Staff Spotlight Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh perspective

How can an art teacher make a ceramics class more accessible for students with special needs? As a high school life skills teacher, Dr. Ryan Lewis’ helps find accommodations and adaptations for students with special needs.

By looking at the challenge through a perspective that considers the special education students’ assets, Ryan and the art teacher adapted to provide an accessible project that built on functional skill goals that students were working towards in other spaces.

As part of the life skills curriculum, students visit the grocery store each week. Ryan asked, “What if we come up with one of our grocery lists where we get the corn starch, get the baking soda, and we make homemade clay?” That’s just what they did. Students practiced their functional skills of building a grocery list, going to the store, finding the items within a budget, and using a kitchen to make clay. With it, they created holiday ornaments to fulfill their ceramics project in this teacher’s art class.

This collaborative, asset-based framing is the skillset that Ryan brings to the Initiative as a co-facilitator of professional learning programs.

“It is vital,” Ryan says, “for all students to be part of the classroom, of the community, where it may not be the same object that 20 other students are doing, but it’s something that’s practical and meaningful to them.”

It just isn’t always clear how to make that happen—which is where Ryan excels.

“There’s always a way to find things to make it work,” says Ryan, who initially studied business in college.

His sister’s work and advocacy for special education families helped spur Ryan’s career shift from sales and marketing to education. His motivation for advocacy fueled him through night school to earn his teaching certificate and his doctorate in educational leadership.

Ryan started by providing one-on-one support for individuals with low incidence disabilities, specifically those on the autistic spectrum. This first experience determined the trajectory of his education career. He saw how success can look different for different people, regardless of ability or disability.

“I can’t fully relate to every client, every family, every individual I work with because I am not in their shoes,” Ryan says. “But I can be understanding, and I can listen.”

Ryan pushes against the deficit lens that can dismiss the strengths and abilities of students in special education. He advocates for “turning light on what you can build upon” and helping general education teachers view students through an asset-based framework.

“There is a need for marginalized individuals to have a resource in their corner that will serve as an advocate for their voice when needed,” Ryan says, “and I’m more than happy to be that.”

Ryan’s work with the Initiative stretches his thought process and skillset.

“We can find ways to look at things through a different perspective, and at the heart of it, we can question it to say, ‘How else can I look at this?’”