Abstract:
A documentary film Inclusief [Inclusive] in Flanders forms the common ground to explore events of belonging in an international exchange between New Zealand and Flanders. In this chapter, we search for making sense of how belonging works in an inclusive learning environment. We look and look again from different angles to re-turn belonging through the concepts of ‘ritual’, ‘waiting’ and ‘almost-nothing’. We focus on the refrain and the importance of taking time to listen, notice and recognise the abilities of students in the small changes that occur in daily educational practices. We vary on the familiar, taken-for-granted grammar of schooling of teachers and try to stretch it. We argue for an ontological view on becoming, leading towards new possibilities to learn and belong. Time is reconsidered in its complexity. The potential of waiting, of slowing down in order for students to belong, is elaborated upon. Re-thinking belonging, not as a procedural given but as a powerful becoming-process in schools that entails radical relationality through small changes of ‘almost-nothing’.
