When Inclusion Seems Just Too Hard…
Sometimes, as I lay awake at four in the morning worrying
about some petty trivia from school, I forget that there is a world
full of people out there who are as committed and dedicated to inclusion
as I am.
I recently led two workshops on a Diocesan Governors
training day for the Catholic and Protestant schools of Hampshire, Portsmouth,
Southampton and the Isle of Wight. It was a day which flagged up both
how far we had come and how very far we still have to go. The positive
was that the Churches invited me to speak - knowing my 'extreme' views
on inclusion. The negative was highlighted when an exasperated Church
School Headteacher interrupted my session stating - 'I know how much
devastation can be caused when a child with Downs Syndrome is included
in a mainstream school'. I was shocked by her comment. My immediate
desire to kill her was overcome and, after taking a moment to think,
I answered that I know many examples of schools which regularly include
children with a wide range of impairments and the whole school benefits
from their presence. It was interesting that none of the other participants
in the workshop joined in with her attack. (Which would certainly have
been the case a few years ago).
I was heartened the following week, when I attended
the Alliance for Inclusive Education's AGM, by meeting professionals
like myself, people with impairments, parents and allies all working
together to chip away at the monolith which is our segregated society.
What particularly stuck in my mind after the meeting was the sense of
desperation felt by parents of children with impairments. Two mothers
spoke to me at length of the personal cost around having to fight simply
to have their children included in society. One was so worn out by the
years of struggle that she had even contemplated suicide.
Our hopelessness and powerlessness, ingrained since
childhood, tricks us into believing that it is useless trying to persuade
people like that Headteacher. The reality is that she is a good, intelligent,
loving woman who is doing the best she can to support the children in
her school. She does not yet have the information necessary to learn
how to include all children well.
I want to put down some thoughts about how our struggle
towards inclusion can seem a hard and lonely place and how essential
it is that we keep in contact with one another - keep reaching for closeness
with one another and keep up the fight, which, one day, we shall win!
One thing I notice is the relief parents and young people
with impairments show when they hear me speak of Heading for Inclusion.
Finally a group of Headteachers and other professionals who include
all children with open arms regardless of their needs. Having heard
many of the awful stories of the struggles parents have to obtain simple
basic human rights for their children, that relief is understandable.
We are seen as heroes. We are the saviours who will rescue children
with impairments from nightmare situations. These high expectations
put a lot of pressure on us. We are doing our best in a difficult climate
- but we are human and fallible and produce as many mistakes as we do
successes - probably more because, one thing that characterises us,
is the fact that we are willing to take risks
In the current situation, inclusion is a difficult path
for professionals to tread. The system is set up within an economic
model where education is seen as the road to employment - the road to
productivity. Government education policy in England is currently split
between two deeply contrasting world views -
" On the one hand - a rigid system of training children in reading,
writing, science and maths preparing them for 'work' through a series
of national tests; a curriculum delivered by technocrats whose role
is to keep order and achieve targets. In this system children who do
not conform to the average are an impediment - they get in the way of
the workings of the machine (formerly they were segregated into special
schools which were not required to have academic aspirations).
" On the other hand there is a recognition that our society has
got it wrong, that children are social beings who need to live in a
society, who need to learn to play and co-operate and love each other.
To their credit some Church and mainstream schools proudly proclaim
a counter-cultural stance and uphold these as worthwhile values.
There is a contradiction currently in the system whereby
Ofsted inspections focus on results in Key Stage tests but also have
to inspect an increasing array of 'softer' issues like well-being and
pupil satisfaction. It seems that each time an international study shows
how poorly the English education system and the happiness of our children
compares to other countries, the Government tags another box onto the
school's self evaluation form (SEF) and schools have to scrabble around
to find new sets of 'evidence' to prove that the children really are
'happier' this year than on average over the last three.
The core thrust of 'accountability' remains the same,
however, the important factor remains the short term results in tests.
All our children are losing out with the focus on such a narrow understanding
of the curriculum and a system of measurement which relies so heavily
on the pseudo-scientific statistical analysis of test data. Once a set
of data is written down we slavishly believe that it is the 'reality'
of the learning situation - that it really does represent an accurate
picture - it must do because that is what the graph shows us. Schools
are being forced, often against their will, to prepare children for
the tests. Education has become a political game with children, teachers
and schools being used as the ball! It is too hard to measure whether
a child is socialising better, thinking more deeply, questioning the
world in a more intelligent way, causing joy to those around her - so
instead we measure if she can produce more complex sentences or if she
can multiply two digit by three digit numbers.
Headteachers like the one mentioned above often run
schools which do very well in 'exams'. Children who will 'bring down
the results' are encouraged to attend the school down the road 'which
does so well with special needs'. The Government has claimed to address
the above by taking special needs into account when calculating a schools
'value added' measures in the SAT tests. When I took out the results
of the two boys with statements from my overall results last year we
went from 'significantly below' to within normal parameters. Even with
sophisticated measurement, children with learning impairments are likely
to 'bring down the results' when measured against SAT scores. Headteachers
and Governors who do not share an ethos of inclusion are very likely
to choose the easy, albeit immoral, route and effectively select the
children for their school. The participants at the Diocesan training
day were surprised when I told them of the highly regarded Church School
Headteacher who puts post-it notes on her wall with the names of children
that the pre-schools tell her are not so quick at learning. When it
comes to sorting out admissions guess which children are not given places?
The danger in arguing for a fundamental change in our
education system is that one can easily be demonised as anti-academic
- promoting an inclusive system can be seen as downgrading the importance
of what are currently called the 'core subjects' of maths, English and
science. This could not be further from the truth. I passionately support
the desire for all children to be drenched in their linguistic culture;
to develop a love of understanding how our existence is explained in
scientific and mathematics terms and to apply that thinking to everyday
and universal questions. My question is where does that fit into forcing
four year old children to reproduce phonic exercises for a language
which is not based in a phonetic structure - where the most common words
do not follow the simplest patterns? Our four year olds should be enjoying
their existence, exploring the world around them, talking, listening
to poetry and wonderful stories, learning songs, questioning, playing
and building a picture of what it is to be a human living in a society.
In such a community of learning how could a child with Downs syndrome
be seen as causing devastation? It is only when we try to force children
into rigid boxes that we find they rebel and do not conform.
I believe our biggest task in the foreseeable future
is twofold:
1. Firstly we must continue to discuss, grow a picture
of, promote and fight for inclusion in whatever way we have chosen -
through our careers, our parenting our very existence.
2. Our second tasks is to win hearts and minds.
All human beings are currently trapped within the confines
of a rigid society. Firstly our families, then our schools have shaped
us into becoming representative examples of citizens of our particular
culture. As parents we train our children to be able to live in the
society into which they are born. We stop them from questioning; we
bully them out of behaviours which challenge the status quo; we restrict
their dreams and render them helpless and powerless. In most English
schools we force them to work with children of their own age and we
even restrict what clothes they are allowed to wear!
The children with whom I have worked with Downs Syndrome
or 'behavioural difficulties' are often people who have retained much
of their power as young people. They often feel they have nothing to
lose by challenging authority - their treatment can't get much worse
and it is worth the consequences! They are willing to fight way beyond
the place where the rest of us feel we can take the struggle. This is
why the establishment wants to put them away somewhere that they cannot
be seen - certainly where they cannot influence other young people to
challenge authority.
I believe those of us in the inclusion movement have,
for a series of often random factors, managed to grow some of our thinking
beyond the restrictions imposed on us as young people. For whatever
reason - perhaps we are parents of people with impairments or we have
had life experiences which have shown us alternative ways of living
- perhaps our political or religious beliefs have led us to counter-cultural
conclusions - for whatever reason - we have developed an inclusive view
of the universe. We have retained or rediscovered some of our rebelliousness.
We have certainly been able to get a glimpse of a world different from
the one we currently perceive around us. We were, however, all brought
up in rigid societies. Our values, our dreams, our deepest held beliefs
all need to be questioned and re-evaluated. We must continually challenge
each other's deepest held prejudices so that we can gain an increasingly
accurate picture both of the world, as it exists currently and of how
it could be improved.
There are billions of victims of the rigid society out
there who have not had their restricted view of human possibilities
challenged and have not reached the same conclusions as us. If we are
to be successful in creating an inclusive world we are going to have
to go after those people. Although killing them does sometimes seem
like a quicker option, I think we are going to have to find a more effective
way than that. My experience working with children with violent behaviour
has taught me that confrontation rarely works in changing a person's
mind. Liking them and listening to them respectfully, on the other hand,
often does! I think we are going to have to nail our feet to the floor
and listen to the fears of our critics - let them voice their deepest
terrors, which were instilled in them in their early childhood.
I was recently visited by a parent who is very unhappy with the way
I am running my school (she has subsequently taken her daughter away).
In her eyes, the two biggest crimes I have committed are in allowing
the children to call me Nigel and by 'letting all those children with
problems into the school'. For her this represents a lowering of moral
standards, it is the thin end of the wedge and is the end of the world
as she knows it. In fact she is, in many ways, right - I am challenging
the status quo. Where she is wrong is in assuming that the children
do not respect me - that the moral fabric of humanity is collapsing
and that the world will be a worse place in which to live.
I do not believe I have won her over to the cause of
inclusion - but she must have noticed how happy her child was in the
school. One of my Governors asked her whether her child had been happy
at the school, whether her academic progress had been good, if she had
friends - the answer to all was a resounding 'yes'. But she did not
like the way the school was led. She did not make the link that it is
the very nature of an inclusive school which leads to children being
happy, making friends, learning and living well together.
The inclusive world we are heading towards is a place
where each person's needs are thought about; where we are all valued
regardless of our achievements and our abilities ; it is a place of
constant questioning, challenge and compromise. It won't look slick
in the way that our current rigid society can sometimes 'appear'. It
will certainly be a bit messier.
In terms of schools, there will be more movement and
noise; there will be oases of calm, more play and deep learning. Teachers
and children will aim to treat each other with the utmost respect -
giving each other space to be their full hopeful, enthusiastic selves.
Teachers will follow the interests of the children and encourage them
to expand their horizons ever further. Exams, uniforms and age related
classes will be an amusing anecdote about the way young people used
to be oppressed in the past.
The struggle we have embarked upon is not an easy one.
We are challenging the fundamental existence of our current societies.
We must work together to make sure we are heading in the same direction.
Inclusive schools are, and will increasingly be, wonderful places for
our young people to grow up and learn to live together. We must never
lose sight of our goal of a fully inclusive world.
Nigel Utton February 2008
Chair Heading for Inclusion
Heading for inclusion is an organisation for Headteachers
and other educational leaders dedicated to the ideals of a fully inclusive
mainstream education system.
Our annual conference will take place in London on Friday
20th June - see the www.allfie.org.uk website for further information.
Heading for Inclusion Summer Conference 2007
Our summer conference was a triumph - we were undeterred
by the bombings on London on the same day! Most of us were able to get
to the venue. It was wonderful to spend the day with people working
on inclusion from such different angles - and that is our strength in
Heading for Inclusion. We had a visitor from Azerbaijan who is working
at a national level to change policy around inclusion, the policy director
for the Disability Rights Commission, the director of the Centre for
Studies in Inclusive Education, a speaker from School's Out as well
as chalk face teachers, Headteachers and our own Alliance activists
and parents.
The key message from the conference is that we are all
essential in the move towards inclusive education - we cannot do it
without changes in the law - but we also cannot do it without people
who are prepared to dedicate their lives to making real changes for
individual children in school now! I hope everybody went away from the
conference truly valuing their particular part in the jigsaw puzzle
and knowing that we are doing this together.
At the organisation stage we were keen to ensure that
this was going to be a conference with a difference. We wanted each
participant to have the opportunity to share their views and their particular
experiences of inclusion and to be able to ask questions of others about
their areas of interest and expertise. Our goal was to have the equivalent
of a series of long coffee breaks where conversation was the central
aim - interspersed with opportunities to listen to talks and ask questions
in the larger group. As a result we all had a very stimulating day and
finished with our heads buzzing with news from Azerbaijan; the future
of the single equality duty; thoughts about how best to include children
with a variety of different needs (including young people with disabilities,
gay young people, ethnic minorities, black children and children from
outside the UK); a discussion about fairer funding and many individual
mind expanding exchanges.
We had a major discussion on how radical policy change
in Azerbaijan has not yet led to the expected changes for children with
impairments who are still largely kept at home not receiving any formal
education. This was a salutary lesson to those of us disappointed at
the slow pace of change in our own country. Our discussion confirmed
that the situation is similar to our own position in relation to gay,
disabled and black people who, despite changes in the law still continue
to suffer a whole range of discrimination both openly and in hidden
ways. It is clear our voices needs to be heard!
As for the future of Heading for Inclusion, over the
next year we need to:
Develop a website
Expand our membership to include all 'educational professionals'
Continue our termly meetings
Advertise the date of next year's conference (provisionally Friday 18th
July)
Keep up the good work of supporting and encouraging each other on the
path to full inclusion.
If you have any other ideas please contact-
Nigel Utton
Chair Heading for Inclusion
Tel 01420 84400
Mob 07984 738 984
Nigel.utton@st-lawrence.hants.sch.uk
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