I recently had the opportunity to deliver a workshop on “inclusive education” to students at a private University – a fantastic initiative to introduce social science concepts to engineering students! This was my first time facilitating a workshop for college students, as my experience has primarily been with younger learners and adults. I was looking forward to take on this and see how it would differ. It proved rewarding.

Our discussions and activities centered around following key questions:

• What does “inclusive education” truly mean?
• What does inclusive education not look like?
• Why is inclusive education so important?
• Does inclusive education only address disability?
• How does “diversity” differ from “inclusion”?
• What practical steps promote inclusivity in our immediate surroundings and even in friend groups?

In my observation, it was fun to talk about social science and humanities to students who usually think to circuits and algorithm (I guess?). Keeping the “Explain Like I’m Five” principle in mind helped me avoid jargon and focus on universally understandable examples and language.

Role of Mentimeter

Just after the session many students approached me to thank for using Mentimeter during the session. Curiously, I asked why they found it valuable. Their response was heartwarming: “As introverts, we often hesitate to share our views during sessions. However, tools like Mentimeter empowered us to express our opinions and take a stand on each question you presented. It made us feel included and heard.” It was wonderful how unintentionally (tool I used) and tools in general technology we use are designed to make everyone included and heard.

Some interesting observations

When asked which image best represents the word diversity, all of them (i can say) chose, the image B.

When asked why, they told that the image B is most closely associated which also says that diversity is not only about uniqueness but staying united. I felt this was best approach to explain what inclusion means. The Image B actually represents “Inclusion”, because inclusion is about being connected, respected and being listened to when you are in a group. Diversity is merely about the uniqueness of people coming from different background, race, religion, age, and socio-economic status. This helped to conclude that Diversity is a fact and inclusion is an act.

Can you make an educated guess about whether the image above represents an inclusive classroom?

Some statistics

I did not want to flood the discussion with too many numbers. But you cannot escape numbers for so long right. So I gave a glimpse of drastic fall of enrollment percentage from primary into high school. This percentage portrays a sad story in the differently-abled student group.

Some things to think…

As the session drew to a closure, I introduced a set of open ended questions via mentimeter – an opportunity for students to share their insights, projected live on the screen. However what followed left me deeply concerned.

As you can see, there were many positive responses and those responses closely aligned with the intended outcome of the session. But for 20 responses I could see 2 or 3 abusive responses. For a while civility took a back seat. After the session many students came up to me apologies for such responses on behalf of the their peers. It really frustrated me for a while, but does it help anyway?

But what does it really say?

1. Is it an indication of deeper struggle of students masked by sarcasm?
2. Do they earn more meaningful discourse that could connect them better?
3. Does it represents a miniature of our society we live in?
4. Are teaching mutual respect, civil discourse, building character and empathy given a front seat than professional skills? can these be taught to begin with?
5. Or is it just an exceptional scenario

Maybe, just maybe, I hope they meet that one teacher who will transform their negative comments into profound questions and insights “without neglecting them”.