By Rajah Bose, Photographer
I was in the entourage of a 6-year-old.
Gracie had news that every kid at school wanted to hear, or so it seemed. They were following her across campus, a bouncing battering ram of pigtails and batman backpacks, as she spread the word. In her bag she carried an ultrasound picture of her brother-to-be. She found the principal who knelt beside her to get a better look at the black and white photocopy.
“Baby,” Gracie said definitively, and waited for him to match her joy. When he did, her work was done.
She quickly put the picture back into her bag that dangled from her walker and made her way toward her classroom. The wheels spun quickly as she almost skipped across the campus. I could barely keep up with my tripod and video camera.
I was at St. Madeleine Sophie School in Bellevue, Washington to photograph and document the work that Gonzaga alumni were doing at this school founded on the idea of inclusion.
As Gracie approached the classroom, another student ran from behind me to open the door for her. She slipped past and disappeared into the room where the little chairs and desks were waiting.
At recess I lagged behind a group of young teen girls who were strung together arm-in-arm as they strode across the parking lot that the school uses as a playground. In the middle was Kenya, who wore a bright pink raincoat and a wide smile which seemed to hold her eyes closed.
They gathered under a tree to chat about the usual things — their teachers, homework, what game they wanted to play. But not about boys, not yet (though that may have had something to do with me looming nearby). They asked Kenya what she wanted to do and she nodded along as the group went to retrieve jumpropes.
That afternoon in the classroom, Julie Grace worked with her classroom aide on flashcards alongside an anxious, dark-haired boy named Noah. Both were buried in their work, she with a reading project and he on his handwriting. He kept looking over his shoulder at her to see what she was up to. Both were distracted by one another.
Once he had finished tracing the lines with his stubby pencil, he stood up to chat with his friend. He communicated with Julie Grace through the monitor attached to her wheelchair. As they looked at items on the screen, the computer interpreted what they were looking at and said the answer in a robotic childlike voice.
I watched as Noah took Julie Grace’s hand in his and held a paper cutout he had made to his nose. He was hoping to get a laugh from her. I couldn’t tell if he did. They were hand in hand for a few moments before she yanked hers away. This was elementary school after all.
“Your example, even more than your words, will be an eloquent lesson to the world.” – Madeleine Sophie Barat
Throughout the school, students of all abilities were in classes together, working and playing in the same group. All students learned with one another, even those with different abilities. Especially those with different abilities.
When I was in school we also believed in inclusion. We told Billy, who we knew didn’t quite know better, that he should run across the gym and dance for the girls. He would soon be running back toward us with his shirt off. The girls would scream, and we would laugh, and then he would laugh and feel included.
That was inclusion.
Billy was our age, maybe older, but had limitations to his comprehension. We viewed ourselves as separate — we were one, Billy was the other. We would have never let anything bad happen to Billy, but we mostly just watched out for ourselves.
Billy spent the rest of his time at school in a separate classroom, a place they called Special Ed. I took algebra and tried to figure out Shakespeare. The only times we saw one another were during physical education and lunch.
Billy liked the attention and entertained us without prodding. He ran onto the empty floor during school assemblies to dance, thrusting his pelvis around as the students in the bleachers laughed. During lunch, he walked around and talked to everyone. Sometimes he stole some fries and then he took his shirt off and whirled it around his head. He knew he could make people laugh by doing something they couldn’t.
STILL LEARNING
Many years later, I still find it difficult to create an understanding and comfortable space between myself and someone who is different. A teacher at St. Madeleine’s explained to me that inclusion is not necessarily something we are born with — it must be taught. St. Madeleine’s does that every day by modeling the behavior in teachers and encouraging it between students. They don’t just talk about the idea of inclusivity, they bring the students together in one classroom to work and learn together.
It wasn’t by mistake that the students ran ahead of Gracie to open the door for her, or jumped rope with Kenya, or took a break from their classwork to chat with Julie Grace. All students were expected to learn with the class. Aides were available to help with special needs, but much of the learning was done among the students while nobody else was watching.
In some way, the same was true for my crowd and Billy. When I even considered attempting something against the rules, it seemed that teachers were around every corner, watching. But with Billy, we were an island from their suspicion. Perhaps they thought we were
watching out for him, taking Billy under our wing, giving him some lessons on life. Really, it was the other way around.
I can credit Billy with teaching me that. The same is true with Gracie, Kenya and Julie Grace for all the students at St. Madeleine’s. In just one afternoon while they were busy jumping rope and tracing their alphabet letters, they showed me there was still so much left to learn.
This piece accompanies the story ‘All God’s Children‘ featured in the Spring 2015 issue of Gonzaga Magazine.