Discovering the Italian model: how to promote inclusion in school

It’s probably the most challenging and difficult task for a teacher to find the best way of dealing and treating students that require a individualized plan of learning. One phrase that was mentioned and ticked during this week was “every one of us has special needs” and it is going to meet the main topic of the week, inclusive education. This way, and giving emphasis to that sentence, everyone has their weaknesses, strengths and uniqueness. This is the most important message to bear in mind, because with that we are allowed to reflect and discuss different methods, strategies and different practices to promote inclusion in the classroom, we consider this the aim of the course. 

The course session “Special needs and inclusive education the Italian experience of overcoming segregation” took place in Palermo from 12/02/2023 to 18/02/2023. We had participants that came from Serbia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Poland, France  and Germany. 

​To understand what is fundamental in inclusion, we approach various key facts, for starting, is foundational that we have empathy, because, in every case it is very important to build any type of relationship, specially between the teacher, pupils and even some family members: learning how to put yourself in a position like that, do not ever judge and understand how to react with the emotion of someone, particularly knowing what to say in some situations. This provides connections; therefore, it is crucial in education.  

​With this, it comes union and membership, where the result is that you are welcome and belong to a group. That happens with mutual understanding, tolerance and respect.
 
The best way to explore points of view and exercise the critical thinking of each teacher was by doing a lot of networking activities. These activities were super intuitive, fun, a good way to get to know what their colleagues think, but most importantly, gave them different perspectives of some European countries and who they handle this type of situation in classes. 
In order to deepen the other ways of teaching from these European countries, every participant held a short but concise presentation of their school and how they manage the students in general, but also special needs. 

We got the opportunity to show and explore the “Italian model”, where we saw that Italy is one of the countries in Europe that has a stronger inclusion education, where they don’t have special schools and 99% of the students are all included in the same system, counting with the help and support of very important figures, like Support teachers and Educators. We also understood what the steps are to become one of the support teachers and educators.
 
To get even more closer to the “Italian model”, we had the opportunity to be guests of two very important schools in the territory of Palermo, “Liceo Classico Internazionale Giovanni Meli” and “Istituto Comprensivo De Amicis - Da Vinci”, which showed us how to promote inclusion in everyday school life and how to build an inclusive school system. We are very grateful to these schools for welcoming us and showing us how in practice they make the school inclusive for all uniqueness.

Liceo Classico Internazionale Giovanni Meli

Istituto Comprensivo De Amicis - Da Vinci

We must thank everyone who participated in this course, they sure gave the best effort and made this week feel wonderfully interesting. The ELA team from Palermo hopes to see you soon! 
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Discover more about this course in: https://www.erasmustrainingcourses.com/special-needs-inclusive-education.html