Inclusive Leadership (Engagement Requirement)

Last Tuesday I attended a talk about Inclusive Communication by Barbara Thompson, an assistant director of the Department of Diversity Initiatives on UCF campus. Thompson has been working in education for 20 years and currently teaches many classes at the university. She spoke of how she truly loves people. I loved hearing that.

Thompson handed everyone in attendance a business card when they first entered the room. The back of the card has the information in braille. As the group began to sit down in preparation for her talk, she explained that her business card is valuable as information to more people now. I really liked this notion, for it showed that in at least one discernable way she lives what she preaches.

Thompson started off the session by asking the group “what does it mean to set up an inclusive classroom?” This question led to a discussion which can be accurately summarized as an environment where people can feel comfortable. Thompson notes that when a person talking at the front of the room is acting in a non-inclusive way (I say “acting” to note the mess of verbal and nonverbal cues present) via their word choice, topic, or body language that they can lose an audience. She also mentions that as an educator you should make sure to teach to all learning styles, and warns you to not fall into the trap of teaching solely in the same style as you learn. As an educator it is important to do what you can to make your audience feel respected, valued, and included, as opposed to worthless, meaningless, or dismissed.

An overriding theme of the talk was to have a respect for individual human dignity. To understand that people come from all walks of life, and that using stereotypical phrases (Thompson handed out a whole list of common phrases that had past cultural references, usually all negative, about many groups of people), using defensive body language, and not being culturally competent can hinder the audience’s learning and your own chance to create and teach in an inclusive environment. She stressed the importance of understanding cultural variance in your day-to-day interactions, that something unacceptable in your culture may be respected method of performing an action in another region of the world.

                I really like Barbara Thompson and all of her ideas and handouts about communication-one last thing I want to mention that she said was that teachers were expected to be perfect, infallible, never making mistakes. She began the lecture by talking about how every person she was talking to was an education major, and I held my tongue. It is true, it is easy to point at the person communicating with you and point out mistakes. The truth is that she did a wonderful job with showing the group how many ways you can unknowingly push people you are interacting with away, and I found this talk to be highly applicable and useful in any area of communication.