This article examines the constraints of modern temporality which are antithetical to the careful consideration that working with diverse learners requires for the development of inclusive, democratic education. We take up the conceptual construct of time to explore how it mediates systemic practices that impact policy positions of inclusion in initial teacher education and schooling. Our analysis demonstrates that temporality shapes the possibilities of inclusive practice within which a dominant agenda of compliance frames classroom complexities -- both in schooling and higher education environments -- into fragmented and preconceived responses to challenging situations. Education systems position educators in risk discourses concentrated on compliance and performance, in part through an emphasis that is placed on the diagnosis of learner differences and subsequent compartmentalised responses. Through schisms in modern time, we demonstrate the ways in which inclusion, like other educational demands, may be supported through a diffraction in time rather than subjugated to it.