Newsletter
Laurie Ann Thompson

inclusivity

Celebrate Inclusive Schools Week!

by


Schools across the coun­try are observ­ing Inclu­sive Schools Week this week. Accord­ing to the Inclu­sive Schools Net­work:

Inclu­sive Schools Week is an annu­al event spon­sored by the Inclu­sive Schools Net­work (ISN) and Stet­son & Asso­ciates, Inc., which is held each year dur­ing the first full week in Decem­ber. Since its incep­tion in 2001, Inclu­sive Schools Week has cel­e­brat­ed the progress that schools have made in pro­vid­ing a sup­port­ive and qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion to an increas­ing­ly diverse stu­dent pop­u­la­tion, includ­ing stu­dents who are mar­gin­al­ized due to dis­abil­i­ty, gen­der, socio-eco­nom­ic sta­tus, cul­tur­al her­itage, lan­guage pref­er­ence and oth­er fac­tors. The Week also pro­vides an impor­tant oppor­tu­ni­ty for edu­ca­tors, stu­dents and par­ents to dis­cuss what else needs to be done in order to ensure that their schools con­tin­ue to improve their abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly edu­cate all children.
This year, the Inclu­sive Schools Week’s theme focus­es on the con­cept of being a hero. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly fit­ting because the def­i­n­i­tion of a hero, a per­son not­ed for coura­geous acts of nobil­i­ty of char­ac­ter, res­onates with all of the stu­dents, par­ents, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who take coura­geous steps for­ward each day to pro­mote accep­tance for all. The path toward more inclu­sive edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices has been chal­leng­ing, yet reward­ing. This year, we will focus on the steps along this jour­ney and con­sid­er the courage it requires.

Now that’s a mis­sion I can get behind, and I think my book Emmanuel’s Dream, about one of my per­son­al heroes, fits this theme per­fect­ly! Emmanuel is not only a per­son with a dis­abil­i­ty, but he’s ded­i­cat­ed his life to cre­at­ing an inclu­sive school for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties and with­out and his home coun­try of Ghana.
Inclu­sive Schools Net­work has more great ideas and resources for cel­e­brat­ing Inclu­sive Schools Week here.
And Savan­na Flakes has some oth­er great sug­ges­tions for all ages here on Multi­B­riefs: Exclusive.
 

Books can open doors to inclusivity

by

Many of us who write books for chil­dren, rec­om­mend books for chil­dren, and teach chil­dren to read books have been won­der­ing late­ly what more we can do to move the world for­ward to have more inclu­siv­i­ty, com­pas­sion, and empa­thy. We’ve been won­der­ing if our efforts real­ly make a dif­fer­ence. We may have been tempt­ed to pull back, to retreat, to avoid the dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions and inter­ac­tions. But some­times push­ing past the dis­com­fort and mak­ing an hon­est con­nec­tion can make all the dif­fer­ence in the world.
I just read a beau­ti­ful arti­cle in the Wash­ing­ton Post writ­ten by fel­low kidlit author and agency-mate Suzanne Nel­son. In the arti­cle, Suzanne writes about a birth­day par­ty that she did­n’t go to because the girl was hear­ing impaired and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with her was awk­ward. She writes about how she still has­n’t been able to for­give her­self for mak­ing that cow­ard­ly deci­sion. And she writes about how we can help oth­ers avoid act­ing similarly:

Every moment we share books, music, con­ver­sa­tion, or meals with peo­ple who might not be com­plete­ly like us, is one moment more that we ben­e­fit and grow as human beings, that we rec­og­nize the beau­ty, flu­id­i­ty, and worth of our dif­fer­ences. And the more we do this as adults, the more our chil­dren rec­og­nize how to inter­act, how to have empa­thy. We all have moments when we are less than kind, less than tol­er­ant, less than the peo­ple we strive to be. With expo­sure, con­tact, and edu­ca­tion, I hope my chil­dren grow up to have few­er of them. Maybe they’ll walk through that door, and maybe they’ll go to that party. 

The arti­cle remind­ed me of a woman I was friends with in col­lege. I met her when I was work­ing as an assis­tant in the com­put­er lab. She often need­ed help. She was in a motor­ized wheel­chair. She was elder­ly. She had cere­bral pal­sy. She could bare­ly talk. She made the let­ters on the screen so big she could only read a few words at a time. She would type her papers one dif­fi­cult key­stroke at a time, jab­bing at the key­board with a fat pen­cil. She often missed and had to go back and try again, some­times shriek­ing in anger. It was painstak­ing to watch, and yet I admired her deter­mi­na­tion. Were any of the rest of us tak­ing our edu­ca­tion that seri­ous­ly? Would any of the rest of us have will­ing­ly put our­selves through that frus­tra­tion and embar­rass­ment every sin­gle evening and weekend?
Over time, I got to know her bet­ter. I start­ed being able to deci­pher her slurred speech and have mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions with her. Despite the com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers and the gen­er­a­tion gap, we became friends. Some­times when she saw me out­side of the lab she would get so excit­ed that she would smile and laugh, which often result­ed in drool and spit­ting. Peo­ple around us would recoil in dis­gust. I had too, ini­tial­ly, but what’s a lit­tle spit among friends? When I invit­ed my boyfriend, who is now my hus­band, to vis­it me at col­lege, we made plans to go out to din­ner with her. She knew how I felt about him and was joy­ous at meet­ing him, so piz­za and drool were fly­ing every­where, often spray­ing us and our plates. I was wor­ried that he’d be upset with me for putting him through this, but the entire meal he treat­ed her with respect and inter­est. He wait­ed for me to trans­late her speech so he could con­verse with her. After­ward, he said some­thing to the effect of, “What an inter­est­ing, amaz­ing woman. I can see why you like her.” I fell in love with him all over again because of that interaction.
My life has been for­ev­er enriched by know­ing her and oth­ers like her. So, I urge you to read Suzan­ne’s whole arti­cle, here. I urge you to write, rec­om­mend, and teach books that will help chil­dren choose kind­ness and inclu­siv­i­ty and to val­ue all kinds of peo­ple of all abil­i­ties, races, reli­gions, ori­en­ta­tions, iden­ti­ties, etc. And I urge you to take a risk, seek con­nec­tion over com­fort, and make sure you go to that party.
Here are some pos­si­ble books to start with:

NEWSLETTER
SIGN-UP