The Complexities of Inclusion

Grief

“I want to see the picture of my Mom,” JA says, as they run to take a quick peek at the phone that I’ve pulled out of my pocket.  “Teacher Cody,” he continues, “I miss my Mom.”  

Connection

TH is playing in the “dome” (Or the “jungle gym,” some may call it).  He’s making food and serving it to CKP, who is also in the dome.  JA sees this and says, “I want to get in.”  I ask what hole he wants to go through to enter the climbing structure, and he quickly chooses one of the triangle openings closest to the ground.  He sits next to TH, and TH offers some of the “food” that he’s prepared.  JA smiles at this, looking up at me and commenting, “He just gave me some food!”

Consent 

JA is sitting in my lap inside the classroom soon after rest time.  TH, who is sitting across from JA and I, says to JA, “Can I hug you?”  “Yeah,” JA responds.  Reaching over into my lap, TH extends his arms, clutching JA  tightly before letting go.  JA turns to me with a big smile and says, “That person just hugged me.”  “I saw that.  What did you think about it?,” I ask.  “I liked it!,” he says.  

Since JA’s first day with our Preschool cohort, he carried a complexity of emotions through our gates.  When he left The Nest, he left his peers, their families, and teachers.  Furthermore, he left the place that had comforted and nurtured him for so long.  What had become so familiar to him was now replaced by the unfamiliar.  What was known has now become foreign.

This foreign place, people, and social processes make up what is Tumbleweed.  And as Tumbleweed, we interact within a tapestry of social patterns, cues, feelings, thinking, etc.  These patterns come from the stuff we have woven into what it means to be a Mom, what it means to be a Dad, what it means to be a child, what it means to be human.  And each family’s weaving looks different, shaped by the threads of practices, customs, traditions of family and context- all combining to create the tapestry of culture(s) and cultural processes that we engage in with one another.  And though we seldom acknowledge it, these things are not easy to digest or comprehend because  their intricacies and dynamisms are legion.

In the brief stories shared above, I highlighted only three experiences that are included among the multitude of feelings and interactions that shape the inclusion of a new child into our community.  Grief, connection, and consent expose the sadness, the joy and the negotiation of all these experiences.   And we celebrate JA’s journey in traversing these experiences.  But they do not convey the whole of what he experiences each day, as he walks onto our grounds.  

I say all of this in hopes to convey one reminder: Inclusion is a most necessary task, and it is a task of a whole community.  When JA, or another new member of our Community, is experiencing the complexities of learning the communication, rituals, social patterns, etc. in which we have built, we are all called upon to respond.  We are called to seek their full inclusion (children, parents, family, and culture) into Tumbleweed, while also recognizing the challenges that they face.  We are called to allow the thread(s) of their selves become woven into the tapestry of who we are.  We are called to include.