A teacher in special education and a remedial teacher in a private clinic for 5 years, Marie-Eve Boisvert-Hamelin joined the Department of Psychopedagogy and Andragogy as an assistant professor in 2020. Combining scientific, professional, and experiential knowledge of autistic students or those with intellectual disabilities (ID), she now teaches undergraduate courses in special education and graduate courses in remedial education programs, for which she is also responsible. She was also involved in the creation of the new 1er cycle for teachers who do not have a certificate and has developed, at the request of schools, training intended for practicing teachers.
Wanting to better raise awareness of the reality of people with autism or ID, she has developed partnerships with organizations working with students and their families (Autism Montreal, Parents for Intellectual Disabilities, schools) and invites these people into class so that students can interact with them and discover their strengths. “For me, supporting their success requires seeing these children as having strengths and as being capable of learning. Teachers must move from a vision in which the student and their diagnosis are the problem to a conception where we question what is put in place to support this student’s learning,” she believes.
She invites future teachers to be sensitive to the debates surrounding educational interventions and gives a voice to autistic people or those with ID, an approach that stands out. “From the very beginning, my colleagues and I were able to see that we had a professor who was particularly invested in the teaching she provided us. With an impressive knowledge of her subject, she managed to lead us to understand the subtleties behind certain learning disabilities, while allowing us to react and exchange,” says Camille Dionne, a former student of Mme Boisvert-Hamelin.
Mme Boisvert-Hamelin has also established a partnership with the Haute école pédagogique de Lausanne “in order to support teachers’ appropriation of the positive portrait of the student,” she explains. “We have therefore thought about a system allowing students to shift their focus from students’ difficulties to their strengths in order to use them as a springboard for learning,” she continues. A scientific article on the subject will soon be submitted.
It is also worth noting that Marie-Eve Boisvert-Hamelin’s courses represent a paradigm shift in teaching students with special educational needs. Ms. Hamelin advocates an approach focused on the needs and strengths of students, thus abandoning the medical model that was imposed in the 1970s in the field of education and that still persists today.
— Myriam Bergeron, doctoral candidate in music education and lecturer.
