The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honourable we bestow the greater honour, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honour to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all sufers together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating and of various kinds of tongues.
1 COR. 12:21–27
…
These ideals can best be realised in hospitable classrooms where diversity, rather than being seen as a threat to community, is welcomed, and where relationships between disabled and nondisabled students are consciously nurtured. A sense of belonging to the classroom community is made possible when the unique contribution of each person to the community’s well-being is valued.
ANDERSON, 2011, p. 17; italics in original text
1 Introduction
The previous chapter dealt with how a teacher provides high-quality lessons from a Christian perspective. The didactics have been considered mainly on a group level: how can you best guide a group of students through the subject content? However, the question arises whether what a teacher offers in a classroom context is suitable for all students. There are great differences between
I experience my class as very diverse, and I consider this a privilege. That not all children are either busy or quiet makes a school day a dynamic event. I also like that not all children are practical or brilliant thinkers. This year, Tom, in particular, is making diversity a challenge for me. He can suddenly behave aggressively for no apparent reason. When he starts shouting, there is no choice but to take him into the hallway. But what about the other pupils? In such a case, I feel like I’m falling short. You don’t always have such demanding children in the classroom, but teaching a child like this who has been labelled with an attention deficit problem is quite intense’. ‘Our team is quite nice; without the support of my colleagues, I would not have managed easily with Tom. We are a great team. It is an advantage that there are always senior colleagues who can help younger ones. Almost every class has two teachers (unfortunately, almost all women), so everyone has a buddy to evaluate and discuss classroom situations. Because we work in sub-teams we don’t all know each other equally well. Sometimes I notice that one colleague is treated differently from another. A male colleague was recently moved over from another school to ours. He already had the image of having trouble with structure and with dealing with parents. You notice that people react differently to him than to other colleagues. I sometimes have an uneasy feeling about it, but because he is in a different sub-team than I am, I can’t really deal with it. (Interview with Martine, 7th-year teacher).
The first part of the interview is about differences in the classroom. The system of year classes used worldwide means that we approach a class as a group of more or less average students, even though every teacher knows that such a class does not exist. The question arises: how does caring for the class relate to caring for the individual students, who are all so different? Martine gives an example of how this relationship can sometimes become quite tense. How does the progress of the group event and the class management relate to differentiation and the care for the individual student in that situation? And what choices should be made for structures in the school, such as time schedules and the use of rooms? In the second part of the interview, it becomes clear how teachers differ. When a team of teachers appreciate diversity, what will be the consequences for the approach of each other as colleagues? How does a school principal deal with differences?
In this chapter, we choose the issue of how to deal with diversity as an entry point to define a vision for the school as a holistic entity. We will explain how
We begin this chapter by picturing how schools across the globe deal with differences (Section 2). After that, we explain the ecclesiological basis for the preference of the community ideal over the individual (Section 3). This section provides reasons for using hospitality as a proper concept. The concept is related to several biblical principles that nourish hospitable practices (Section 4). Next, we apply the community principle to teams of teachers (Section 5). After these applications, we argue that the scope of community thinking goes beyond initially welcoming children and addressing their needs, as is commonly pursued (Haug, 2016). Embracing the concept of hospitality impacts a school’s overall climate. Section 6 proposes some general moves for schools in the current educational climate. In conclusion, we formulate a theologically inspired definition of hospitable education (Section 7). Throughout the chapter we relate the call for a community ideal in education to empirical research and educational philosophies, demonstrating the feasibility of this ideal.
2 Difference, Inclusive Education and Hospitality
Whether what a teacher offers in a classroom context is suitable for all students is a point of broad discussion (Dewey, 1966; Jackson, 1962; Jonassen & Grabowski, 1993; Roffey, 2013; Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2013). The problem of dealing with differences in gifts and needs is currently approached by the ideal of inclusive education, which aims to serve a diversity of students in the same setting (Haug, 2016; Kefallinou et al., 2020; UNESCO, 2017). While we, as authors of this book agree with this ideal, a problematic tendency in school practice can be observed. Inclusive education is pursued through highly individualised practices; every student is treated as if they require a personalised pedagogical approach (Abawi, 2015; Bondie et al., 2019; Zhang, 2024). This is problematic because a high level of differentiation leads to teachers focusing on individual learning outcomes instead of the classroom and school system (Rapp & Corral-Granados, 2021; Solheim et al., 2018). Pedagogical aims, such as consideration of each other, learning to work together, and learning to tolerate each other’s difficulties, usually highly prioritised in the teachers’ ideals, are unintentionally pushed to the sideline. Moreover, the tendency
In this chapter, we argue for an inclusive education practice that does not put the individual at the centre but rather the community. Referring to biblical sources and the early ages of Christianity, and inspired by the concept of hospitality, which has deep roots in the Christian tradition, we argue that a Christian community is a hospitable community (Pohl, 1999; Smith, 2018; Zizioulas, 1997). In recent decades, this concept, originally used primarily in the hotel industry, has been adapted to education by several scholars. Anderson (2011) advocated that the teacher should nurture a classroom setting that conveys welcome, acceptance, and belonging. Stratman first applied the concept to furthering empathy in literature education and subsequently to the requirement that teachers know the names of their pupils (Stratman, 2013, 2015). Marmon (2008) used it didactically, believing that a teacher, in their capacity as a ‘host’, should invite students not only to behave as recipients of knowledge but also contribute to knowledge construction. David I. Smith (2009) and Ter Avest (2024) used the concept to argue that students from other cultures should not only be integrated into the existing population but also, more importantly, learn something from it. All the aforementioned authors referred to the Bible, but none explored the connection with other key biblical concepts, as we will do in this chapter.
As explained in the introduction of this book, we write from the perspective of education in the Netherlands, in which inclusive education is presented as the standard and the trend toward personalised learning is prominent (Turner-Cmuchal & Lecheva, 2022). Many theological insights on dealing with diversity have been developed in our European context, especially in religious pedagogical literature. Herein the focus is mainly on religious diversity (Knauth et al., 2020; Roebben & Kammeyer, 2014; Ter Avest, 2024) while in this chapter we concentrate on differences in (special) educational needs. The trends described, including individualisation and personalisation, occur worldwide (Mincu, 2012; OECD, 2022).
3 The Christological and Ecclesiological Bases of the Community Ideal
3.1 Christ, the Community, and the Virtue of Hospitality
The idea of a school as a community is derived from the New Testament depiction of the Church. There is a great diversity of images in the Bible, and it is
3.2 The Community Ideal and the School
Can we apply this Church ideal to educational practices? This is a relevant question, all the more so when we consider that many Christian schools admit students with non-Christian backgrounds. The first reason to answer this question positively is that the Christian school as an institution can, in some respects, be regarded as an extension of the Church and so intends to communicate the gospel (Grethlein, 2016). The focus on the vulnerable and marginalised in Christian communities can be translated into special needs in education. The second reason is that, as commanded in the Old and New Testaments (see above), a community has not only an internal movement but also an external movement, which are the movements of belonging and being sent, respectively. Practising in a community involves both communion and mission, with the two being directly connected (Van den Brink & Van der Kooi, 2017, pp. 581–582). Schools also function in line with these two movements. Regarding the inward movement, they practice a liturgy and the lifestyle that goes with it. Concerning the external movement, schools that relate to the identity in Christ do not limit access to those raised in Christian families. Such schools also make space for a diversity of children independent of their backgrounds and (special) needs. All are invited to be part of the community.
The idea of hospitality suggests a radical ethos, which shows its fragility in everyday reality. There are limits to staff competencies, financial resources and housing, as well as limitations through legal regulations (Pohl, 1999, pp. 127–149). The French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) made a helpful distinction: on the one hand, there is the law of hospitality, expressing a singular, radical demand, and, on the other hand, there are the laws of hospitality (plural), reflecting the need for practical arrangements. Regarding the first, genuine hospitality must be absolute, asymmetrical, and unmasterable, going beyond even the capacity to welcome or the ability to receive’ (Wortham, 2010, p. 121). However, regarding the latter, the laws of hospitality ‘reflect the way that we actually do hospitality. They are conditional and limited and
The Rule of Benedict states that life in a monastery exists independently of the presence or absence of pilgrims (Smith & Felch, 2016, pp. 69–70). Hospitality is thus provided as in a hotel, with the sole intention of meeting the needs of all visitors. Guests, although temporarily present, like pilgrims staying in a monastery, are seen as participants who contribute to the existing community. The community is not entirely focused on pleasing customers but also has its own rules. At the same time, the guest’s well-being is not sacrificed by those rules. The abbot and the guest master, who are allowed ‘to “break” rules of the community such as injunctions to fast or to keep silent, mediate between monastery and pilgrim’ (Smith & Felch, 2016, p. 70). The school is a temporary place where students, with others, prepare for the next stage. To ensure the good progress of the community and meet the needs of its guests, staff must have a picture of what the visitor’s destination is and what can realistically be offered to the visitor. At the same time, it is clear – because the visitor is staying temporarily – that all kinds of things have already passed and that the journey will continue even after the visitor’s stay. Envisioning teachers as guest masters means they must mediate between a stable community and the pilgrim’s path. They must protect the community while also helping the pilgrim by ‘selecting those activities that will refresh and nourish the pilgrim. That means, among other tasks, selecting not just what is fun to teach or what comes easiest to hand or what is currently recognised as “excellent” but rather what students need to know or receive from a community to continue their own pilgrimage’ (Smith & Felch, 2016, p. 70).
4 Biblical Keywords Inspiring Hospitable Practices
In this section, we relate the metaphor of the guesthouse and the host to basic New Testament principles ruling community life, which can be regarded as directives for the realistic laws of hospitality. These principles are helpful in further fleshing out the community ideal in an educational context. The justification for this exploration is that biblical meanings (belonging to, in terms of Chapter 2, the layer of normative theology) have value for practical situations in the present (belonging to the layer of lived faith and lived educational practice.
In seeking principles for dealing with differences, therefore, teachers must first and foremost be thought of as a team of leaders of groups in which they must fulfil their professional tasks. At the same time, they take their religious beliefs seriously in their teaching jobs. As representatives of the body of Christ, they are not just expected to think as Christians but also to practice virtuousness (see Chapter 6). These factors direct the search in scripture and lead to a set of virtue principles: safety, care and mercy, equality, dignity, and justice. Two other principles have a different character. First, the word gift is central to Paul’s understanding of the congregation, which refers to the principle that, without exception, each community member is assumed to contribute to the whole. As will be demonstrated, the word helps to name the differences between pupils. Second, bearing each other’s burdens, which has to be read as a command because it is counterintuitive, claims that resilience is not something individual but a responsibility of all members.
4.1 Safety
The first principle, closely related to hospitality, is safety. In the Old Testament context, the commandment to be hospitable is related to frequent threats of violence. Hospitality means providing protection and security. ‘To exercise hospitality is to enact an alternative to indifference, exploitation, or violence. A hospitable stance rejects an understanding of others as threats to be feared, as too much trouble, or as resources to be used’ (Smith & Felch, 2016, p. 67). That it is far from self-obvious that strong believers are examples of providing safety is reflected in the parable of the Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). The representatives of the religious community – the priest and the Levite – deliberately look away from the person in trouble, while the Samaritan brings the victim to safety. In Hebrew, safety is denoted by shalom, which is a broad concept for well-being, wholeness, and health. When Jesus is moved by the multitude (Matt. 9:36), He encounters people who feel agitated – the opposite of safety, peace, and well-being. Full of compassion, He invites them to find safety with Him (Matt. 11:28–29). This welcoming attitude contrasts with the insecure social environments in which people feel excluded because they are compared
4.2 Care and Mercy
Second, special educational needs can be related to the biblical mandate to care for those in need. God has given special laws to protect all those who are disabled (blind, deaf, and paralysed) or at risk of social exclusion (widows, orphans, and strangers). They should not be hindered (Lev. 19:14) and need active attention. One may not turn away a call; one may not close one’s heart to it (Deut. 15:7), but one must act (Deut. 15:11). In the New Testament Church, this demand is worked out in diaconal service. Care and mercy do not emerge automatically but need intentional action, as reflected in the parable of the Samarian (Luke 10: 31–32). The action aims to overcome the limitations of the person in need, such as slowness, clumsiness, and the help needed for what one cannot do oneself. The limitations of others cause stress for the helper and other group members, especially if they slow things down. This is why inclusive environments are usually assumed to increase stress for teachers. However, research has shown that this is not true for those intrinsically convinced that troubled students should be part of a community (Weiss et al., 2019).
4.3 Equality
Third, when speaking of care and mercy, one can think of two kinds of people: the healthy who help the sick and the strong who save the weak. In the school context, this can lead to the split image of, firstly, a group of average students, the strong – and secondly, students with something special going on – the weak. However, the division that arises conflicts with the charge of thinking in terms of equality. From person to person, we have to deal with the irreplaceable value the Creator gives to every human being. The development of ideas on inclusive education coheres with this principle. The initial emphasis on access to education (education for all) developed into attention to justice within education (UNESCO, 2017). Paying attention to the rights of every individual, including gender, (dis)ability, culture, religion etc. has come to the fore, which leads to a pedagogy of recognition in which the image of the strong and the weak is criticised (Bainbridge, 2015; Prengel, 2018).
4.4 Justice
Fourth, in care and mercy, it might seem that we should give all our attention to the care of special educational needs. This would mean that the ‘weaker’ student is more entitled to the teacher’s attention than the ‘average’
4.5 Gifts
Fifth, ‘the eye cannot say to the hand: I do not need you’, or ‘the head cannot say to the feet: I do not need you’, said Paul (1 Cor. 12:14–24). According to the community ideal of the Christian Church, everyone has their own place, without thinking in terms of more or less, strong or weak, high or low. In the same way, a Christian school is not about ranking but about recognising and accepting each other’s unique gifts. The leading concept is not disabilities or special educational needs but the potential to develop and the corresponding need for assistance. Or, as Bavinck so eloquently put it, pedagogy must ‘joyfully and gratefully’ proceed from what God gives each child (Bavinck, 1928, p. 78).
According to the image of the body, all parts are needed – the hand and the foot are no less than the eye. Decisive in this image is that everyone’s gifts contribute to what others are lacking. Consequently, we define a gift as a received quality that the student uses to benefit the other and the greater whole. Not only are personal qualities such as intelligence and creativity implied but so are the ways of behaving toward others. As Paul teaches, the gifts (charismata) are in the service of building up the body of Christ. All parts of the body should thus move into the body of Christ. A Christian school pedagogy should not promote the ego-driven development of talents but development in the service of others and a greater whole. In the literature on inclusive education, the development of all talents is often stressed, while, in system theory approaches, the importance of communicating the participation of all individuals in the classroom system is stressed, as expressed in the concept gift (Rapp & Corral-Granados, 2021).
4.6 Carrying the Load
Finally, I draw attention to the willingness to bear the other person’s burden. Serving others means carrying their burden with their own received qualities (Gal 6:2).
5 The Community of Teachers
So far, we have elaborated on the concept of hospitality for students. However, this approach requires an embodied practice for the whole school community, including the team of teachers. The fact that we put it this way follows the concept of practice, as we explained in Chapter 3, in which we defined a practice as a set of activities pursued by a group of people. This whole contributes to the realisation of the core value. By activities, we are not thinking only of an isolated set of classroom teaching practices; it is also about how teachers live together in the wider community.
Hospitality is therefore not only an answer to the diversity between students but also between teachers. To recall the interview with Martine from the beginning of this chapter: the school must prove itself to be a hospitable school not only in its good dealings with Tom but also with the colleague who enters the school with a specific reputation. Various researchers point out the great importance of congruence. What is expected of students in their association with each other, must also be seen with teachers (Booth & Ainscow, 2009). Hospitality must also be expressed at the level of the teachers (cf. Ekins, 2017).
5.1 Community Vocabulary
In the past, teaching was often practised as an individual responsibility within the classroom walls. In secondary education, this is still often the case (Admiraal & Lokhorst, 2012). In a hospitable school, teachers need to think more broadly. Teachers are not only responsible for their own classes but also for the school as a whole. And vice versa, colleagues bear responsibility for the others and their classes. The school climate should be such that teachers are open to others learning from them and are willing to help others. Moreover, there should be a willingness to reflect on the school as a whole together (see Chapter 10). This requires a way of looking beyond one’s own professional space. Instead of thinking along an ‘autonomy’ concept, it is good to think with a ‘holistic’ vocabulary, meaning that in classroom practice, the teacher is always aware of the organic exchange with everything that happens in and outside the school.
The word ‘holistic’ refers to a living entity in which parts are interrelated in a more or less natural way (Van Olst, 2025). This word applies to the school because every school is a whole with both spatial and historical characteristics. Spatial, because it is situated in a particular place or neighbourhood; historical, because it was founded based on a particular ideal and has continuity through the adjustment of those ideals. Thinking holistically means that teachers depend on and interact with each other. They cannot do without each other, and they are there for each other. If teachers bear each other’s burdens, this increases the school’s bearing capacity.
Having a sense of community refers to the conviction that the job cannot be accomplished individually. According to Admiraal and Lockhorst (2012), this concept has the following dimensions: a group identity, a mutual commitment that binds participants together as a social entity, the sharing of common goals of the community, a shared repertoire of interaction and communication among members, emotional safety, acceptance of individual differences within the community, and having meaningful relationships among community members. When teachers develop a sense of community, they begin to feel responsible for each other and all students within the school (Ainscow & Sandill, 2010; Ekins, 2017). Schools often describe this as a community where there is openness within the team as well as learning from and with each other. A sense of community is important for teachers’ well-being, because the school as a guesthouse is not, as with the student, a temporary residence. Teachers
5.2 Community of Practice
The commonality is reflected in the way teachers learn about teaching. Following the pedagogical triangle, teachers learn about reality (the subject matter), the students and themselves. Ideally, this takes place in a community of practice, which Wenger et al. (2002) describe as a group of people who share a similar concern or passion for something they do and want to professionalise through regular exchange. A community of practice has three characteristics. Firstly, a shared domain of interest, through which people value each other’s competencies and want to learn from each other ‘even though few people outside the group may value or even recognise their expertise’ (Wenger & Wenger-Trayner, 2015, p. 2). So, it is not an official association or a club striving for certification but a group with a common drive to learn professionally. Secondly, it is a community of people involved in similar activities and discussions, who want to help each other and share information. The relationships allow learning from each other. ‘They care about their standing with each other’ (Wenger & Wenger-Trayner, 2015, p. 2). The third characteristic is practitioners’ sharing of a common repertoire of stories, practices and tools. This sharing is done by hanging out together, not just by occasional official meetings. An inspiring meeting with a few colleagues at a conference does not constitute a community of practice. Getting to know each other’s burdens and joys takes a long time. A community of practice does not have rigid boundaries. People can drop out and new people can join, which happens naturally in a school when people retire, and young new teachers enter. So, the community of practice always has room for newcomers. In this context, it is interesting to note that the concept of community of practice was born when the anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger discovered that internships should not be understood as something between an intern and a mentor, but as a much more complex event. The intern is initiated into a set of customs and practices of the community.
We understand the Christian school as an institution run by a committed group of people willing to form a community of practice. In this community, the same values are valid, such as in hospitality for students. People notice each other’s gifts; they want to share their own gifts, and they can also receive each other’s gifts. Together they want to be ‘hosts’ for the individual teacher, even if inexperienced, with a bad reputation or considered less sympathetic by parents. Hospitality comes from a willingness to accept one another as we are (Phil. 2:1–11). There is no requirement that someone must first change before being accepted. People speak appreciatively of each other, and troublesome
Whether there is hospitality becomes visible in team meetings. Is everyone ready to listen before speaking, to keep listening when opinions conflict, to give everyone a voice, doing justice to everyone? This becomes demanding in larger groups. Research shows that when the number of group members increases, the talkative remain just as talkative or become even more talkative while the silent group members allow themselves to be pushed into the background (Remmerswaal, 2013, p. 263). Can a school team also let the talkative remain silent and give a voice to the quiet ones in a larger group? In a group it will become clear whether people are capable of self-management, as we emphasised in Chapter 6: can everyone restrain themselves, not let their emotions prevail and respond to others in a sober and considered way?
5.3 Employing Personal Gifts
The focus of this chapter on the differences between people was followed by an emphasis on the importance of each person’s individual gifts. A hospitable community will function well when each person’s gifts are flourishing. The gifts as we find them in Paul’s letters are very different, ranging from the more spiritual and supernatural to the mundane and practical (cf. Rom. 12:7–8). The type of gift is less important than the principle behind it, namely, to persistently place it at the service of others (Rom. 12:10). In the context of teaching, gifts can be understood in the same broad sense: all gifts have the potential to serve the community. Gifts of teachers do not only concern core qualities that are deeply rooted in biography and personality, but also competencies that have been acquired over time. The different gifts correspond to places in the pedagogical triangle. One person may have a strong knowledge of the subject, another may be brilliant in his pedagogical posture, and a third may have a rich creativity in devising didactic forms of work.
The complexity of education demands continuous professionalisation and specialisation. The recognition of individual gifts, all serving the strength of the hospitable community, is therefore of urgent importance, while, in practice, interaction in education often tends towards the opposite. The traditions in our school system easily promote a so-called political culture, which means that everyone is supposed to be equal, negotiations take place, and management is done mainly through leaders and middle managers (Van Emst, 2012, pp. 12–13). Such a culture hinders a professional culture, recognising inequality and specialisation, although we, instead of a professional culture, prefer to speak
5.4 Increasing Specialisation
The trend towards increasing specialisation is particularly evident in dealing with special needs. In our approach, we assume pedagogical qualities in all teachers. They are potentially sensitive to employing the situation of the moment pedagogically (see Chapter 7), in such a way that a broad spectrum of different students can function in the classroom. The basic pedagogical competence to tactfully deal with differences in the classroom not only involves knowledge about the type of needs and the desired responses, but also about how the teacher’s role influences the student.
The self-reflective ability emphasised in Chapters 6 and 7 is, therefore, a condition for practising hospitality. The same applies to self-confidence: considering yourself a capable teacher, including the capacity to deal with special needs, strongly influences daily practice (Stoutjesdijk, 2013). In addition to basic pedagogical competence, there is a need for high-quality specialist knowledge in the school. In the hospitable school, these specialised skills serve the primary work in the classroom. If there are relatively many special needs, more hands in the classroom are to be preferred over segregating types of students. Professionalisation increases if one can jointly acquire experience in teaching students with special needs. In addition, the team should rely on the potential contribution of all internally and externally involved with the student. Available knowledge within the school should be disseminated among staff members, so that expertise is shared and utilised. Next to specialists like psychologists or counsellors, parents and students must be regarded as experts. Talks with students are an important way of getting to know students and their needs. Next to this, proper communication with parents and caregivers is extremely important.
5.5 Leadership in the School
Working on a sense of community requires servant leadership. The school principal has management tasks: monitoring hours, finances, distribution of tasks, and accounting for resources. They will do this carefully and follow the conditioning norms, as we called them in Chapter 3. However, these management tasks are not the most important. A hospitable school first of all needs a pedagogical leader
An ultimate moment for uncovering the leader’s preferences is the conversation about work: work meetings about planning and progress or appraisal interviews. What applies to students also applies to teachers: they flourish when they experience space to flourish. The question is whether leaders are capable of addressing what matters most. They preferably start the conversation by asking: ‘How are the children doing, are they enjoying themselves?’, thinking about the pedagogical embedding of education. Or they might ask: ‘Do you manage to get the students to feel responsible for each other?’, thinking about the purpose of education: the meaning-making towards responsibility (see Chapter 3). Once these issues have been reviewed, the conditioning issues, such as hours and finances, can be addressed. These should, however, not be ‘back pocket’ questions demonstrating that the leader craves control and these questions are only placed last on the agenda for tactical reasons.
Hospitable leadership is especially effective when work meetings and appraisal interviews occur in groups rather than individually. Organising this in groups illustrates the desire to think in terms of shared responsibility instead of individual accountability. When outcomes are measured in statistics, the team’s performance should be reflected in graphs. This also radiates confidence that people will strive for good together.
6 Schools and Classrooms as Hospitable Communities
In this section, we derive directives from the above for dealing with differences from the hospitality ideal and its related biblical principles.
6.1
Putting the community at the centre invites a different way of looking at things, especially concerning the chosen goals. International ranking systems look at the sum of individual learners’ outcomes (Sjøberg, 2018). This reinforces the tendency in didactics to think only about personalised learning. When building a community comes first, group goals receive more attention. In addition, envisioning the classroom community as a safe place implies a shift from primarily cognitive learning goals to working at social-emotional goals, not instrumentalised but by creating a safe and secure group climate. Stressing the importance of the community is supported by research, which demonstrates that students achieve more in schools with healthy learning environments (MacNeil et al., 2009; Roffey, 2013).
6.2 From Instrumentalism to Realism
Special needs should not be approached as a problem but as a reality and a pedagogical opportunity. By including students with special needs, the teacher shows recognition and acceptance of the brokenness of existence. Concentrating on gifts and services implies that relatively little importance should be given to competition. Tests are seen as a necessary thermometer to support the teacher’s actions, useful as a means of feedback or feedforward. It is possible to work with results at class and school levels but only on condition that it is done outside the competitive sphere. A sober assessment climate is preferred, a limited presence of graphs, and a minimal administrative burden. Energy should not be spent worrying about equality problems. Research has shown that strong students do not flourish less if much attention is paid to other students in the group. When education is well organised, everyone benefits (Prengel, 2018; Sardes, 2020).
6.3 From Access to School Climate
Hospitality is not, first and foremost, a question of whether there should be separate schools. It is a question of whether justice is done to the gifts and needs of all pupils. This can happen within regular and within special schools. The preferred regular setting, as promoted in this chapter, does not alter the fact that special education is sometimes more appropriate than regular education (Zweers, 2018).
6.4 From Organisation to Pedagogy
Many organisational issues are at the forefront when arranging inclusive, hospitable practices. How do we organise education so that special needs are adequately addressed? When we think about inclusion from a pedagogical point
6.5 From Risk to Trust
can best be realised in hospitable classrooms where diversity, rather than being seen as a threat to the community, is welcomed, and where relationships between disabled and nondisabled students are consciously nurtured. A sense of belonging to the classroom community is made possible when the unique contribution of each person to the community’s well-being is valued. (p. 17; italics in the original text)
Empirical research has shown that there is no cause to fear a drop in level; specific attention to needs does not harm the learning outcomes of ‘average’ students (Ruijs, 2017).
6.6 From Students to Staff
Whatever practices are chosen, hospitality will be cultivated only when the school climate as a whole includes visions and practices of togetherness (Roffey, 2013). This applies not only to practices in which students learn to deal with other’s specific needs but also to leadership and staff. If a school team is seen as a community of relatively permanent hosts making room for the flourishing of temporary guests (the pupils), its members need to build a climate in which this can happen. Schools that are successful in dealing with many types
7 Conclusion
As a training ground for what the Church of Christ stands for, the Christian school can mirror itself on the ideals of hospitality and building a community. This is a challenge, given that current school practices are organised entirely in terms of more or less strong or weak or high or low. The answer to the question formulated in the introduction of how theological notions relate to differences and needs and inspire the school climate was provided by articulating community life within the teams of teachers. In addition, we presented different shifts from current practices towards the community ideal. We concluded that education with the intention of being Christian-inspired needs to move from the individual to the community, from instrumentalism to realism, from access to the school climate, from organisation to pedagogy, and from risk to trust, as well as from moving the focus from pupils to staff. The elements from community and hospitality ideals and biblical principles pave the way for a working definition of hospitable education. We propose defining this as follows: Hospitable education aims to create a welcoming and safe space for all students while considering gifts as well as all kinds of hardship, troubles and needs in which a team of teachers, leaders, and other professionals, considering everyone’s strengths and vulnerabilities, serves all students with their particular gifts and needs in collective responsibility, such that all school staff can flourish and learn to serve others and the common good with their gifts.