I wrote this article a few years ago, and I find myself returning to it now because the question at its center feels just as pressing today as it did then, maybe more so.
What if the goal was never really inclusion, but belonging?
This piece, originally published in AMI/USA Magazine, explores what happens when we stop measuring our work by how well a child fits into an existing structure, and start asking instead how that structure can be shaped around who the child already is. Revisiting it now, I am struck by how much our field still needs this reframe.
Montessori gave us the blueprint for this long before "inclusion" became a familiar word in education. When she wrote that education should be less about imparting knowledge and more about releasing human potential, she was describing an orientation, not a checklist. A fully prepared Montessori environment does not accommodate a child's differences from the outside. It is built, from the ground up, on trust in each child's capacity to grow.
In the full piece, I walk through what this looks like in practice: a mindset rooted in possibility rather than deficit, one that trusts the environment and the child enough to notice what is emerging instead of what is missing. I also introduce a framework I call Being, Becoming, Belonging, a way of holding individuality and community together rather than in competition with each other. And I make the case for thinking in terms of an educational ecosystem, an interconnected web of people, environments, and practices, where every child's growth strengthens the whole.
None of this is about adding another strategy to an already full toolbox. It is about the lens we bring before we ever choose a strategy at all.
I am sharing it again now because the work of building belonging is never finished, and I think this piece still has something to offer. If it resonates with how you think about your own classroom or community, I would love for you to read the full article.
Originally published in AMI/USA Magazine, November 2024.