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Friday Thoughts 73 - It's all about Inclusion

Updated: Mar 6, 2022

Goodness me, it is already March and haven’t we had glorious weather! I find that arriving at work in the almost daylight such a difference to the dark mornings and I am definitely much happier when getting some vitamin D on my skin.

So, another week has simply flown by and my inspiration this week comes from a variety of sources once again. Sparked by a variety of sources, I began the week thinking long and hard about inclusion and what that looks like. Are we an inclusive school? Yes, as much as a high-achieving yet non-selective English-medium international school can be within the parameters in which we work. Could we be more inclusive? Well, not within our current constraints. So we shouldn't attempt to be because that is the path to exclusion through the guise of inclusion; we could not meet the needs of all of our children by trying to do so. So that led me to thinking not just about inclusion but also about celebrating difference. This particular thought came about following my 'masked reader' task for #worldbookweek2022 (all staff were requested/encouraged to record themselves reading an extract from a book or story without showing their faces so that the children could watch/listen and try to guess their identities. Apparently a large number of our children know my voice because "You were a masked reader!" was a regular call this week.)


My choice? #Elmer. A book I have a long-lasting relationship with which really began with my school friend and her twin daughters’ first nursery. On the wall was a huge Elmer outline and visitors were all invited to paint a square of his body in celebration of their safe birth. Not overly familiar with the character, I started reading and haven’t really looked back (the twins are now at secondary school...). As you know, I love books and the library is definitely one of my 'happy places'. Indeed, it is my dream to have a library at home one day when I get my 'forever home' (a seeming utopian concept at the moment as a transient international school teacher) because letting go of a good book is like giving away a small piece of me. Not only do I love a good book, but I love the ability of a children's book to convey a powerful meaning. I only really discovered the true power of this when taking the IBDP TOK L2 course back in 2014. Unsurprisingly, I was the only primary teacher on the course, much to the delight and amusement of the course leader! As part of our exploration of theory of mind and sense perception (How DO we know what is real…?) we looked at Charlie and Lola’s ‘Never, Ever, Never Step on The Cracks’. If you have never read it, I highly recommend. Admittedly, I do find Lola a spoilt and entitled, slightly annoying, character, but it definitely has a deeper meaning.


As always, I find myself digressing. So, the power of delivering meaning through a child's story book. I particularly like #JuliaDonaldson, but Elmer the character is just great and one of my favourites and my all-time favourite Elmer book has to be the original because it really gets to the nub of who Elmer is and how he is different. Elmer wants to belong and tries to be something he isn’t on order to do so, but he just can’t hide his true self. It is recognised that the other elephants come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, but Elmer is the only one who not ‘elephant colour’. He is not only colourful (in so many ways), but also cheeky, fun, funny and my take on the story is that he should be (and is) embraced for being HIM. The one who needs to really accept this is possibly Elmer himself…

We are an inclusive school and have some really great students who add to the rich tapestry of our community with their individuality and their ways of thinking. I love this. However, sometimes they struggle to manage themselves (especially when we have unstructured dress-up days) and, no matter how hard we have worked with them and how far they have come and how much they feel safe and secure in our care, something happens and there are consequences to that, in the same way as there are for any of our students. This is always a time for reflection and questioning; could we or should we have done anything differently? We teachers are always quick to think that yes we both could and should, but, in reality, we couldn’t; we have coached, mentored, supported, embraced and now we do the same all over again. We are all human, we all err and it is our job as educators to support with the forgiving.

This brings me on to this morning. I was privileged to attend the BritCham International Women’s Day Breakfast: Sharing the Room, Not Owning the Room. A diverse panel of fascinating women led a brilliant discussion about women in general as well as about women in leadership and in business. Some of my key takeaways were around modelling behaviours and communications as well as the genuineness of inclusive communication; without inclusive communication you can’t have inclusivity. (I could digress once again into what ‘inclusive communication’ looks like, but that is a whole other topic.) This particular part of the discussion was mainly about which language is used in a discussion and how people who do not share a common native tongue can share a common language. Fascinating to a native English speaker to hear a non-native speaker talk of the use of English as a common language as a preference, especially as I have always felt rather selfish or possibly even entitled in my lack of a functional second language. If anyone in the room can’t access the language used, they are not fully included. We should all be aiding the margainalised within the group to have a voice whatever the reason for their marginalisation. Not ground-breaking, but a powerful reminder. An especially powerful one in an international environment, and as I said earlier, in an English-medium school with many EAL students.

In a very short time a plethora of different topics was brought up, discussed and moved on. Everything from how discussing one’s family situation in the workplace can make others feel, to what clothing it is appropriate to wear to work to embracing uniqueness. The one thing I hope we already do and something I would like to do more of, is celebrating uniqueness. We are all unique and we are all amazing, so let’s show it more!

Music today is from ‘Florence and the Machine Radio’ on Spotify with Hoziers and ‘Take me to Church’.

p.s. just for you Marlon - ‘We don’t talk anymore’ was by good old Cliff Richard. 😊

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