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• Importance of Inclusion in Educational Settings Pathways School Gurgaon
  
  August 30

Would you like to spend all sixteen years of your school life (pre-nursery, nursery, junior KG, senior KG, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth) excluded by all your classmates?

Of course you wouldn’t! And nor would anyone else. Which is why I am writing about the importance of inclusivity within educational settings and the role students and teachers play in improving it.

We spend about eight hours a day, five days a week in school. Considering holidays this will amount to approximately twelve hundred hours a year. Overall, we’d have spent nineteen thousand, two hundred hours in school by the time we graduated!

Can you imagine being shunned and excluded eight hours a day, five days a week, two hundred and fifty-two days a year for sixteen years? Of course you can’t! Unless you have been shunned and excluded eight hours a day, five days a week, two hundred and fifty-two days a year for sixteen years, that is. Isn’t it enough to have to spend eight hours every, gruelling away learning state capitals, PH levels, algebra and so, so, so much more, without having to do it alone, and friendless?

 

Every year there are at least thousands of student suicides globally. What do you think causes them? Sure, some of them are caused by stress, peer pressure and parental pressure, but a lot of them are a result of depression. And nothing! I say nothing is as certain a method to induce depression as exclusion.

We’re all people at the end of the day, aren’t we? We all have the right to be included by our peers. And most importantly we all deserve to be. No one deserves to be shunned by their peers and no one should be subjected to that.

Each and every one of you have a moral responsibility to ensure that everyone is welcomed, that every student feels like they belong. This responsibility is mainly up to teachers and other students to uphold.

Every student should ensure that none of their peers feel lonely, unwelcome or excluded. They should strive to welcome everyone regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, academic and extra-curricular capabilities etc. They should not only strive to include their peers in school but outside of school as well. Teachers must ensure all their students are included during class activities and activities outside of class too.

Encouraging the students who are shy or introverted to mingle with their peers is an integral first step. And who better to it than those with whom they spend the entire day with. Ice-breaker activities can offer immense aid for doing so. Also, the usage of the buddy system ensures that no child is left behind and is always accompanied by a classmate.

These are just a few ways to ensure inclusion within school settings. There are endless possibilities and it is important for teachers to choose the ones that they feel would work best in different contexts.

To conclude we spend a huge amount of our lives in school and it is important not just for mental well-being but also academic performance that everyone is included within their school settings.

Now that you know all the possible adverse impacts exclusion within school (and outside of it) could have it is up to you to uphold your moral duties and ensure that every child is included.

By Inika Tyagi