Inclusion: "It's no longer a question of if, it's a question of how"

He is helping to shape the inclusion process at schools in Oldenburg and is also providing scientific support. In this interview, Dr Holger Lindemann talks about visions and concerns, about new, different teaching and the journey as a goal.

QUESTION: How do you understand the term inclusion?

LINDEMANN: Inclusion describes the vision that all people should be able to participate equally in all areas of society. Regardless of age, gender, origin, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, marital status or possible disability. The idea is that everyone should live, learn and work together wherever they happen to be. Inclusion is based on an intermediate step, namely integration: certain groups are excluded and should be enabled to participate. Inclusion then means not excluding anyone in the first place. If you look at the Lower Saxony Education Act, it defines inclusion as the idea that pupils with disabilities are now included in mainstream schools. But that is still the old idea of integration and also excludes many groups of people to whom inclusion also refers.

QUESTION: So in your view, the school law falls short?

LINDEMANN: Exactly. Our idea in Oldenburg's school and urban development is that inclusion affects everyone. In other words, it's not just about impairments, but also about the aforementioned aspects such as age, gender, origin, but also about differences in lifestyle, interests and inclinations. In terms of school, it's about the question of how everyone can manage to develop well, learn well and feel comfortable in a diverse group of very different people.

QUESTION: What other questions does inclusion raise?

LINDEMANN: Inclusion, as we define it, also deals with how the staff at a school interact with each other, for example. How do you deal with older colleagues? How do you get parents with a migrant background to get actively involved and help shape the school? How do you ensure that pupils who are socio-economically disadvantaged can participate in everything that school has to offer? Sexual orientation is also a very important issue - especially at secondary schools - that can lead to marginalisation among young people. And this sensitisation to recognising and appreciating differences, but also creating common ground, is a fundamental challenge of inclusion. An inclusive society in which we all live together respectfully, peacefully and happily is a vision that may not ultimately be achievable. But it is a goal towards which we can orientate our actions and on the basis of which we can constantly question current practice.

QUESTION: Should the Education Act be amended to include this holistic perspective?

LINDEMANN: In my opinion, yes. Because the current limited perspective very quickly creates fronts: disabled and non-disabled; them - and us. And then some people say to themselves, that has nothing to do with me. However, this is due to the fact that inclusive schools are based on a UN convention from 2008, which was adopted for people with disabilities. After the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, for example, there was a UN Convention against Racism in 1969, against discrimination against women in 1981, on the rights of children in 1990 and on the protection of cultural expressions in 2007. Even if human rights are being specified bit by bit, they should be viewed as part of the overall process: It is always about all people living together. Basically, these are all just footnotes and additions to the general, fundamental human rights.

QUESTION: To what extent is Oldenburg's inclusion process - in relation to schools and beyond - unique? Could or should other local authorities learn something from it?

LINDEMANN: The inclusion process here is exemplary in that we sit down with all relevant groups of people, not just as a so-called expert group. The "Inclusion at Oldenburg schools" working group includes more than 80 representatives from schools, administration, politics, parent and pupil representatives, trade unions, the Disability Advisory Council and various organisations who are trying to find joint solutions for the city. That makes us strong. We want to ensure that neither individual schools nor individual teachers or parents have to fight through everything individually, but that we try to develop city-wide solutions. This is already proving to be a promising path for municipal development. Inclusion - i.e. the participation of everyone - is not only the goal, but also the path.

QUESTION: You have just published a book on the inclusion process in Oldenburg. In it, you advocate not "labelling" children according to their possible need for support, but rather taking a broader view. Do the needs of school classes or schools as a whole need to take centre stage?

LINDEMANN: Currently, the "special educational support needs", as it is called in the Education Act, are decisive. And behind this is still the idea that I have a single person who has an individual entitlement to certain services. Whereas I have to say that in many respects it is the teachers who have the support needs so that they can teach the pupils as a group. Or the rest of the class needs support so that they can deal well with a pupil who is behaving aggressively, for example. So far, however, the focus is still almost exclusively on individual needs. And in the best sense of change, you could say that for schools to function well as a whole system, they need social workers, special educational needs specialists, therapists and so on. And it is not an individual pupil who needs an assistant, but the class needs an assistant - someone who is on hand to help wherever they are needed. Be it for teaching, for learning support, for care services or for whatever else another teacher or assistant is needed. It would therefore make sense to provide the school and its environment with a wide range of specialist staff from the outset.

QUESTION: The first school year in which parents of first and fifth graders had the choice between mainstream and special schools is now coming to an end - how did that work out from your perspective?

LINDEMANN: Oldenburg decided, with the involvement of all schools, not to designate any so-called special schools. This means that all schools started inclusion at the same time. For many schools, this is the beginning of a major change. It therefore makes sense to introduce inclusive schooling on a year-by-year basis. In purely numerical terms, we have 40.1 per cent of pupils with support needs in inclusive education in Oldenburg for the first so-called inclusive school year - based on the first and fifth grades. This is quite good compared to other municipalities, although this rate naturally says little about quality.

QUESTION: And what about quality?

LINDEMANN: There are many schools that have been part of the regional integration concept for years and are doing a very good job. Their advantage is an incredible wealth of experience in teaching heterogeneous learning groups. This is nothing new for them. Other schools may now have two or three pupils in the first class. Some schools still have concerns about how to do justice to all children in the classroom and some parents are worried that their children will "drown" in shared lessons.

QUESTION: Is this concern justified?

LINDEMANN: In individual cases, concerns are of course understandable, especially at the beginning of such a fundamental change in school and teaching. In the long term, however, studies show that children with learning support needs in particular achieve better grades at mainstream schools and develop more extensive skills than at special schools. Especially at the beginning, it is important to establish cooperation with the supporting special school teachers - in the long term, they will then become an integral part of the teaching staff at mainstream schools.

QUESTION: In the course of inclusion, organisational matters often come to the fore - personnel issues, structural changes and so on. Does this sometimes threaten to jeopardise teaching as the "core business", especially for teachers who do not yet have experience with heterogeneous learning groups?

LINDEMANN: First of all, I believe that the core business, teaching, is changing and must also change. Not only in the course of inclusion, but also in the increasing number of all-day schools - the idea of enriching the school day with additional opportunities for social interaction. Teaching increasingly heterogeneous learning groups also means moving away from the idea of having to pull all the strings as a teacher. Instead, learning content is taught in teams or more responsibility is handed over to the pupils or groups of pupils. The aim is to moderate and organise rather than instruct in many processes. This form of teaching, differentiation and individualisation, is often not yet part of everyday life. But that is the core of inclusive teaching: teaching differently.

QUESTION: To what extent is this already being implemented?

LINDEMANN: For many teachers, this is new territory, you have to be clear about that. For schools that have long focussed their teaching on heterogeneous groups and the diversity of people, this is part of everyday life. Right up to the abolition of the bell schedule or the development of individualised curricula and a completely different form of learning culture. One potential that I think is often underestimated is what students can do with each other if they have an idea of how individualised learning works in social interaction. But to get there means a lot of extra work at the beginning - and this should not be minimised - and also the will to change.

QUESTION: Your extensive accompanying research into the inclusion process, for example with pupil and teacher surveys, suggests that personal experience is more important than information when it comes to openness towards inclusive teaching. How can this personal experience be created? With job shadowing?

LINDEMANN: As a result, personal experience is the most effective. You can't get that from a book, and no training course can offer you that either - you ultimately have to experience it in practice. I'm also convinced that I can't turn someone into an advocate of inclusive teaching by presenting them with research findings or clever texts, but rather by taking them to observe a school where it works well. There are also good documentaries and films that show how inclusion can succeed. There is the Jakob Muth Prize, which honours schools for successful inclusion, and you have to take a look at that. So in a way, the idea is this: There is nothing good unless you do it. The willingness to do it and to sit down together as a group of stakeholders and develop your own plan to implement it. Because the question of whether inclusion is coming or whether it is important and right no longer arises. It's about a human right. It's no longer a question of whether, but how.