Building Belonging in an Inclusive School.

 

Dearest gentle reader,

It's possible to picture a school day that doesn't call for much imagination since, in fact, every aspect of it is already achievable somewhere for students in Kenya. The truth is that it has not yet taken place in the same building for the same child on that random Tuesday.

Zawadi, nine years old, walks to her primary school in Kericho County, along a footpath with an even surface and a proper curb cut at the one road she has to cross. Her mother doesn't have to help her cross over a gutter to get her there on time. At the gate, the teacher on duty greets her by name, not by diagnosis or label. Inside, her class teacher already knows Zawadi communicates using an AAC app on a shared classroom tablet with a picture and symbol interface she taps with two fingers. This happened because the teacher read the IEP file and took the appropriate actions.

While the lesson is going on and the teacher puts a question to the class, Zawadi types out her answer and everyone waits for the extra seconds it takes her, just as they would wait if someone else were still finishing their thought. No one laughs and no one finishes her sentence for her. At lunch she has the same healthy meal as all the others since the meal plan does not offer a cheaper and thinner version for families who cannot afford the extra shilling that some schools secretly charge. In the afternoon the drama club rehearses a scene and the director has included a role which makes use of movement and the tablet rather than spoken words; it is not a minor part located backstage but one that is actually needed in the story. Having finished the day, Zawadi has spoken, played, eaten and performed like all the other students in her class because her class was designed with her in mind from the beginning.

Intentional thought and action were all it took: a curb cut, a shared tablet, a teacher who read a file, a fee waiver, and a director willing to rewrite one scene. Each one alone looks like a small fix for a specific problem, but when put together in one school on one day, something different happens: A child stops merely attending and starts belonging.

What matters?

For the longest time, schools have measured inclusion by enrollment numbers and physical structures: a ramp installed, a device signed out from the store cupboard, or a policy on file. These things matter because none of Zawadi's day happens without them, but they are inputs to access and not outcomes. A school can have all of them and still produce a child who is present and unseen.

Belonging is the outcome that was essentially supposed to be the point all along. It's the difference between a device that just sits on a desk and a classroom that has actually learned to wait until everyone has finished a maths question; between a ramp that meets an inspector's requirements and a building in which no one regards the ramp as a favour. Access opens the door; belonging is what the room does after the child has passed through it.

 

 There's a psychological concept known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs which is worth drawing on in this context. A person's higher-level needs—such as those involving growth, achievement, and being truly respected—won't become significant until the more fundamental ones have first been met; these include feeling safe, having a sense of belonging, and receiving some degree of esteem. A child who is uncertain about her safety on the way to school, or who doesn't feel welcome once she gets there or who isn't seen as being valuable for something other than just being well-behaved, is not in a good position to achieve her full academic potential. This is not because she is incapable, but rather because the foundation underneath her has not yet been laid. All the modifications or adjustments that the articles in this blog have recommended—such as a curb cut, a shared device, a waived fee, or an unlearned assumption—are in fact arguments about which of the foundations we are constructing.

The honest gap

The sad reality, however, is that the footpath still has the gutter, the file still goes unread past the first week of term and the extra lunch fee unfortunately still exists for the families least able to ask about it. None of that makes the vision naive, but it's the reason the vision needs saying plainly enough that a school can build toward it, rather than settling for whichever single piece was cheapest to install.

Note to the reader

If you've been reading this blog and have seen the discussions concerning curb cuts, classrooms, devices, funding, dieting, policies, culture and long-held assumptions, then you already understand that these various aspects of life do not exist in isolated categories. A child does not go about her day experiencing 'street accessibility' on the way to school, 'cultural bias' in the staffroom, and "socioeconomic equity" at the lunch line as three unrelated policy areas. She experiences one day. Every barrier this series has examined separately is really the same wall, encountered at a different time.

This is the argument to which the entire series of points has been leading: rather than questioning whether your school has done enough to comply, you should instead ask a particular child whether, honestly, they feel they belong there. If you're uncertain what the child would say, then that very uncertainty is the most valuable piece of information you possess; go and find out.

Zawadi's day is not fiction since it's impossible; it is fiction because no one has so far decided, in a single building, to carry out all of it at the same time. The decision to do so is open to you tomorrow and is something you can access this term and in the future. Whether it's a doorway, a device, a fee or a five-second wait, build the floor and then belonging will be able to stand on it.

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