I am a HUSBAND of Georgie for 27 years, a FATHER of Mishael and Shawn for 20+ years, and a PROFESSOR in the College of Education at Wayne State University where I teach courses in teacher education, special education, and rehabilitation. I am interested in inclusion of people with disabilities and building of community where people are valued and respected. I engage in this work collaboratively with faculty at the University, people with disabilities, families, and community organizations.
I TEACH courses in the following areas:
I am also involved in the following RESEARCH AND DEMONSTRATION projects.
I am interested in reseach, community organizing, and organiztional and social change related to the following areas:
INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY BUILDING -- I am interested in supporting, writing about and helping to build caring and inclusive communities. For me this means -- strengthening caring and quality of life where the capacities of people to provide mutual support and caring, where professional services support such efforts, where economic development, learning, physical infrastructure, housing, recreation and supports for human caring work together in improving local community life, where diverse people are supported in being together, rather than separated , and where the community provides just and caring economic supports for all its members. This is best articulated in a collaborative initiative we are calling BUILDING COMMUNITY CIRCLES.
WHOLE SCHOOLING-- working to build schools in which caring and community is the foiundation upon which learning is built -- where students with disabilities, at risk students, children from various ethnic and cultural groups with varying languages learn together, with needed in-class supports, engaging in active learning in the community itself.
Towards these ends I am active in developing projects, teaching, connecting with networks. If you are interested in engaging in collaborative efforts in these areas I would love to hear from you.
I've written a few free-verse poems over the years that capture some of the feelings that drive my interests. Many years ago my wife and I went to New York to live in a very poor area and work with children and families. Being from a small town in Texas, this was pretty scary for me. I wrote The Hill . . . describing my decision to do this. In my third year in this program, I worked as a writer and photographer of children in very poor areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn. I wrote The Children Will Play trying to capture the sense of hope in the play of children in the midst of poverty and despair. I wrote the Fall and the Rescue at a low time in my life where friends anc aring made all the difference. A similar theme resurfaced many years later in another experience reflected in A Family in the Morning.
Recently, while at the Toronto Summer Institute for Inclusion, Community, and Diversity I wrote Called Together Alone in Hope that describes how I feel about my current work in Detroit in working to build better schools and more caring community.