Equity at the International School of Eindhoven

At the International school Eindhoven teachers and students are collaborating to create a more equal, inclusive environment.

By Claire O’Brien, Student and Equity Coordinator, IBDP and MYP Geography teacher, International School Eindhoven.

There have been a lot of discussions over the past few years about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice and how the ideas of fairness and inclusion should and could be developed within our schools. At the International School Eindhoven, we have been working hard to take the conversation out of the hypothetical realm and make Equity into an active principle we embody in our lessons, our training, and our interactions with students and parents.

Diversifying the Curriculum – Steps Towards Inclusion

So far, we have held workshops with teachers looking at ideas such as how our unconscious bias impacts our teaching, how we should deal with difficult situations involving discrimination, and how to take steps towards diversifying the curriculum among others. We have collaborated with the student council to create a survey that provides data on the student experience and discrimination within our school. We have also created a student interest group named “fearless” as a safer space for students to share their experiences and worries around issues related to marginalization among other initiatives.

Collaboration and Networking with DISS

We have also recently hosted the first (of many, we hope) seminar to bring together the DISS schools to discuss issues and topics related to the themes of DEIJ within the DISS network (see picture). It was a really positive experience to bring together so many of our colleagues with a shared vision and learn that we are often dealing with very similar challenges in this area.