A Conversation with Erin Mahon and Judy-Ann Allison Auld: RISE Caribbean Special Series

Dr. Erin Mahon and Judy-Ann Allison Auld talk to us about special education in the Caribbean context, the prime positioning of the Eastern Caribbean islands for growth in inclusive teaching practices, and research collaboration with teachers and school leaders. Erin is known for her work investigating special education and inclusive practices in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean. Judy-Ann is best known for her work in the areas of inclusive education. Erin and Judy-Ann are both involved in planning and presentations at the 2023 RISE Caribbean Conference hosted at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. Dr Erin Mahon is a Research Fellow in the Caribbean Educational Research Centre at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. Judy-Ann Auld is in the final year of her PhD program at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, in the Faculty of Humanities and Education. Erin can be contacted at erin.mahon@cavehill.uwi.edu and Judy-Ann can be contacted at ch-jauld@cavehill.uwi.edu.

To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2023, May. 23). A conversation with Erin Mahon and Judy-Ann Allison Auld: RISE Caribbean Special Series (Season 3, No. 26) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/7601-725C-B2EA-8348-68E4-9

Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Lindsay Persohn: 0:02

Hello classroom caffeine listeners, we are hosting a special series of episodes to share with you some of the work involving past classroom caffeine guest, my colleague and friend Dr. Patriann Smith. This special series is intended to share work associated with an upcoming conference. Specifically, these episodes shine light on research taking place in the Caribbean islands with both specific contextual nuance and universal applicability. Dr. Smith, with many others is involved in the Caribbean Educational Research Initiative officially referred to as the research initiative for supporting education in the Caribbean or RISE Caribbean. This initiative is a partnership between the United States Agency for International Development, the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus, the University of South Florida and the eastern Caribbean Joint Board of Teacher Education. The Caribbean Educational Research Center launched as a part of the initiative in 2021 is designed to serve the Eastern Caribbean Islands, which consists of six independent countries Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and also three British Overseas Territories, The Virgin Islands, Montserrat and Anguilla. This center is housed at the University of West Indies Cave Hill campus in Barbados with the capability to generate and utilize robust data for improved decision making and basic education throughout the region. The Caribbean Educational Research Center draws on research expertise from the University of West Indies School of Education, UW eyes, other campuses the University of South Florida ministries of education and the teacher education divisions of the national Colleges of the Eastern Caribbean and the teachers college in Barbados in harmony with the aim of building research capacity in the region. The center provides assistantships and internships for graduate students pursuing research degrees in education and related fields and staff from the ministries of education and the National colleges who work with classroom teachers to investigate classroom phenomena. The RISE Caribbean initiative is expected to ultimately establish a repository for education data for the countries in the East Caribbean and Barbados. Conduct demand driven research and analysis to inform policy and planning for ministries of education and other stakeholders in education. Build a capacity for research and training with students and education stakeholders conduct and support comparative and collaborative research with higher education institutions in and outside of the region and strengthen research culture through publications, public lectures, and other means of sharing research findings. One of the major activities of the rise Caribbean initiative is an annual conference designed to support the Center's research fellows and research assistants to this end, the rise Caribbean 2023 conference, building solidarity across educational communities, cultivating spaces where students thrive, aims to harness the power of community, interconnectedness, and inclusivity and our collective efforts to create and sustain educational spaces for students to succeed. The RISE Caribbean conference includes sessions that imagine possibilities around which we can plan collectively to improve the experiences well being an educational outcomes for all children, especially those for whom achievement, equity and justice have long been withheld. This classroom caffeine special series highlights scholars who are integral to the work of the rise Caribbean Initiative and the RISE Caribbean conference hosted at the University of South Florida Tampa, May 30 Through June 1 2023. In this episode, Dr. Erin Mahon and Judy Ann Allison also talk to us about special education in the Caribbean context, the prime positioning of the Eastern Caribbean islands for growth and inclusive teaching practices, and research collaboration with teachers and school leaders. Erin is known for her work investigating special education and inclusive practices in Barbados and the eastern Caribbean. Judy Ann is best known for her work in the areas of inclusive education. Erin and Judy Ann are both involved in planning and presentations at the 2023 RISE Caribbean conference hosted at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. Dr. Erin Mahon is a research fellow in the Caribbean Educational Research Center at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill, Judy Ann Allison is in the final year of her Ph. D. Program at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus in the Faculty of Humanities and education. For more information about our guests stay tuned to the end of this episode. Erin and Judy Ann thank you for joining me welcome to the show.

Judy Ann Allison: 4:59

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.

Lindsay Persohn: 5:02

So I'll pose this first question for Erin, from your own experiences in education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?

Erin Mahon: 5:12

Sure, I was raised and educated in Barbados, the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. So I've been a student in the Bermudan education system. And from a very young age, maybe about seven or eight, I was aware of the students in my class around me who had different learning needs. And I was aware that they were not necessarily always being met. So I have a friend who used to sit next to me at school, who I still see up to this day. And he always brings up and says, To Remember how you used to secretly help me out in class. And this was back in the 80s. So the teacher would give us our printed out worksheets, and explain what to do. And he would kind of look at me with this look like, well, I have no idea what to do here. So I would explain the language of a seven or eight year old how he needed to go about this worksheet, and show him how I was doing it. And I still remember that, and, of course, and tests and examinations, which feature largely in our system, he struggled, and eventually he was placed into remedial class apart from us all, which was considered very progressive at the time. And it's still a common way of dealing with learning challenges in Barbados today. But looking back on that it makes me think about the ways in which we have taught and continue to teach children and as well, how we assess them. So for example, we are a pretty collectivist society in so many ways, and how does that align with our current instructional styles and classrooms? So when we think about peer to peer collaboration, and how my friend and I did that back then without even being asked to, but what if we had been asked to what if now, we begin to expect sort of less passive, more active learning, and provide children with multiple ways of expressing what they know we're using a more collaborative style that's more in line with who we are as Caribbean people. So then I think about as well and all my experiences as a student were echoed. In my experience. As a special educator, there are so many students who can't access the material, because so much in our system depends on student's ability to decode text and their ability to perform well on written tests, which is very much a residual of our old colonial education system. And that's kind of where we find students with a variety of special educational needs are really struggling significantly. There are so many students who can't access that material, they can't demonstrate how much they know because the system is inequitable, skewed towards students who are really good about things like rote memorization and test taking. And I was very lucky to work in a school with a leader who was alternative for thinking, really interested in what was happening in special and inclusive education in other parts of the world. She provided us with resources and training to help us to come up with various ways to reach our students and to help them experience success, which is so important. So we had classes like like visual where we taught literature and critical thinking skills through movies. And we use tools like visualizing and verbalizing which is the Linda mood BELL Program, and which helps with comprehension skills, and the THRASS program for teaching handwriting reading and spelling skills. So I feel like on a whole while we do have educators who are progressive and open to trying new methods in Barbados, we're still very much ensconced in this sort of old colonial way of doing things. I think that my views are also influenced by the fact that I'm a mother. So my son is 10. And like me, he's also been a part of the Barbadian education system, since he was four next year, he's going to be taking the common Entrance Exam, or what we refer to as the 11. Plus here, which is another assessment that has been adopted from Britain. And it's a very high stakes, one time exam, and the results of that exam determine in large part what secondary school students will go to. So as you can imagine, that's a lot of pressure at 10 or 11 years old, more pressure than there really shouldn't be at that age. And again, it's a paper and pencil test. So I think that in Barbados, and the wider Caribbean really need to continue to ask ourselves, how and on what are we assessing students? How do students with special educational needs fit into this broader picture? And are we using inclusive practices in the way in which we teach and assess knowledge? So that's sort of where I'm coming from as a student, as a teacher, as a mom.

Lindsay Persohn: 9:36

I'm always so intrigued by guests responses to that question, because I think it really does help us to understand the trajectory of one's work because so many folks, you know, the work they do now, it is rooted in some experience of the past that has shaped their perspective and the kind of work they want to do. So. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say, Judy, and in response to the same Question?

Judy Ann Allison: 10:00

Well, first, I experienced how my brother who had learning challenges struggle within the education system in Grenada. And then as an educator, a special educator and teacher educator myself, I really wanted to hone my skills because I encountered problems in the classroom that I had no idea how to solve. And even if I tried implementing some of the strategies that or whatever reading books or seen outside, it just wasn't fitting into the context that I was working in. So I wanted what I did to be data driven. I also wanted to be able to document some of my successes so that other educators who had similar challenges could use and learn from my experience. So getting a report for the Caribbean Education Research Center afforded me the opportunity, I was able to discover new knowledge and to expand what I already knew. Additionally, it was a scholarship, which I gladly accepted, I was also able to gain some academic credentials, and to work with a team to be able to get my work published. Basically, that was my motivation.

Lindsay Persohn: 11:05

That's fantastic. And again, a very, very personal story, right, a very personal start to the work that you're doing now. So Judy Ann, this next question is for you as well. What do you want listeners to know about your work?

Judy Ann Allison: 11:18

Well, my work is basically centered on implementation of inclusive education in classrooms in the Caribbean. And from a leadership perspective, I believe that getting a clearer understanding of what constitutes inclusive education in the Caribbean, or how Caribbean educators conceptualize inclusion is important here, as our situation is very unique context, as well as the resources available to us differ from many more developed countries. And their model is not always applicable in our situation. I am in favor of ethnographic studies, because I believe that we need to get the information directly from the field. So I am looking at the actuality of inclusive education implementation directly from school sites in the Caribbean. And I believe that viewing this phenomenon through a Caribbean lens will equip me with the knowledge required to make a meaningful contribution to its implementation, as well as to assist others like me who's searching for the truth. And to add to the knowledge base here in the Caribbean.

Lindsay Persohn: 12:29

Thank you and Erin, I will throw the same question your way.

Erin Mahon: 12:33

So as you know, the whole team, our whole team at the Caribbean educational research center, is going to be attending the RISE Caribbean conference at the end of May. So Judy Ann has just told us about her work that she's doing in with inclusion in Grenada. And we're all really excited about the opportunity to share what we've been working on in the center. We have in addition to Judy Ann we have 10 research assistants and two research fellows, myself and Dr. Allison de Santos, who is also Barbadian. And I'm going to just say here that we have such a great team with a real diversity of experience from different backgrounds. We have research assistants from Grenada, like Judy Ann, St. Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Aquila. And also, of course, Barbados as well. We'll all be presenting their work at the conference. So in addition to special and inclusive education, which is the focus for us at the moment, there are also several of our researchers who have been working on projects in health and wellbeing. So we'll have a presentation on student health and well being and its impact on academic achievement. Dr. De Santos will also give a talk about adolescent attitudes and behaviors with regard to NCDs, non communicable diseases and their impact on academic achievement. Our team has also been doing some group projects, group work on the validation of instruments in the Caribbean context. So in conjunction with our mentors at the University of South Florida, who we've been partnering with on this initiative, we will talk about the validation of one specific tool used to evaluate school climate. And then going back to the area of special education. We will have Judy Ann we are lucky enough to have a speech language therapist on our team Jamel Roberts, who will be presenting her clinical work using Hannah's intervention in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which is where she's from. And then we also have a presentation by Talley Jay Hyatt on inclusive practices in Anguilla, which is her home country. I myself will be talking about teachers perspectives on their own inclusive practices in Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And how those perspectives shifted as they learned about the learning without limits project in one of the courses that I taught the idea of transportability and putting aside the notion of ability labeling in their teaching practice, and that that I'm working on that with Nassim Smith who lives in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. So you can see it's a really a regional project with a lot of input from all around the Caribbean region. So it should be pretty exciting. I'm excited about it.

Lindsay Persohn: 15:10

Yeah, that is definitely exciting work. And what an amazing panel of folks you've put together for this research center and to share their work at the RISE Caribbean conference coming up. Without giving away too much. Are there any key findings in some of the work that you've done that you would want listeners to know about?

Erin Mahon: 15:28

I think that what I what I will say about our research so far is that what's coming out of it is that we are partners, as researchers and educators and professionals working in education, our partners, both at the individual and institutional level. But also we've been really connecting with international research and literature. So we want to be your partners on an international level as well. We always have our air to the ground, listening to what's going on outside the Caribbean. What does UNICEF and UNESCO have to say about the Sustainable Development Goals, what's going on in the United States with regard to inclusion, what's happening in Canada, in Europe, so we're always paying attention and making connections connecting with that international research and literature, but also, that we in the Caribbean, our research, we are well situated to inform international research as well. So we are small island developing states, we often have limited resources, financial resources, limited human resources. And we are in this process of promoting inclusion implementing programs. And the fact that we don't have structures and systems that are set in stone yet provides a really good opportunity for us as scholars, both in the Caribbean and outside the Caribbean to participate in this conversation about what that might look like for us within the Caribbean context. So I think it's it's more about an approach to our research and going forward than necessarily any specific findings, which which we do have what you will hear about at the conference. But I think that that's more the message, I would like to leave people with that we would like to form these partnerships and work together.

Lindsay Persohn: 17:15

That's fantastic. And to hear you talk about how you are taking information from a really global context in order to work toward building sustainable structures. I think that's something we can all learn from, you know, even I think in settings where perhaps folks think they have a lot of things figured out. There's always so much to learn from others. And so I appreciate that reminder, Erin, Judy, any any particular highlights from your work that you'd like to share?

Judy Ann Allison: 17:45

Basically, what I've been uncovering so far is that where we are looking at models from the international perspective, and we are ascribing and ratifying conventions and policies that were handed down to us, our capacity here sometimes doesn't afford us the opportunity to implement some of the policies as we receive them. So I'm seeing here that we need to strengthen our leadership within our education systems, as well as we need to develop more capacity so that we may be able to really support the educational needs of our students within our classrooms,

Lindsay Persohn: 18:22

you hear the US, we might think of those as something equivalent to unfunded mandates, those policies that we must abide by, but don't necessarily have the resources or infrastructure to actually carry out. So I think there's a lot to be learned for everyone there. Thank you. So Erin, this next question will ping back to you, given the challenges of today's educational climate? What message do you want teachers to hear?

Erin Mahon: 18:48

I think that that kind of goes back to what I was saying about partnerships, I think that their voices and their experience, because I've done a lot of work with teachers and tea, I'm very interested in teacher perspectives, that their voices matter and are very important to research, you know, that them engaging with and discussing their experience in the classroom, the challenges that they're having the successes that they have, really drives where we are going research wise, or where I go me personally, and my research, teacher perspectives are very, very important and so that their perspectives and opinions and words really matter. To us as researchers, I think that there's commonly sort of this idea that research is disconnected from the reality. And in Barbados, we're really trying to and the Caribbean that we are really trying to make that connect.

Lindsay Persohn: 19:51

That's so worthwhile that venture because I think that's true in a lot of places that research can often be very disconnected from practice. So Not just an education, either. I think that happens in so many fields. So a really worthwhile endeavor and an important message, I think. And I think that our I hope that that is also encouraging for teachers to understand that that there are many researchers who want to hear from them. When we do things on the show, like provide ways to contact or email addresses. It's not just to fill a few seconds of airtime. It's because folks really do want to hear teacher perspectives and make those connections. So thanks for that reminder, Erin. And, Judy, in the same question for you,

Judy Ann Allison: 20:33

what I believe that every teacher should see themselves as a researcher, I would advise teachers to use the opportunity to learn about their children's learning, while they are within their own classrooms. We have a golden opportunity here, we can learn from the international research and develop our own model that best meets our students needs. When we start to look meaningfully at what how and why our children are learning or not learning, we will uncover evidence that will inform our practice and bring that robust list and accountability to our teaching. So that's my advice, research while you are within your own classrooms with your students. Thank you.

Lindsay Persohn: 21:13

That is fantastic advice. And you know, I think as educators, we hope to always be learning and growing. And certainly even having that stance that we are all researchers within our own context and within what we want to continue learning and those areas that we want to grow in what an important reminder, Judy, and thank you for that. Well, Erin, and Judy, and I thank you both so much for your time today. I thank you for sharing your ideas and your thoughts, and I thank you for your contributions to the field of education.

Judy Ann Allison: 21:44

Thank you so much. It was my pleasure.

Erin Mahon: 21:46

Thank you, Lindsay for having us.

Lindsay Persohn: 21:48

Dr. Erin Mahon is known for her work investigating special education and inclusive practices in Barbados and the eastern Caribbean. Erin has worked for over a decade as an educator and served as head of both the English and remedial departments in a small school for students with special education needs. Before joining the team at the Caribbean Educational Research Center. She has lectured in both Inclusive Education and Psychology at the University of the West Indies and is currently investigating special education and inclusive practices in Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean. She holds an honours BA degree in psychology from Trent University Ontario and graduated with distinction with a Master's of Science in Counseling Psychology from the University of the West Indies. Erin's PhD is in education and her doctoral thesis investigated parental involvement in special education in Barbados. Dr. Mahon is a research fellow in the Caribbean Educational Research Center at the University of the West Indies Cavehill. Judy Ann Allison Auld is an advocate for students identified with special educational needs. Hence her research focuses on inclusive education. She has experiences as a primary school teacher, principal of a special education institute and part time lecturer, the teacher education department of the tea a Mary show Community College and the St. George University's School of Arts and Sciences in the Caribbean country of Grenada. She completed her master's degree in Inclusive Education at the University of Roehampton, London, England, and a bachelor's degree in Educational Leadership and Management at the University of West Indies. Prior to that, she received a certificate in inclusive education from the University of Roehampton, London, and a teacher certificate in elementary education with honors from the TA Mary show Community College at the University of the West Indies. Judy Ann Auld is a final year PhD student at the University of West Indies Cave Hill campus in the Faculty of Humanities and education. Erin can be contacted at Erin dot Mahone at Cave Hill dot u wi.edu. That's e r i n dot M A H O N at cavehill.uwi.edu Judy Ann can be contacted at C H dash j A uld. At Cavehill dot u wi.edu. For the good of all students classroom caffeine aims to energize education research and practice. If this show provides you with things to think about, don't keep it a secret. Subscribe, like and review this podcast through your preferred podcast provider. I also invite you to connect with the show through our website at WWW dot classroom caffeine.com where you can learn more about each guest Just find transcripts for many episodes, explore episode topics using our tagging feature, support podcast, research through our survey, request an episode topic or a potential guest or share your own questions that we might respond to through the show. We would love to hear from you. As always, I raised my mug to you, teachers. Thanks for joining me