This One Hard Thing has been my one hard thing for some time. I have been struggling with the multitude of complex and overlapping problems that seem to tangle me up, personally, professionally, and in all the ways the parts of my life intersect. I get angry, but that doesn’t help. I work harder, but that doesn’t help either. I give up, and that doesn’t help at all.
It has slowly (so slowly!) dawned on me that applying more force to a difficult situation just creates more anxiety, and tension, and related (but probably avoidable) issues. This has rocked me back on my heels, so to speak. I have had to pull away, reduce my momentum and speed, grow some patience, listen, and learn. The learning is far from done. The listening is becoming very appealing. The patience is…well, I hate being patient, but there you go. It’s just necessary.
Slowing down as a solution (or at least a bridge) is very non-intuitive to me, temperamentally, and culturally, if I’m honest. But it (slowing down), so far, is the only action that I think will give me a shot at more mental clarity, emotional congruence, and considerate responses to challenges. This website is me, slowing down. I am trying to tease out the various strands of logic, and ethical behaviour, as well as emotional realities, that underlie truly inclusive communities.
I’m part of several social networks. Many, actually. I want to do better at showing intelligent love to the other humans who are equally confounded by the unkindness, the selfishness, the muddy thinking, the brutality of some aspects of our shared existence. We can’t directly fix the “human condition.” We can’t control very much at all. But we do have ourselves to bring to the table, and ourselves is not nothing.
We each, I believe, have a unique perspective that, if shared, will help someone, or someones. If not shared, others miss out. Inclusion to me simply means that I get to safely share my perspective, and I am able to listen to yours. Inclusion means I am not less than you, nor are you less than me, based on any external or even internal measurement. I am valid, and worthwhile, and an asset to the world. So is everyone else. Everyone.
Not to state the obvious, but that means everyone, including those of us who are currently not allowed a voice, or can’t enter the room, or aren’t encouraged to speak. As an occupational therapist who has mainly worked with and on behalf of children, I see disabilities as a primary barrier to inclusion. But there are others. I know that you have strong feelings about certain thresholds, groups, and categories that come to mind in discussions like this one. Thank you. Your feelings show you care and that you see a problem. We need that awareness, and we need to find a way to share our various levels of awareness without getting tangled up in hierarchies, systems, regulations and judgement.
And that’s hard. I hope you can support the idea I have here of trying to thread the needle of actual practical encouragement, while trying to keep everyone safe (relatively speaking!), as we talk about issues that are close to home, close to our hearts, and may even be triggering for some of us. We are not, after all, dealing with abstract pain here. Rejection, exclusion, invalidation, and silencing is extremely real. And extremely sharp. All of us have felt this to some degree. Some of us have felt this to a horrific extent.
So, while I started this website with the (happily simple) idea of encouraging educators who are trying to include kids with differences – disabilities, or just atypicalities that set them apart and make traveling through K-12 more difficult – it has grown. I can’t ignore the fact that everyone in society is part of a village that helps to raise our children, and to support each other as adults. Parents (and I am one, although my kids are now grown ups) are of course the critical people we need to support much more, and so much better. But there are also health care workers (also my people!), the vast web of social services supports (including, unfortunately, Justice, and Corrections), and policy makers, administrators at all levels, and influencers large and small.
We all share a stake in how inclusive our communities are, because at some point in time, we all feel left out of the action, or the loop, or the “room.” We all, some more than others, know what being marginalized feels like. It sucks. It’s not good. Not for the ones marginalized, of course, but also because leaving people out impoverishes the group. Sometimes it can destroy the group. We can’t afford to dispose of the riches that each person brings when they are born, engage, relate, enter.
So, this website has slowly evolved in the making. Now it is the start (I truly hope) of a community of diverse people with diverse backgrounds and even more diverse thoughts. We need to think more clearly. Do less, better. Come up with innovative solutions for resource-strapped services and programs. Or, dispense with programs and create space for people instead. Hmm.
Meanwhile, we tell our children, our students, ourselves: one task, one page, one puzzle piece, one problem, one sticker, one step. One at a time. Easy does it. Keep on keeping on. We tell ourselves this, but we have trouble doing it. We (I!) tend to either take on too much, or become discouraged by the mountain of work that still needs to be done, somehow. There is always still so far to go. It’s a lot of hard things, and they are really impossible, taken as a group, or even two or three at a time.
Yes. Life is hard. Yes, work can feel like a mountain. Yes, the adventure of self-discovery and self-expression is discouraging and downright dangerous at times. And yet…I truly believe that we (society? individuals? professionals? families?) have got this. We (all of us, but starting with me) just need to go slow, and think carefully, and then try something. We need to apply what wisdom we have to the problems before us, breathe deeply, and choose a path. Take a step. And then do that thoughtful consideration, and choice, and step, again. Patiently.
We do this, and our students and children and friends and colleagues and family do this, and we encourage each other, and we will move forward. We will make progress. Together. It’s actually quite a beautiful (albeit messy) relationship. I’m hopeful that way. I really do think humans are awesome.
Please join this conversation. We need your perspective, and your experience, your feelings, and your particular unique brand of brilliance. We need you. We all benefit from the individual contributions that make a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Even the tiny ones. Even the single steps. Especially the single steps. That’s the premise that won’t leave me alone.
If you believe in both all of us and each of us, then…again, welcome. You are welcome.
Because it’s all in the little things you do have and you do bring and you do know and you can do. That’s where we will find the one hard thing at a time that will absolutely create a space where we all truly, authentically, belong.
