Education is one of the worthiest pursuits that a person can dedicate their life to. In this day and age, current generations are more knowledgeable than ever as to the struggles of people with mental illness, the neurodivergent, the physically/intellectually disabled, marginalised communities, and cultures that represent a minority in their country.
Within this social climate of understanding and accommodating, the sphere of education is more important than ever. Education is the tool that will allow future generations to make informed choices that will forever alter the course of society, maybe even the world Caspar David Friedrich’s wanderer in solitude above mist. Teachers working predominantly with students who require additional support may wonder what they can do to assist these students. Although we can’t advise you on every aspect of support for every disability, allow us to contribute the following general points on fostering inclusivity in your classroom.
Learning Doesn’t End In Degrees
As we said earlier, education and the pursuit of knowledge is a cornerstone of any progressive, well-equipped society. Getting a qualification as a teacher is not only fantastic, it’s utterly necessary for the world to thrive. However, even a Master’s in Education won’t likely prepare you for every eventuality, and while it may give you a baseline knowledge to handle some issues of inclusivity; to truly make the students that require extra care feel at home will require further learning and study often sought out by you.
There is a plethora of resources aimed at helping teachers frequently dealing with those that suffer from various forms of disability or come from a marginalised community, etc. Students who require additional care will be ever the more thankful for a teacher who makes the real effort to help and encourage learning and growth.
The Virtual School Bag
Everyone has experiences and knowledge that they gain just from their general lives that they bring with them to the outside world. In school, the theory of a “virtual school bag” was presented in a study in 2008. The concept posits that students come to school with a virtual (or mental) school bag filled with their lived “knowledge, experiences, and dispositions.” but that the school environment only makes use of some of the resources in a student’s virtual school bag.
Only utilising some of a child’s or student’s innate understanding (or questions!) about the world immediately takes away value from that child’s experience. In the same way, Neil DeGrasse Tyson criticises formal school-based learning for rigid parenting, and for discouraging curiosity in favour of a more structured upbringing, disregarding the linguistic, cultural, religious, and familial experiences of students removes pride in who they are, and invalidates their life.
When this happens, it says to the student “your experience in this culture/disability/community is not valuable to the world.” If you want to foster a truly inclusive environment, when a child has input from a personal place, feel secure in deviating from the lesson plan slightly. Let your student talk about their experience, and answer questions from their classmates if they have any. It normalises and celebrates their experience, and lets them see that their presence is valuable.
Get WISE
There is a level of care that teachers are responsible for with their students. For several hours a day, parents are entrusting you with the care of the most important person in their life. This level of trust can be exacerbated when a student has a background that demands a little extra attention. It can be hard knowing what’s a good way to make sure that in your classroom, all students are considered equal.
This is where the WISE model can help. It sets out in plain language a suitable framework for how to act in a way that makes sure students feel acknowledged and appreciated as equals. It stands for Warmth & empathy, Inclusion, Strength focus, and Equity and fairness.
Warmth and empathy emphasises treating all students with compassion and consideration and treating their grievances and difficulties, as well as unique perceptions and needs, as valid. Inclusion encourages teachers to make every student a worthy part of the learning process, whether this means selecting from a wide variety of students to engage in interactive learning, to assigning a constantly rotating number of students for regular classroom tasks.
Strength focus means paying attention to your students, taking notice of their interests and talents, and then fostering them. If you notice you have a student who’s always drawing, maybe encourage them to take class notes in the form of sketches. If you have a student that enjoys writing, maybe encourage them to approach learning in the form of storytelling, or ask them to write on the board. If you have a high volume of mathematical students, maybe foster their interest by attributing the learning materials to numeric occurrences, such as dates, years, number of people involved, etc.
Equity and fairness ensures that you favour no student above another and that every student is guaranteed the same opportunity to show their talent, express their needs, and learn in a safe environment under your leadership.
Inclusive Classrooms Create Inclusive Societies
There is a lot of new information coming out. The social fight for the growing visibility of marginalised communities, genders and sexualities, and the lessening of stigma surrounding physical and mental disability is all coming together to create a brighter future for humanity.
Growing up, most of our time day-to-day will be spent either at work or in the education system. This is where children will learn almost all of the behaviours that will cement how they interact with others in the world. Schools are better than they were 20 or 30 years ago, but there is still a lot of room to improve. To help your students get the most out of their time in the education system, inclusive practices that validate students’ experiences are a vital component to healthy student/teacher dynamics and relationships.
It is a wonderful thing to grow up in a country with relatively easy access to educational facilities and materials for all people – but there’s always room for improvement.
