Creating Inclusive, Learning-Friendly Environments

If we think beyond the obvious challenges we face in School Education - Availability, Affordability and Quality, the next immediate dimension which springs up is Inclusion.

"Inclusive Education" has been on the agendas and drawing boards for quite some time now, but actual execution is where the entire plot goes haywire. More so, I think we will not be able to find a reasonable number of schools in the country who even talk about inclusive education, let alone try to implement it.

In its broadest and all encompassing meaning, inclusive education, as an approach, seeks to address the learning needs of all children, youth and adults with a specific focus on those who are vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion. It implies all learners, young people - with or without disabilities being able to learn together through access to common pre-school provisions, schools and community educational setting with an appropriate network of support services.  This is possible only in a flexible education system that assimilates the needs of a diverse range of learners and adapts itself to meet these needs.  It aims at all stakeholders in the system (learners, parents, community, teachers, administrators, policy makers) to be comfortable with diversity and see it as a challenge rather than a problem.

All this while, the concept of Inclusive Education has tended to be concerned principally with disability and ‘special educational needs’ and implied learners changing or becoming ‘ready for’ or deserving of accommodation by the mainstream. Now this is where we need to understand that Inclusion is not moving towards the mainstream. Inclusion is about the child’s right to participate and the school’s duty to accept the child. Inclusion should reject the use of special schools or classrooms to separate students with disabilities from students without disabilities. A premium should be placed upon full participation by students with disabilities and upon respect for their social, civil, and educational rights. 

Fully inclusive schools, though rare, do not distinguish between "general education" and "special education" programs; instead, the school is restructured so that all students learn together.

The following link gives an insight into what is an ILFE (Inclusive, Learning-Friendly Environment) and how can we move towards creating these ILFEs in our schools.

Tool kit for creating ILFEs

MI is not Mission Impossible and 007 is not James Bond

Theory of Multiple Intelligence - Gardener's Seven Intelligences


The Theory of Multiple Intelligence was indeed a major step towards establishing the relationship between cognition and formal education. Accepting Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences has several implications for teachers in terms of classroom instruction. 

1. The theory states that all seven intelligences are needed to productively function in society. Teachers, therefore, should think of all intelligences as equally important. This is in great contrast to traditional education systems which typically place a strong emphasis on the development and use of verbal and mathematical intelligences. Thus, the Theory of Multiple Intelligences implies that educators should recognize and teach to a broader range of talents and skills.  

2. Another implication is that teachers should structure the presentation of material in a style which engages most or all of the intelligences. For example, when teaching about the revolutionary war, a teacher can show students battle maps, play revolutionary war songs, organize a role play of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and have the students read a novel about life during that period. This kind of presentation not only excites students about learning, but it also allows a teacher to reinforce the same material in a variety of ways. By activating a wide assortment of intelligences, teaching in this manner can facilitate a deeper understanding of the subject material. 

3. Everyone is born possessing the seven intelligences. Nevertheless, all students will come into the classroom with different sets of developed intelligences. This means that each child will have his own unique set of intellectual strengths and weaknesses. These sets determine how easy (or difficult) it is for a student to learn information when it is presented in a particular manner. This is commonly referred to as a learning style. Many learning styles can be found within one classroom. Therefore, it is impossible, as well as impractical, for a teacher to accommodate every lesson to all of the learning styles found within the classroom. Nevertheless the teacher can show students how to use their more developed intelligences to assist in the understanding of a subject which normally employs their weaker intelligences. For example, the teacher can suggest that an especially musically intelligent child learn about the revolutionary war by making up a song about what happened. 

Following link gives further perspective on Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences and Education.

Howard Gardner