Published via Ecency

In my everyday life, there are days when I walk into a classroom and feel that all the actors are repeating an old, worn-out script. Colorful posters on the walls try to hide a mechanical routine. The kids copy, the teacher dictates, and that is supposed to be “education,” when in reality what happens is so much more than that.

But in the corners, there are gazes that don’t quite fit, silences that no one knows how to listen to. And that is where my work as a Therapeutic Companion (AT) or Non-Teaching Personal Companion (APND) gives space to those who have always been set aside, silenced - because life, with all its complexities, seeps into these spaces, even if the system insists on ignoring it, especially nowadays.

These “deficiencies of the educational system” often make us think the problem lies with the teacher. But no, it’s not the teachers themselves many times they do the best they can with what little they have. The problem is a system that still operates under the logic of homogeneity, in which everyone must learn the same thing, in the same way, at the same time. Whoever steps outside that mold is marked.

I have seen children labeled as “distracted” when in reality they simply needed a different rhythm. Teachers, lacking tools, resort to phrases like “there’s no way with this kid” or “this group is the most difficult” and that’s without even mentioning children with disabilities. There is a real lack of training in inclusion. Inclusive pedagogy is spoken of often, but in practice, the same old mold is applied.

School and mental health often run parallel, when in truth they should intersect. A child does not “fail” just because many times it is the system that fails to accompany them… or perhaps its absence is even deliberate?

I have seen teenagers stay away from school not out of laziness, but because they could not bear the hostility of an environment that constantly singled them out. I have accompanied cases where behind so-called “bad behavior” there was an undiagnosed language or behavioral disorder (I have been working in this field for more than two years).

Education that does not listen, hurts. And mental health should be at the very heart of the classroom, of teachers who are overwhelmed and overstretched. That is where my role as a companion comes in: an invisible bridge that gains strength when everyone makes decisions to improve the life of the other.

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That is where we come in. ATs and APNDs are often seen as patches or ornaments, and many times judged. Sometimes even with suspicion, as if we were intruding on someone else’s territory. But our task is different: to be a bridge. To show that the “difficult” student can shine too. To translate silences. To hold on to small victories that the system overlooks or worse, simply does not care about.

And even though our role is key for inclusion to be real, we remain invisible at the institutional level—low wages, no clear policies, precarious contracts, struggling for recognition. And yet, when a child manages to participate after weeks of silence, it all makes sense.

Not all professionals share this vision. I have debated with colleagues who believe that if a child doesn’t fit, the best option is to send them to a special school or worse, to deny them the space to be heard and let their needs go unmet. But that idea comes from a concept of normality that never really existed. What is “normal”? The statistical average? The obedient silence?

To me, each child is a universe, and education must open itself to that diversity. Adapting an exam is not enough if, deep down, the mentality remains one of exclusion. The challenge is much deeper: changing the way we look at things.

I come to add my small grain of sand so that schools stop being rigid spaces and become places of listening and care. Even though it hurts, even though daily life can be difficult, school is the jungle where we work.

I know not everyone agrees with me, and that’s okay. Debate is necessary. But what we cannot allow is silence. Because every time a child is left out, society as a whole loses.

The future is not written with old manuals or cold diagnoses. It is written in the everyday encounter, in openness, in the decision not to give up in the face of difference.

What can we each do, from our own role, to make education truly inclusive?

If this piece manages to make at least one person rethink their perspective, it will have fulfilled its purpose.