Building Inclusive and Equitable Classrooms

Our Understanding of Inclusivity

Inclusion in education is broadly seen through a binary lens. On one end, we cater to children who are intellectually advanced, who excel and are ahead of their own age curve. The second end of inclusion is about children who are struggling with academics because of their special learning needs. 

But today, if you look at the interconnected complex world, the idea of identity is multi-model, and this binary vision doesn’t fit here. Inclusion is a kaleidoscope of identities; it could be cultural, religious, political, racial, socio-economic and gender. There are also children coming from marginal communities, who walk into schools with their inhibitions. Hence, inclusion today has a range of layers and comes with its own challenges.

So, we create spaces where children are valued, respected, celebrated and not just tolerated for their unique identities. But, how do we create safe spaces for our children? Also, are we creating environments where diverse use and identities coexist, clash constructively and enable young minds to expand their understanding of inclusion?

Our Approach

In our school, we believe that inclusion is not a policy or a program; It is an attitude, a disposition that shapes every interaction, decision and composition. 

For example, keeping in mind the varying food preferences, we have a lactose intolerant counter at the cafeteria. Gender neutral toilets were created in our schools when a student, born as a boy, identified himself as a girl. Our Principal permeated through the layers, right to the bottom to educate every support staff about gender fluidity. There is a need to respect a person born with a specific social norm of a gender identifying as another, and should have an access to all privileges like others. 

Our elections became gender neutral because children taught us that gender identity is a societal construct and they don't want to adhere to it. How do we respect this person, and how do we create dispositions and attitudes of people so that it doesn’t alarm them?

Hence, we have gender neutral elections. We do not have a Head Boy and Head Girl anymore. Today, we only have a President and Vice-President; a gender neutral approach so that we create an ecosystem in one dimension of inclusion that is often overlooked. The deep rooted structural inequities in our education system such as who gets to walk through our gates and who doesn’t, has to be challenged. 

Bridging Value Gaps

Traditionally, schools were the hub of knowledge educating the masses around them. Today, schools also function as communities with several stakeholders. Along with management and leadership there are teachers, support staff, children, parents and the neighborhood where the school exists. All of them become members of the community. 

Some children have working parents, and somewhere the father has a career and the mother has chosen to stay back at home or vice versa. When children observe these differences, we need to ensure that they go back home and understand their parents’ choices. The idea is to not make them rebel but help them question choices in a respectful manner. We need to teach children the art of questioning and raising difficult questions with parents and families. 

Cultural and Linguistic Inclusivity

Schools and classrooms are a kaleidoscope of culture and languages where one child gets to learn something new about the other, and the same value exchange happens. And, fostering this reasoning and questioning will help them respect the other person rather than getting a blinkered vision of a different faith or practice.

As per the World Economic Report, children of this generation will have 6 career paths and probably have 20 different jobs. So when our children are going to go back into the world and become global citizens, we have to hone their skills to be able to respect and understand the nuances of different cultures and languages. Hence, programs like International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, DP mandates language acquisition because languages are more than vocabulary. They are keys to understanding values, histories and identities of, of any country, religion or faith for that matter.

Inclusivity and Disability

Inclusivity with respect to disability should start as an all round policy conversation and not as tokenism. For instance, there’s a mandate that essential infrastructures need to have ramps and elevators or exits that help a disabled person to navigate without any hurdles. But, when such a child leaves home and comes to school, doesn’t that child require a disabled friendly transport system?

When every child steps into a school, their journey is often dotted with breaking barriers. They battle social stigma, cultural bias and a whole lot of glaring inaccessibility.

These barriers don't just prohibit entry, they silence potentials.

If Stephen Hawking did not have the willpower to create what he created in the world, becoming a victim of all the prejudices of our ecosystem, both as an infrastructure and a disposition, how much of intellectual capital of the world would have been lost? How many children have the grit and how many parents have grit to be able to provide access like Stephen Hawking had? 

Inclusion is not a Checklist

It is more than including basic amenities. If we organise a field trip, we ensure our children with limited or assistive mobility are kept in mind while designing these experiences.

However, when we design our learning expedition, since we have children with limited or assistive mobility, we ask our learning partners about the possibility of accessible arrangements they can make for children with physical disabilities? If these are not available, we have thoughtfully curated a day long expedition for children with special needs to feel included and challenged at the same time though rigour may be different. 

Sometimes, programs are also need based; we are exploring the possibility of introducing a sign language club which can not only help their cognitive function but also help them develop empathy and be more sensitive for people with disabilities. 

At a larger systemic level, teacher training is imperative to upgrade and upskill teachers to train and attend to children with disabilities. This should not just be policy based but you bring in empathy on the table. We should also celebrate every child’s uniqueness.

The Joy of Giving

Community service should become a privilege for ourselves to be able to contribute to the larger community. Inclusion means equal access, to provide . Equity and inclusion means if one is disadvantaged, you provide them more and beyond so that they are able to access those resources.

Shiv Nadar School is committed to being an inclusive institution that complies with the Right to Education (RTE) Act. We prioritise the needs of children with a range of disabilities, providing them with the highest levels of empathy and care. Our approach ensures that marginalised and disabled students have access to the same educational opportunities as their more privileged peers.

Support System

We have a special education department in our school with 17 people and 6 counsellors; in total, 23 people looking at well-being, social, emotional and cognitive acclimatisation of children who come from a range of disabilities into the mainstream school. Our institution and our inclusion department go way beyond their school hours, engaging with families of children who come from troubled backgrounds or have trouble accessing resources. 

Upgrade and Upskill

We have a very robust professional development program wherein we encourage teachers to do self analysis and identify their areas of growth and recognise those where they need training. Inclusion is one of the major thrust areas. We also celebrate a range of abilities through our annual event called IDDDA, International Day of Disability, where we bring in parents, students and stories from our school community, from global and national context as a source of inspiration. We also bring in a parent community group where parents whose children have been diagnosed with a disability can connect with other parents for support from within our school community.

Parents and Educators

It is not easy to be a parent of a child with a disability. They go through 3 stages; denial, acceptance and conversation. From our end, we keep our conversations open, encouraging them to keep the dialogues open. It takes up 3 to 5 years for parents to accept their child’s disability. We, as a school, have resilience to continue having the conversation. We do that every year with every single parent.

We have coffee mornings where our special educators create 5 to 6 opportunities in a year where parents are invited to talk about their challenges. These sessions are led by our experts and teachers, trained to interact on a range of topics encompassing gender fluidity, sexuality etc.

We have coffee mornings where our special educators create 5 to 6 opportunities in a year where parents are invited to talk about their challenges. These sessions are led by our experts and teachers, trained to interact on a range of topics encompassing gender fluidity, sexuality etc.

Inclusion through our Looking Glass

Inclusion is not about tolerance. It is about transformation. It is about creating a world where anyone, irrespective of race and gender should be celebrated for who they are. We need to break down barriers of privilege and build bridges of belonging. When we meet every single child, colleague, support and administrative staff streaming that purpose, that to us is inclusion.