communicate with each other.

When working with deaf and hard of hearing students, a teacher needs to focus on language and communication, says Latour.

“But I now realize that in any curriculum area, the level of language my students have will influence how I teach and the enduring knowledge they will take away from my classroom.

“When everyone is committed to inclusion, learning and success for all students becomes a reality.”

Latour believes that the way to create an inclusive classroom culture in any setting is through the commitment and leadership of the teacher. This belief was confirmed through her attendance at two very different conferences: the Ontario Association of Deans of Education conference held in January; and the Activate Yourself, Activate Your Community, The Not Really a Conference Conference organized by the Active Living Alliance for Canadians with a Disability last March. Impressed with her leadership skills, the latter organization invited her back as a youth leader for their Youth Exchange held in July.

Latour reports that she is moving closer to a goal she set in her scholarship application – creating a youth mentorship program for students with hearing loss. She is now working with like-minded colleagues to organize a national youth leadership forum that will follow the congress of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People, to be hosted by the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association in Vancouver in July 2008.

Latour strongly believes in the importance of hands-on learning in communicating and embedding knowledge. From her experience over the past year she sees “teaching hands-on science as the way to teach for conceptual change.” Conceptual change is necessary in thinking about disability too, she finds.

Latour takes issue with the medical model of disability, which sees something wrong with a person that must be fixed. She prefers the social model, which seeks to modify the environment. “I am not my disability, but it is certainly part of who I am. And I wouldn’t change who I am.” This approach celebrates the individual by putting the person first, not the disability.

Not surprisingly, given her multi-faceted interests, Latour says her dream job would be to work part-time as a regular science teacher with her own classroom, and part-time either in a congregated setting of deaf/hard of hearing students or as an itinerant teacher.

“An itinerant teacher is not only an advocate for her students, but has a responsibility to educate other teachers in the school community. We still have a lot of work to do to break down barriers to learning and create an effective learning environment for all students.”

Eagerly anticipating her first placement in a congregated setting, Latour muses over the unexpected effects of her award, saying that it has helped her to reflect on her own practice.

“Reflection is a critical skill for teachers,” she says. “But it is hard to define and teach.”

Meanwhile, her goals are clear: to teach for conceptual change, whether in the field of science or disability.