Blue, Magenta, and Yellow

Inclusive Education essay fragment by Oana Maroti

¨In the visible spectrum, black is the result of the absorption of all wavelengths of light. Black can be defined as the visual impression (or color) experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. Pigments or dyes that absorb light instead of reflecting it back to the eye appear black.

What colors make black?
Mix equal parts blue, magenta, and yellow to get black.¨

Since it is Black History Month, I will reiterate the importance of explaining and understanding the concept of black in its complexity to successfully avoid negative connotations. Language is formed on concepts, we understand messages when we can understand concepts. Even if it is not verbal, a person can use alternative ways of communication to make themselves understood. In education and child development, alternative methods of communication must be shared. We want children to speak and show their minds so they can be better oriented and protected.

A specific alternative way of communication used in Psychopedagogy is communication through colors. Each color is presented as a notion correlated with emotions and can be used as alternative communication since it is possible to encode and decode a message. If a child, adolescent, or adult presents problems with social skills or basic communication, a team of people trained in Psychology and Educational Sciences can make a personalized intervention and through color recognition, sound recognition, or tactile recognition, effective methods of non-verbal language can be used.

What I like about my well-chosen studies in Psychopedagogy is that we do not care about labeling, or in theory, we do not care about it. A diagnosis just gives the clues to an intervention plan as we are the support. For each diagnosis that affects development, personal autonomy, or language acquisition, an individual and personalized plan is established.

Autism is a type of diagnosis that means personalized intervention and support because we will face problems in language acquisition and support means finding solutions to form an alternative mode of communication.

When specialists are well selected because of their inclusive approach, everything can be achieved and personalized plans can change lives, before incomprehensible, now easy to follow. However, when specialists are not sufficiently trained in inclusion as the etiquette requires, ridiculous things can happen, which can undermine all the efforts of the team and above all compromise the development of the person we are supposed to help.

Returning to the color game, whatever book or didactic resources are used for this game, let us remember that black is a complex notion, and let us not present it only as negative. Furthermore, based on a previous experience that I am still afraid to remember when the game of colors is aimed at a child whose skin contains a visible amount of melanin, let us above all not present dark as a negative and let us remember that to make black, we mix blue, magenta and yellow in equal parts.