Inclusion in Education

In Maisha T. Winn’s essay “Toward a Restorative English Education,” she describes both the need and the solution for a “Restorative English Education.” To her, this is “a pedagogy of possibilities that employs literature and writing to seek justice and restore … peace” (Pg. 126) in order to end the cycle that turns “at risk youths” into criminal adults. She examines various classrooms that have accomplished something towards this goal, where creative writing and critical thinking are accepted from everyone, regardless of academic success. Leah Buechley’s speech for Eyeo 2014 speaks about the lack of diversity in the Maker Movement, a movement that promised to be open and inclusive. She describes how the people that are the bulk of the Maker community are those who already have access and power. She then gives Make suggestions for how to improve the diversity of their base, showing that it’s not only possible, but that the fact that it isn’t already happening is only a detriment to the Maker community. Lastly is “Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 2.0: a.k.a. the Remix” by Gloria Ladson-Billings, which acknowledges the fact that pedagogy should be dynamic and changing, and she addresses the changes to make in her theory in light of a more fluid view of culture. This leads to a “culturally sustaining pedagogy.”

To me, all of these pieces have an extremely important message of inclusiveness that has to be taken to the forefront today. The reason for this is also addressed for the articles: the current education system is largely not focused towards this. This is particularly unfortunate because I have always viewed education as the best way to ensure equality of opportunity. When everyone is educated fairly, and when we give students a growth mindset, we foster a spirit and practice of more equality, and we make more progress. Last night I had a friend tell me about how her high school would ask kids who might not have the grades to graduate to transfer to another (“easier”) school, quite obviously to keep their own graduation rates artificially high. This makes it seem like the burden of a student can only be a product of their own inability, and not the ineffectiveness or unwillingness of the educational institution to measure its success by its lowest achieving students, not its highest.

My question to the class is: How inclusive (or not) was your K-12 education? How might you change it in light of these readings?