This is the seed of safetyism. It is painful to feel excluded, and it is good for the teacher to use kids’ exclusion as a basis for discussion to help kids reflect on why inclusion is good. But the pain of occasional exclusion doesn’t make kids unsafe. If we mandate inclusion in everything and teach kids that exclusion puts them in danger—that being excluded should make them feel unsafe—then we are making future experiences of exclusion more painful and giving kids the expectation that an act of exclusion warrants calling in an authority figure to make the exclusion stop.
