Hospitality: welcoming the unknown student

ABSTRACT

What does it mean for a teacher to welcome all children? This article explores this question by first documenting my own difficulty as an elementary school classroom teacher to welcome one particular child who had recently immigrated from a refugee camp. I explain how the theory of hospitality both addresses the failures of my own teaching and provides a framework for better instructional practices I drew upon with subsequent students. Specifically, I highlight three key features of hospitality: first, how a teacher, as host, can provide a welcome for every student; second, the ways a teacher might welcome students by making space for them to both express themselves and learn about the pre-existing culture of the school; and, third, the responsibility of the teacher to thoroughly welcome without knowing the student. Drawing on philosophy, the example from my teaching, and the works of other teacher researchers, the article showcases how inclusive education pivots on the ability to welcome the student who is unfamiliar to the teacher.

KEYWORDS:

• hospitality
• inclusion
• uncertainty
• epistemic knowledge
• early childhood

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Cara Furman, Ph.D, is an assistant professor of early childhood education at the University of Maine at Farmington. Prior to this, she was an urban public elementary school teacher. Published in journals such as Curriculum Inquiry, Education and Culture, and Teachers College Record, her research focuses on Descriptive Inquiry, inquiry, asset based inclusive teaching, and progressive practices. Having studied both philosophy and education, she integrates qualitative research on classroom practice, teacher research, and philosophy in both her teaching and research. She is the co-director of the Summer Institute on Descriptive Inquiry.

Notes

1 I have changed the name and some recognizable features. I’ve intentionally chosen a name that does not suggest a particular ethnicity.

2 Thank you to Kathryn Will-Dubyak for having the insight to notice this and the courage to point it out.

3 Students who have been identified by a psychologist as having a learning disability are given an IEP to lay out the additional services they are entitled to.

4 Derrida (1999, 2005) also acknowledges that without any conditions, hospitality could be destructive to the host. Not seeking to sacrifice the host for the hosted, Derrida (2005) argues that hospitality requires a careful assessment of risk with as unconditional a welcome as possible.