Sitting in my seminar this week with my student teachers we talked about how to manage kids in the classroom.
We discussed the three guest speakers we had had the week before --
excellent teachers from all walks of life.
All three of them kept repeating the same message.
Even though they were from different cities and from different schools with different populations of students.
They said it many different ways but it all came down to this:
The student must feel unconditional acceptance from you.
The students need to feel loved and connected...
...and then, said so simply by one of my student teachers, this gem revealed itself:
we long to belong.
I've been rolling that around in my head for a few days...
smoothing it over like a favorite blanket...
petting it...
visiting those simple rhyming words...
and letting them sink way down deep.
No duh.
We know this at such a basic level that we overlook it.
As parents.
As friends.
As family members.
As community members.
As a couple.
And yes, as teachers.
I've been working on a little dream of my own recently and it has everything to do with belonging.
Everything about feeling worthy and celebrated and accepted.
We long to belong.
Every child should feel worthy.
Every child should feel cherished and treasured and wanted...
especially at school....
most especially if we say we're Catholic and work to have our children attend Catholic school.
Parents of children with disabilities are a special group.
They've been separated and isolated through almost their entire parenting journey.
That feeling of isolation can be crushing.
Not to mention lonely.
These families have most definitely felt like outsiders standing at the gate.
They knock on the door...but they just aren't sure it will open.
It's time we threw the door wide open.
We long to belong.
Yep, folks, right here.right now. we are working on full inclusion in Catholic schools.
We are supporting families, educators, administrators and priests or other religious with our
vision and hope.
Turns out belonging has a name -- fullinclusionforcatholicschools.org
There's no entrance fee.
No golden ticket required.
You belong just by being you.
You are welcomed and wanted.
Come on in.
Love that, Beth. It just takes one voice, one step at a time sometimes, to make change start to happen.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Jennifer!! We all long to belong...so often we just need to grab ahold of the hand held out to us...but so often we can't see it or dare to hope for it. Thank you for always reaching out.
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