What is true inclusion?
Posted by Sylvana Brannon on Sunday, November 20, 2011
With all the talk going around regarding the changes to our educational system, I got to thinking about what my ideal school would look like. One of the most important things I would like to see would be a truly inclusive educational system, one that accepts, respects, and even encourages diversity in all its forms. One that honestly reflects the student and parent population of our schools.
Let's face it - Malta has changed a lot since the time we were kids. And the changes aren't about to stop. If anything, our kids are going to be living in a very different world than the one we grew up in, and I seriously wonder whether our schools are preparing them for that future.
For example, how many kids in our schools come from single-parent or separated/divorced families? So why are our school books still portraying the traditional mum-dad-2-kids-and-a-dog sort of family? I am sure that there are plenty of resources out there that display the whole spectrum of family structures and if not, there are lots of creative teachers who I am sure could write such books. Speaking of different family structures, what about "Father's Day" and "Mother's Day" activities? I have a very sensitive 6-year-old boy who last Father's Day was heartbroken and cried for a whole 4 hours because he couldn't give his dad the father's day card and present they made in class! In my son's case this sorrow was brought about by the fact that me and his dad are separated, but what about those children whose father has died, or who don't know their father, or whose father is abusive, or who have both father and stepfather, or, since we are speaking of inclusion and of the future, their "father" is also a woman?
OK so probably that last phrase raised a few eyebrows and the very fact that it did shows how much more work needs to be done in this country in this specific area. Sexuality is another area where I don't feel we do enough in the area of education. And I don't mean when it comes to talking about sex and how babies are made and how to put on a condom correctly. To be honest I have no idea what is taught in that aspect since my kids are still in primary school - which makes me wonder also though... how early is too early? Today's kids are growing up fast and what we don't teach them, they learn through other channels like TV and of course their friends. A friend of mine, who has a 9-year-old daughter, was shocked speechless when her daughter asked her "Ma what is a blowjob?". Again my 6-year-old got me thinking about this when he asked me whether he could marry his male friend instead of a woman when he grows up. The conversation went something like this:
"Ma, I think I would like to marry Jake (not his real name) when I grow up. I love him so much and that would mean I could spend all my time with him. But my only problem is, would I still be able to have kids?"
"Yes, but they would be either yours or Jake's"
"Why?"
"Because you also need a woman to have a baby"
"So if two girls marry each other, they would be able to have all the babies they want?"
"Well they would also need a man, because you need a man and a woman to make a baby"
So just because they don't always ask, it doesn't mean that kids don't have questions... and some very complicated ones obviously run through their fast-growing minds... and they WILL get answers. Do our homes, classrooms, society display acceptance? More than some token acceptance, are such issues tackled matter-of-factly even in our conversations, media, resources, policies? I don't think that "acceptance" is enough. I would strive for simply "being". not judging, questioning, encouraging, embracing... just it is how it is. The same way we accept without question the traditional mum-dad-2-kids-and-a-dog sort of family.
Same thing goes for religion. It is NOT enough to simply accept that there are children with different religions in the same schools and classrooms. These differences need to be respected and incorporated into our school curricula. How come the Catholics are the only ones who get religion classes? It's the height of discrimination - different children getting a different education based solely on their or rather, their parents') religion. I chose not to baptize my children because I want them to choose their spirituality freely rather than having one particular religion imposed upon them by me. I did not send them to a church school but to a state school. The state consists of more than just Catholics (and how many of them are actually real Catholics anyway?!?), so why do our state schools not reflect the reality? Why do my kids have to be subjected ONLY to the Catholic religion. The school authorities proudly and happily informed me that I can take my kids out of religion classes like the "other" kids ("other" meaning Moslems I suppose??) and that they would be able to do something else during that time. I don't know how the parents of the "other" kids feel about this, but I was extremely offended! Why should my kids be taken out of their class like outcasts, to do something different? Religion should not be the responsibility of the school, but of the family and the family's church. The school's concern should be spirituality, which should be all-encompassing and focus on universal values instead of a particular religion. This was the way we did it when I was a teacher at an international school. Catholic education is taught at the muzew, and the same applies for other religions. Again from Kieran: "Ma, why do they have to hang Jesus on the cross in the classroom? It is scary! Why can't they put a picture of him having fun with children instead?" I pride myself in always finding an answer to Kieran's complex questions, but this one, I had no answer for.
And what about different cultures? Eva once came home from school speaking "chinese". You know what I mean... saying things like "ching-chong-paw" etc etc. I asked her why she was talking that way, and she said that her teacher starts speaking "chinese" to get their attention when they are not listening. I wonder what a chinese child would think of that, if s/he was in the classroom.
Kieran: "Ma, are black people evil?"
Me: "?!?!?!?!?"
Kieran: "Well the teacher said black is the colour of evil, so does that mean that black people are evil?"
What the... are we serious?!?!? Once again, how do the school books reflect this reality? The children in the books are always white. Dolls are always white (although I know a particularly avant-garde childcarer who specifically buys dark-skinned dolls for the centre she manages).
This management of resources and curricula spreads through to other areas. For example, we talk with pride about how "inclusive" our schools are, catering for different abilities. As if all you need to make a school inclusive is a few LSAs. What about sign language, for starters? I am not sure on Malta's statistics, but in the United States, sign language is the fourth commonest language. In fact, thirty-three states have adopted legislation recognizing ASL as a language that should be taught in schools - to all students, not just the Deaf ones. Talk about real inclusion! Sign language is not only used by the Deaf community - it is also a valuable tool for other conditions too, such as autism. One of the greatest challenges of autism is frustration, and I imagine this would be felt even more strongly in school-age. Sign language can help reduce this frustration, so how much more inclusive would schools be if ALL kids, hearing, Deaf, autistic, and so on could communicate with each other?
So I suggest that we remove all the religion lessons and replace them with ethics and values, multicultural studies, and sign language. This would prepare children for a society that consists of MUCH more than white catholic men happily married to white catholic women having children of uniform abilities. And that is just for starters...
Let's face it - Malta has changed a lot since the time we were kids. And the changes aren't about to stop. If anything, our kids are going to be living in a very different world than the one we grew up in, and I seriously wonder whether our schools are preparing them for that future.
For example, how many kids in our schools come from single-parent or separated/divorced families? So why are our school books still portraying the traditional mum-dad-2-kids-and-a-dog sort of family? I am sure that there are plenty of resources out there that display the whole spectrum of family structures and if not, there are lots of creative teachers who I am sure could write such books. Speaking of different family structures, what about "Father's Day" and "Mother's Day" activities? I have a very sensitive 6-year-old boy who last Father's Day was heartbroken and cried for a whole 4 hours because he couldn't give his dad the father's day card and present they made in class! In my son's case this sorrow was brought about by the fact that me and his dad are separated, but what about those children whose father has died, or who don't know their father, or whose father is abusive, or who have both father and stepfather, or, since we are speaking of inclusion and of the future, their "father" is also a woman?
OK so probably that last phrase raised a few eyebrows and the very fact that it did shows how much more work needs to be done in this country in this specific area. Sexuality is another area where I don't feel we do enough in the area of education. And I don't mean when it comes to talking about sex and how babies are made and how to put on a condom correctly. To be honest I have no idea what is taught in that aspect since my kids are still in primary school - which makes me wonder also though... how early is too early? Today's kids are growing up fast and what we don't teach them, they learn through other channels like TV and of course their friends. A friend of mine, who has a 9-year-old daughter, was shocked speechless when her daughter asked her "Ma what is a blowjob?". Again my 6-year-old got me thinking about this when he asked me whether he could marry his male friend instead of a woman when he grows up. The conversation went something like this:
"Ma, I think I would like to marry Jake (not his real name) when I grow up. I love him so much and that would mean I could spend all my time with him. But my only problem is, would I still be able to have kids?"
"Yes, but they would be either yours or Jake's"
"Why?"
"Because you also need a woman to have a baby"
"So if two girls marry each other, they would be able to have all the babies they want?"
"Well they would also need a man, because you need a man and a woman to make a baby"
So just because they don't always ask, it doesn't mean that kids don't have questions... and some very complicated ones obviously run through their fast-growing minds... and they WILL get answers. Do our homes, classrooms, society display acceptance? More than some token acceptance, are such issues tackled matter-of-factly even in our conversations, media, resources, policies? I don't think that "acceptance" is enough. I would strive for simply "being". not judging, questioning, encouraging, embracing... just it is how it is. The same way we accept without question the traditional mum-dad-2-kids-and-a-dog sort of family.
Same thing goes for religion. It is NOT enough to simply accept that there are children with different religions in the same schools and classrooms. These differences need to be respected and incorporated into our school curricula. How come the Catholics are the only ones who get religion classes? It's the height of discrimination - different children getting a different education based solely on their or rather, their parents') religion. I chose not to baptize my children because I want them to choose their spirituality freely rather than having one particular religion imposed upon them by me. I did not send them to a church school but to a state school. The state consists of more than just Catholics (and how many of them are actually real Catholics anyway?!?), so why do our state schools not reflect the reality? Why do my kids have to be subjected ONLY to the Catholic religion. The school authorities proudly and happily informed me that I can take my kids out of religion classes like the "other" kids ("other" meaning Moslems I suppose??) and that they would be able to do something else during that time. I don't know how the parents of the "other" kids feel about this, but I was extremely offended! Why should my kids be taken out of their class like outcasts, to do something different? Religion should not be the responsibility of the school, but of the family and the family's church. The school's concern should be spirituality, which should be all-encompassing and focus on universal values instead of a particular religion. This was the way we did it when I was a teacher at an international school. Catholic education is taught at the muzew, and the same applies for other religions. Again from Kieran: "Ma, why do they have to hang Jesus on the cross in the classroom? It is scary! Why can't they put a picture of him having fun with children instead?" I pride myself in always finding an answer to Kieran's complex questions, but this one, I had no answer for.
And what about different cultures? Eva once came home from school speaking "chinese". You know what I mean... saying things like "ching-chong-paw" etc etc. I asked her why she was talking that way, and she said that her teacher starts speaking "chinese" to get their attention when they are not listening. I wonder what a chinese child would think of that, if s/he was in the classroom.
Kieran: "Ma, are black people evil?"
Me: "?!?!?!?!?"
Kieran: "Well the teacher said black is the colour of evil, so does that mean that black people are evil?"
What the... are we serious?!?!? Once again, how do the school books reflect this reality? The children in the books are always white. Dolls are always white (although I know a particularly avant-garde childcarer who specifically buys dark-skinned dolls for the centre she manages).
This management of resources and curricula spreads through to other areas. For example, we talk with pride about how "inclusive" our schools are, catering for different abilities. As if all you need to make a school inclusive is a few LSAs. What about sign language, for starters? I am not sure on Malta's statistics, but in the United States, sign language is the fourth commonest language. In fact, thirty-three states have adopted legislation recognizing ASL as a language that should be taught in schools - to all students, not just the Deaf ones. Talk about real inclusion! Sign language is not only used by the Deaf community - it is also a valuable tool for other conditions too, such as autism. One of the greatest challenges of autism is frustration, and I imagine this would be felt even more strongly in school-age. Sign language can help reduce this frustration, so how much more inclusive would schools be if ALL kids, hearing, Deaf, autistic, and so on could communicate with each other?
So I suggest that we remove all the religion lessons and replace them with ethics and values, multicultural studies, and sign language. This would prepare children for a society that consists of MUCH more than white catholic men happily married to white catholic women having children of uniform abilities. And that is just for starters...
Tags: "sylvana brannon" inclusion "sign language" malta parenting multicultural religion
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