Belonging

This video presents a systemic perspective applied to education, with a special focus on the sense of belonging and how it manifests within the classroom and the school. From the outset, it explains the importance of adopting a “systemic lens” to broaden our perspective, observe without judgment, and understand that many conflicts or behaviors are not isolated incidents, but rather indicators of a potential imbalance within the system.
It is important to remember that, within the systemic perspective, there are three fundamental orders—belonging, hierarchy, and balance between giving and receiving—known as the orders of love, and that this video focuses specifically on belonging. Belonging refers to the deep need for all people to feel that they are part of the system to which they belong and that they have a recognized place within it.
It explains how the first experience of belonging is within the family, since it is through the family that life begins, and how subsequently school becomes a second key space for socialization. For this reason, it is essential that children feel they belong both to their classroom group and to the school as a whole. When this sense of belonging is not guaranteed, different forms of expression can emerge: children who go unnoticed because they don’t feel seen, or children who exhibit disruptive behavior as a way of claiming a place within the group.
The video encourages teachers to ask themselves key questions when faced with conflict: Does the child truly feel like they belong at school? Does the family feel included within the school? Or even do the teachers themselves feel like they belong within the system? From this perspective, conflict ceases to be merely a problem to be fixed and becomes a valuable source of information.
The following section presents various practical activities for fostering a sense of belonging, both with students and their families. It emphasizes the importance of simple yet profound gestures, such as looking children in the eye, calling them by name, giving them a designated place, and simply being present to show they are seen. Among the activities described is the “family stone,” which symbolizes the family within the classroom, as well as activities using objects that allow for visualizing how each child feels within the group, creating a kind of three-dimensional sociogram.
Finally, creativity and experimentation are highlighted as key to finding the strategies that work best in each group, remembering that working on belonging is a living process, which is adjusted and built on a daily basis.
This practice was applied in Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain.