To my colleagues — teachers, assistants, librarians, teacher librarians, learning-support staff, and school leaders — I want to share the question that now stays with me: when a student is struggling to participate, whose adaptation do we expect first? Too often the student is asked to become more confident, more fluent, more independent, more familiar with our routines, or more comfortable with our assessment practices before we ask whether the environment itself is making participation unnecessarily difficult.

 

My experience with the Japanese student in the library changed the way I understand this. The important intervention was not sophisticated. I slowed down, walked with her, simplified my language, used gesture and repetition, and allowed the relationship to develop over time. What mattered was that I did not make fluency a condition for receiving patient, respectful help. That small interaction reminds me that inclusion often begins with ordinary professional choices.

 

I am not suggesting that every barrier can be removed or that every learner needs the same response. I am asking us to examine the automatic response that places the burden of adjustment on the student. Before saying that a learner needs to be more engaged, more prepared, more verbal, or more independent, we can ask: Have we made the purpose clear? Have we offered a safe route into participation? Does the student see their knowledge and experience treated as assets? Does the assessment measure the intended learning, or does it also reward familiarity with our cultural routines?

 

For colleagues working in international education, this reflection is especially important because diversity can become part of the institution's identity without necessarily changing its everyday practices. A school can celebrate many nationalities while still defining success through a narrow range of languages, behaviours, histories, texts, and professional norms. My challenge to myself — and my invitation to colleagues — is to treat intercultural competence not as a celebration of difference but as an ongoing willingness to let difference change how we teach, assess, organize, recommend, select, and listen.

 

Five Actions You Can Start Tomorrow

The following actions translate the theory in this blog into practical starting points. Each is deliberately small enough to begin immediately, but each can reveal larger patterns in classroom and library practice.

 

1. Ask before you assume. Ask one student how they prefer to participate, receive support, or show understanding. Use the answer to make one concrete adjustment. Why this is useful: it replaces cultural guessing with information from the learner and helps you distinguish an individual need from a stereotype.

 

2. Audit one learning resource. Choose one reading list, display, lesson, LibGuide, or set of examples. Notice who appears, who is absent, and who is positioned as an expert or knowledge-maker. Why this is useful: it moves representation beyond visibility and exposes whose knowledge has been treated as the default.

 

3. Remove one unnecessary assessment barrier. Take one upcoming task and identify what you actually need evidence of. If the format, speed, language load, or performance style is not essential to that outcome, offer an appropriate alternative. Why this is useful: students can demonstrate the intended learning more accurately without lowering the standard.

 

4. Open one door. Share one opportunity, resource, recommendation, leadership role, professional-learning option, or decision-making space with someone who may not automatically be included. Why this is useful: allyship becomes concrete when it changes access to opportunity rather than remaining a statement of support.

 

5. Close the loop with student evidence. After making a change, ask students what helped, what still got in the way, and what they would change next. Use that evidence to revise the next lesson, interaction, resource, or assessment. Why this is useful: reassessment prevents inclusion work from becoming a checklist and turns reflection into an ongoing cycle of practice.