Doran Gresham has long believed that when you see a need in the world, there is no greater joy than linking arms with others who share your passion to address it.
“Howard Thurman had this quote where he said, ‘Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do it.’ Because what the world needs is people who come alive,” Gresham said. “I think back to church and the songs we used to sing. One went, ‘There is no greater joy.’ And it’s true. When you link arms with people whose souls are on fire, there's no greater calling. You’re doing exactly what you’re meant to be doing.”
Gresham is an assistant professor of special education and disability studies at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GSEHD) at the George Washington University.
In 2023, when one of his graduate students, Elaine Jeanette Walton, M.A. ’24, spoke to him about the need she was seeing for more equitable education opportunities in Navrongo, Ghana, he was more than ready to join her efforts.
At the time, Walton was also taking a class from Laura Engel, a professor of international education and international affairs and the UNESCO Chair at GW. She asked Engel to help as well.
“Addressing these kinds of issues is work we should strive to support,” Engel said. “This was a fantastic opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration and to connect research to real world policy and practice.”
In that spirit of collaboration, the three teamed up to launch the International Inclusive Education Symposium. The hybrid event was designed to train educators in Navrongo dedicated to equity, community and actionable change.
Walton was living in Navrongo with her husband while getting her master’s degree from GSEHD. She realized that what she was learning in her classes about teaching students with diverse abilities didn’t align with what she was witnessing in small, rural, under-resourced schools. Deep-rooted misconceptions often meant that children with neurodivergent conditions were barred from school because they were wrongly believed to be incapable of learning.
“We saw that there is just so much vulnerability,” Walton said, sharing the story of her neighbor’s young child with Down syndrome who was unable to attend the local school.
“Our hearts broke,” Walton said.
Walton and her husband were inspired to act and started their charity, Tiina Jori Ko Ba, which means “Hope Restored” in Kasena, the local language. From that grew the J.O.S. Children's School & Center for Inclusive Education, a free school focused on providing quality education for all children.
“When we got here, we did not think that we would start something like this, but we realized that there was just a lot of hopelessness, particularly among children with disabilities,” Walton said.
Walton said taking classes with Gresham and Engel helped shape her vision for the school because she was able to apply what she was learning to their programs.
“After our classes, Jeanette and I would just talk. After everybody kind of left the meeting, we would just talk about life and her work that she's doing,” Gresham said. “And we realized that there was a space that needed to be filled.”
They discussed the need for teacher training focused specifically on disability education, and that eventually sparked the idea of a symposium that would bring inclusive education training directly to teachers in Ghana. The symposium was designed as a hybrid session, with Gresham, Engel and other U.S.-based speakers joining via Zoom, while Walton facilitated in person alongside educators in a classroom in Ghana.
Their goal was to create energetic, interactive sessions that would engage educators and reflect the same soulfulness and joy they brought to their own classrooms.
The inaugural symposium was held in 2024, and the second annual event took place in spring 2025. Each event brought together about 50 educators from public and low-cost private schools across the region. Gresham said limiting the group to 50 participants was intentional.
“You want to have enough people that you can have robust conversations, but not so many that people check out,” Gresham said. “Fifty is a robust enough number that you feel the crowd, but it’s not overwhelming.”
Through interactive labs and short teaching demos, participants explored strategies for teaching students with different learning styles, including neurodiverse learners.
Educators learned teaching frameworks like the “three Rs” of teaching: rigor, relevance and relationships. The framework emphasizes pushing students to think critically, connecting learning to everyday experiences and fostering supportive relationships between teachers and students.
For Walton, the biggest success has been seeing the impact of the workshops in her own school.
“Many of our teachers have taken the idea of the three Rs and are using that, particularly at our school,” Walton said. “They’re differentiating the lessons they’re doing between students. They’re singing in the classroom because they’ve seen an example of what to do through these interactive workshops.”
She said teachers are now asking deeper questions like how to make their lessons more accessible to neurodiverse students.
“We’re seeing definite, direct indicators that people were listening and that they’re utilizing that,” Walton said.
The impact has also been visible in the growth of the students. Walton recalled one child whose parents had initially brought to J.O.S. Children's School in tears, concerned he would never be able to talk or learn in a school setting due to his neurodivergent condition.
Two years after joining the school, he learned how to read.
“Now you see these parents are advocating and telling their whole family, ‘Hey, look, my son can read even though he learns differently’,” Walton said.
She said these are the kinds of changes that don’t happen when schools don’t prioritize inclusive educational practices. Seeing uplifting progress like that gives her hope, but Walton said there’s still a lot of misconceptions about neurodivergent conditions and changing public understanding takes time and work.
“To have that mind shift, it takes a lot of advocacy work. It takes a lot of people,” Walton said.
The team hopes to continue holding more events, and they’ve already received interest in hosting sessions for schools in other countries including Senegal and Nigeria.
Gresham said this work proves that when passion meets purpose and knowledge meets action, what can come from that is powerful.
“Our goal was to create sessions that go beyond teaching. They’re about connecting, sharing stories, and building a community of learners who inspire one another,” Gresham said. “It’s about giving back, following what feels natural, and igniting a fire that spreads far beyond the classroom.”
To learn more about the International Inclusive Education Symposium and ongoing work with educators in Ghana, register to attend the UNESCO Chairs webinar on October 21, titled "Thriving Teachers, Thriving Futures: Global Perspectives on Well-Being and Retention." Gresham will speak further about this work during the event.
