With fall firmly in place for the Northern Hemisphere, school has been the focus of much of North America for over a month now. There are new students to help with routines, and there are new teachers to help with learning the process of being inclusive.
“One more thing to do.” some grumble. And it feels like it is something else to do. Inclusion is about coming up to a student and repeating the instruction to get the student on the same page with their peers. Inclusion is remembering when you move the desks in a classroom the student who uses a walker might need more space to make it over to a station on the far side of the room.
Inclusion is also the smile when a student realizes they aren’t the only person in the classroom that likes the color orange. Inclusion is the extra steps another student took to run back and ask if they wanted to play teather ball. Inclusion is the quiet time students have for another because all those thoughts from the morning are rushing really fast.
For the adults at school, it is the process that everyone knows they aren’t an island. That those long days are just days and years are short. There are only so many hours in a day and yet, we need all our students to be ready for whatever the world will have waiting for them when things are over and frankly, kindness, understanding, and holding each other accountable are not just things we need to explain to our students, they are things we adults need reminders of as well.
For October, Inclusion From Square One is here with some more tips about working on the How. For the first time, we will welcome Lisa Friedman. And we will have Nicole Eredics revisit us.