Sometimes this delusion pushes people into pretending, or wanting others to pretend, that real differences of opinion and personality don't exist or don't really matter. The real challenge of Inclusion is to find common cause for important work that cannot be done effectively if we isolate ourselves from one another along the many differences of race, culture, nationality, gender, class, ability, and personality that truly do divide us. Educating our children is one such common task. The reward of Inclusion comes in the harvest of creative action and new understanding that follows the hard work of finding common ground and tilling it by confronting and finding creative ways through real differences. People in schools or agencies or associations which promote this delusion lose vividness and energy because they have to swallow the feelings of dislike and conflict they experience and deny the differences they see and hear.
Denial makes a sandy foundation for inclusive schools and communities.
Community grows when people honor a commitment to laugh, shout, cry, argue, sing, and scream with, and at, one another without destroying one another or the earth in the process. We can't ever honestly celebrate diversity if we pretend to bring in the harvest before we have tilled the ground together. A group of good people came together to study inclusive community in an intensive course. One person, Anne, angrily announced her dissatisfaction from the group's first meeting on. She acted hostile to everyone else and to the group's common project.