Michael Wardlow

It would be my view that our “Shared Future”needs to create space for dreams and dreamers such as those who have spawned and continue to drive the movement for integration in education.

Reconciliation is a journey and not a destination, and equality between people should not be something to be negotiated but recognised.  True reconciliation should not deny difference, but is premised upon accepting that there is more than one way in which such differences between groups might be managed. That difference might be better understood as diversity.

 

“Genuine reconciliation does not take place between oppressor and oppressed, but it occurs between persons, persons who face each other in authentic, vulnerable and yet hopeful humanity”[i].  It would be my premise that, in an integrated school, where diversity is welcomed and difference celebrated, such an opportunity for meaningful, open and honest dialogue can be provided.