Welcome to tonight’s #isedchat. Our topic is: “An Inclusive School Community: What do students need from us and how do we handle it?"
Please introduce yourself and your role at your school.
A1. To me "inclusive" has to be about shared opportunity and experience; almost back to the "you can't say you can't play" thing. Everyone plays, is safe, is part of the game. #isedchat
I think there's a really power in a definition like that that focuses so completely on the individual's experience and not on a group's "welcoming someone in" which automatically centers power. #isedchat
Exactly. Which is why I phrased the question as I did. It has the potential to be powerful but far far too often is actually used to undercut what should be its true goals. Or so I think. #isedchat
So pulling together our ideas - inclusion is a group-created dynamic within which each person can feel safe to be their own authentic self. Have I... sort of... got it?
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A1 We know or think we know what it means but it rarely means truly "inclusive" when it comes to school communities. And perhaps that's OK so long as those NOT included are named. #isedchat
I would follow that by suggesting that naming those not included, not fully safe within a school community, is a necessary first step to recognizing and decentering the current power dynamic and making the community more truly universally safe. Perhaps? #isedchat
It's a big part of my school's mission, and something I think about nearly every day as consistent authenticity is hard to achieve in most any context. #isedchat
So with our ongoing discussion of inclusion in mind (and continuing, knowing us!)...
Q2: What is the mood in your schools? Which events and issues are kids talking about and what kinds of questions are they asking? #isedchat
@bivey More than perhaps, I fear. And then we have systemic ways in which social, academic, and extracurricular competition privileges, separates, excludes. "That's all part of growing up." But does it have to be? #isedchat
Quite true. It makes me think of Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility" and the necessity of getting the heck over ourselves and settling into a willingness to take an honest look. #isedchat
I hear your rhetorical question loud and clear and nonetheless answer, with you, very firmly, "No. And it's our responsibility to refuse to just accept exclusion and hierarchical valuing of human beings as 'natural.'" #isedchat
That's awesome. I had a great discussion about Kavanaugh, #MeToo, and consent with a sophomore class in which I subbed. They're coming from a great place, and feel safe in our school, but are very fearful about what's next. #isedchat
Being in Lower School, I am less exposed to this on a regular basis but I can imagine that older kids definitely have to be talking about it. #isedchat
I get that in my Humanities 7 class - a lot more skittish now than on Nov. 8, 2016 and before about discussing politics at all. Indirect discussions of privilege and prejudice are, ironically, easier for them to handle. #isedchat
Our school is so progressive in so many ways that the realization that a few kids (and adults) are conservative here (and matter as part of the community like all of us) struck my Humanities 7 class this year completely silent as they tried to process it. #isedchat
Our Middle School just finished up a week long PBL "media conference" on Immigration and its impact on New Haven as a sanctuary city. It was amazing! Great conversations. #isedchat
Glad to hear of some good discussions going on out there despite the stress and tension. So, just curious...
Q3: What unspoken questions do you think kids have, and what are we doing about those? #isedchat
A super important question. I've had kids use independent writing (weekly in Humanities 7) as a forum to share opinions with me. Sometimes, I'll throw a "I also see people in my timelines saying.." comment in to class to give voice to the (in my school) minority. #isedchat
Kids took positions on both sides and had specific ideas about taxation, health care, gun laws, death penalty. Lots of research and collaboration. They presented to panel seeking donation $$ a la shark tank. #isedchat
I do think anchoring what we do in a school culture that expects and welcomes multiple perspectives can help kids relax and open up. But I suspect they are growing up thinking political discussions mean a lot of meanness and yelling. #isedchat
A3: Ss hear from Ps, their peers, social media and have to navigate their own feelings. Difficult and stressful. We need to be sensitive to their needs #isedchat
So interesting. My informants are telling me—conservative and ultra-progressive schools—kids don't seem to be that concerned about "issues." Something seems off there. #isedchat
That's a thing the seventh graders have to work on every year - knowing how to live with "I understood you better even if I'm not changing my mind, and accept you might not change yours either." With the obvious caveat that undermining someone's humanity is never okay. #isedchat
Wow. That is the opposite of my experience. For us, there's the weekly Racial Justice Vigil, plus my taking kids to a climate change rally on Oct. 29 to mark Juliana v. United States. They are heart-breakingly, even depressingly concerned. At least some of them. #isedchat
@JosieHolford The ultra-prog person now mentions that "gender" is the big issue in her kid's 9th grade, so kids are out ahead of the adults on these things, yes. #isedchat
Well - that's my Humanities 7 class, so I was focusing on that age group. Yes, people of all ages (including trembling on the edge of 59) need to work on this! #isedchat
I would go with you on that point. Kids in my school navigate trans and non-binary identities like they've grown up with them as a natural part of their lives. Because they have. #isedchat
A3. I am also having a hard time when I say to students - it's not always about "winning" --- difficult when 'people' say "who cares, we won!"....the end justifies the means. : ( This is not the message we want kids to hear. #isedchat
Schools would better serve Ss if we help them listen to one another and teach them how to converse, even if on opposite sides of an argument. No grade needed for that! #isedchat
I'm going to go ahead with this question even though I think it might be less of an issue than I was predicting...
Q4: How is the adult community in your school pulling together in support of not just the kids but also each other? #isedchat
a4 An ongoing discussion about what it really means to be a community, esp one that per one of Episcopal tenets is a place where we respect the dignity of every person. #isedchat
A4. I think there are some faculty who are struggling with how to discuss current issues in an unbiased way when they feel so passionate about the things personally. Do any of you have open discussions about this? #Isedchat
Sometimes it is really helpful to have some such established values framework. But then of course that too is open to debate. (Thinking African bishops and gay ordination and etc.) #isedchat
Great question. I think we often discuss this informally between colleagues, maybe occasionally in departmental meetings (perhaps depending on the department), but schoolwide, not really since the pre-election opening faculty meeting of 2016.
Hmmm.
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A4. I think there are some faculty who are struggling with how to discuss current issues in an unbiased way when they feel so passionate about the things personally. Do any of you have open discussions about this? #Isedchat
And as a follow-up: Does a full and vocal tRumpian (I don't mean someone with conservative policy views) have any place around children in a school that espouses "diversity" and values "inclusion" and "equity"? #isedchat
Important distinction and, I would say, probably not. I think the hard core Trump addicts *don't* value diversity or inclusion, and at best see equity as "identical opportunities" without considering what that actually means in cultural context. If I may be so bold.
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I'm kind of both, personally. I do tell kids I would never support a person or policy that doesn't value and respect the intrinsic dignity of all human beings. And I'll tell them I'm a registered independent. I need them to know I love and support them all.
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I don't think we can. I think my school's working openly to support student activism (with adults often fighting the urge to lead and/or to prod) is a positive step. I also think our willingness to acknowledge needed areas of growth helps. #isedchat
So "inclusion" is actually a counternarrative to prevailing value systems that likely abut or impinge on school communities trying to create a new version of the world. I guess that brings me to @JosieHolford 's question just now. How do we get through? #isedchat
As I move through the edu-world, I do sense a sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit worry that being too openly (and actively) inclusive risks offending certain (read: wealthy) parents of current and potential students. That... bothers me no end. #isedchat
In reply to
@lcarroll94, @crottymark, @JosieHolford
If we can't do it within our schools, our kids will never take it out into the world. My school does sometimes get that right - I often talk of our alums "feministing all over the place." Which they love. As do I.
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I agree. In fact, I think schools that recognize it as an ongoing process and not a checklist item that can ever be perfected are doing this better than others who are more performative. #isedchat
Schools are idealistic or as least ideals driven ideal oriented. School are counter cultural. the best of them. And that may need to be explicitly embraced. #isedchat But who still gets included? And who does not?
I will be VERY interested to see the voting levels of the 18 and up group next week. If they don't vote in higher numbers then we may as well pack it in #isedchat
Oh, I hear you. I cross the threshold into my Humanities 7 or Rock Band classrooms, and my whole body relaxes and my whole demeanour changes. They're not perfect, of course. But they are, so many of them anyway, anchored positively in a desire to respect/be respected.
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