These were two very different children, with very different histories, languages, and worlds. But when I spoke to their parents, both families described a similar child prior to their move: friendly, animated, eager to learn. Children who sought connection, who talked nonstop, who loved school and life and people. So what had happened? I told myself the change was simply because of the transition. New country, new school, new expectations and environments. They just needed to learn and adapt, so they could fit in.
Schools speak languages. They speak through their routines, their expectations, their materials, their assessments, their curriculum, their systems and their pedagogy. They hold visible and invisible norms. If we are not careful, learning spaces only speak the language of educators or the language of the dominant culture that defines who counts as “normal,” who is “ready,” what kind of behavior is seen as “appropriate,” and ultimately, who is visible and valued. When schools speak only this language, they unintentionally exclude those whose ways of knowing, communicating, and learning do not fit within that dominant script. Many students and their families are left to do the work of translation themselves—adapting, assimilating, or remaining on the margins of the learning community.
Many of us learned to teach within systems that valued uniformity over nuance. We were taught to begin with a pre-assessment, move through a prescribed curriculum created by a corporate conglomerate that trades on the stock market, and check for understanding using standardized measures made by the same conglomerate or a group of people far removed from our students. Decisions about who needed support or extension were often made after the fact, once students had already failed one aspect or another or disengaged completely. Expertise lived elsewhere in the building, sometimes literally down the stairs and around the corner, hidden away, reinforcing the idea that difficulty resided in the child rather than in the learning environment.
This cycle repeated itself unit after unit. Even the timing of assessments could be predetermined, leaving little room to pause, reflect, or respond to the learners in front of us. The structure was efficient, don’t get me wrong, but the love and human touch was invisible. It offered a set roadmap, but it obscured the lived experiences of students and the adults that were their teachers.
Yet many of us yearned for something more. When the strict assessment calendars offered a small window for flexibility, teachers tiptoed outside the constraints, something shifted. When teachers tried out co-teaching, when students were given real choices about what to explore and how to demonstrate their learning, when projects invited authentic audiences and meaningful questions, engagement, learning, and joy deepened. Students who were often identified for intervention or extension suddenly became visible in new ways. Creativity flourished. These moments were consistently named by students as the most meaningful parts of their school experience when filling out their high school yearbooks.
This different orientation to teaching and learning hinted at the possibility that classrooms could be designed around students rather than students being expected to adapt to classrooms and individual teachers. They suggested that identity, agency, and belonging were not distractions from learning, but central to it.
As our understanding of learning has evolved, so too has our understanding of responsibility. We now recognize the environment as one of the most powerful levers for equity. Rather than locating difficulty within individual learners, these perspectives ask us to examine the systems, structures, and assumptions that shape who can participate fully and who cannot. Frameworks such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and identity informed teaching offer different but deeply aligned responses to this reality. They expand the language of school. They help learning spaces communicate in more than one way, through multiple pathways, perspectives, and points of entry. In doing so, they reduce the burden placed on students and families to constantly interpret the expectations of school. Instead, classrooms become places where more learners can recognize themselves, understand what is being asked of them, and contribute their voices. The conversation of learning becomes accessible to everyone, not just to those who already know how to speak the language of school.
Universal Design for Learning offers a design lens. It assumes that learner variability is the norm and calls on educators to plan proactively for multiple ways of engaging with content, making meaning, and expressing understanding. Identity informed teaching offers a human lens. Drawing on culturally responsive and sustaining traditions, it centers students’ cultural, linguistic, racial, and social identities as assets, not obstacles to overcome.
Seen together, these approaches intersect and dovetail. Both challenge the idea of a normal or typical learner. Both emphasize agency, voice, and the individual learner. Both insist that students should not have to check parts of themselves at the classroom door in order to succeed and be valued. At their intersection is a commitment to belonging as a condition for learning. Designing for choice, representation, and expression matters little if students do not feel seen, valued, and safe. Just as affirming identity without addressing the structural barriers embedded in curriculum and assessment leaves inequities intact, UDL and identity informed teaching each strengthen the other by attending to both design and dignity.
When classrooms are shaped with this overlap in mind, teaching looks different. Norms are co-constructed. Content invites multiple perspectives. Students are supported to navigate choice while developing a sense of ownership over their learning. Educators remain attentive to how learners change across contexts and over time, understanding that identity and engagement are not fixed traits but dynamic relationships.
How we design learning environments sends powerful messages about who belongs, who is capable, and whose ways of being are valued. And it is within these messages that the stories of children begin to unfold differently. Yet one must be mindful that although UDL offers clear advantages, it is not without legitimate critique. Some scholars raise concerns that an emphasis on supporting all learners can unintentionally overlook the specific experiences of those that are neurodivergent and students with disabilities. Creaven (2024) notes that when the sensory and social needs of neurodivergent students are not fully addressed, no teaching framework will create an equitable learning experience for some. In a similar vein, Dolmage (2015) acknowledges that when discussions avoid direct reference to disability, the opportunity to recognize disability as an important and valued identity is diminished.
Taken together, these critiques do not weaken the case for UDL or identity informed teaching. They sharpen it. They remind us that frameworks are not neutral, and that design alone is insufficient if it is not paired with deep attentiveness to disability, culture, language, and lived experience. The question, then, is not whether we choose one framework over another, but whether we are willing to notice who is still standing in the periphery and ask why. It is in those moments of noticing, of pausing long enough to truly see the child in front of us, that theory returns to practice and the classroom becomes the place where belonging is either quietly withheld or intentionally built.
What this looks like in practice is often far quieter and more ordinary than the language of frameworks suggests. It appears in the small design choices teachers make each day, choices that determine whether students remain at the edges of the classroom or find their way back into it.
When it came to my former students, the school organized a translator for the Korean boy. She came for a few weeks every morning. He calmed down and stopped crying, but he still did not join the class. Before she left, he asked the translator, “When will I speak like all the other children? When will they understand me?” The changing point came one day when I offered up loose parts as a way of telling stories. These were random collections of items—buttons, pine cones, bottle caps—that the children could use them to collage and tell their stories. No language was needed to be involved. He immediately approached the table. He became lost in this world, his hands were busy, the pressure to perform was lifted and he started sharing animated stories in Korean. When we stopped trying to coax him into our world, and instead offered him something that allowed him to bring his world to us, the stories and joy poured out of him.
We recorded the stories and sent them to his family. They sent them back with translations and notes about context. Slowly, gently, we built a bridge between his home language and English. Not by insisting he learn ours first, but by honoring the one he already carried. And day by day, he returned. Toward the end of the year, he was one of the chattiest, most liked peers in the class. He joked with his teachers and we built the most amazing duplo cities together.
For my American pre-schooler, the opening looked different. It wasn’t loose parts that opened the door; it was a photograph. As part of our unit we invited children to bring in a family picture. He brought one of himself surrounded by his extended family—mom, dad, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas. For a while he would quietly remove his picture from the wall and hold it closely throughout the day.
We asked him if there was a special place where we should hang the pictures. He pointed to the house corner; from then on the picture stayed on the wall, and he proudly showed it off to anyone who entered the room. We invited him to bring other things from home, and asked what else was missing from the classroom. We filled the shelves with stories featuring characters who looked like him. We gave him agency and signaled that his world belonged here, too. One afternoon, my mother zoomed in from Canada to read the class a story. Long after the other children left for recess, he sat on the carpet and chatted to my mom. She told him stories of when I was little and he laughed. He started talking to me, re-telling the stories my mom had shared, asking questions. And day by day, he returned, too.
These were two very different children, two very different openings. But the pattern was the same. They didn’t “improve.” They didn’t “adapt.” They didn’t “adjust to school.” We adjusted the classroom. We adapted the design. We improved our listening to the languages children were already speaking. Their return was not a testament to resilience. It was a testament to belonging—belonging as a design choice, a pedagogical commitment.
Because when we cannot hear, or when we are unwilling to listen, children disappear. Some disappear quietly. Some disappear loudly. But either way, something precious is lost. When classrooms learn to speak more than one language, children do not have to fight to be heard. They simply begin to speak.
References
CAST. “The UDL Guidelines.” CAST, 2024, udlguidelines.cast.org/.
Creaven, A.M. 2024. Considering the sensory and social needs of disabled students in higher education: A call to return to the roots of universal design. Policy Futures in Education, 23, no. 1.
Dolmage, J. 2015. Universal design: Places to start. Disability Studies Quarterly 35, no. 2: 1–10.
Loretta Fernando-Smith currently serves as Associate Principal and curriculum coordinator at Frankfurt International School, Wiesbaden. Loretta has more than 20 years of experience in international schools. She grew up between cultures, moving several times during her childhood. She is also the mother of two multi-racial, cross culture kids. Her experiences of straddling several cultures as a child, adult, parent, and educator have made her aware of how people negotiate belonging in different spaces. This tension drives her inquiry and research into culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy, curriculum, and spaces. She is also a TEDx speaker and is currently writing a book on navigating identity and belonging in educational spaces.
April J. Remfrey is an international educational consultant with over 20 years of teaching experience. She partners with international schools to build inclusive learning environments that embrace neurodiversity and support students with disabilities. April holds degrees in Special and Elementary Education from Luther College and a Master’s in Exceptional Education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her diverse teaching background spans public, private, and international schools across three countries. She serves on the boards of SENIA International and Europe, contributes to SPAN (Safe Passages Across Networks), and is a Council of International Schools affiliated consultant. Through audits, mentoring, and tailored professional development, April and the Remfrey Education Consulting team guide schools in strengthening support across all three tiers.
