Al fine di ottenere una reale inclusione degli alunni/studenti con disabilità, risulta fondamentale che gli insegnanti su posto di sostegno risultino preparati in modo da saper rispondere sia alle loro necessità speciali sia ai bisogni di integrazione e normalità. Ma quali sono le competenze che vanno perseguite nella formazione dei futuri insegnanti specializzati per il sostegno? La risposta a questa domanda risulta di grande attualità e il presente articolo mira a questo obiettivo.

Il confronto con altri Paesi può risultare illuminante. In particolare con quelle realtà in cui la formazione degli insegnanti in materia di educazione speciale risulta concepita come elemento costitutivo e irrinunciabile del curriculum formativo di tutti gli insegnanti, non solo di coloro che si occupano di alunni/studenti con disabilità. Tale opzione ha una caratteristica innovativa, perché elimina la separazione assoluta, ancora oggi presente in molti paesi, tra insegnanti ordinari (disciplinari) e insegnanti di sostegno.

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This article is about the need of an inclusive scholastic systemIn the first part, the main points of the Salamanca Statement (Spain, 1994) are related. This document declares that every child has a fundamental right to education, which has to be accomplished in a way that bears on each child's differences, characteristics and needs.

On doing this, ordinary schools assume an inclusive trend, that is the most efficient way to fight discriminatory attitudes and to create receiving communities to achieve an inclusive society and to spread instruction to everybody.

This pedagogy is predicated on the idea that differences must be considered normal. In fact the full realization of an inclusive educational system does not consist of placing someone with disabilities in school, but in transforming the school into a place where broad-mindedness and the acceptance of differences become what characterizes and qualifies the organization, and educational and formative purposes. The Salamanca Statement considers educational problems, and includes global and permanent changes in the educational system. Schools have to contend with reality avoiding the use of the schools have to contend with reality, avoiding reactive responses by dealing pro-actively with “diversity” and “special needs” as constitutive and structural elements of educational demand.

The main topic of the second part is the professional development of support teachers. In fact the professional development of classroom and support teachers is an important means to developing inclusive education. Educational institutions need to be stalwart and open to deep changes, especially regarding organization and management.

The document published in UK in 2004 by the Department for Education and Skill, entitled Removing Barriers to Achievement the Government Strategy for SEN is now analyzed. This document supports the need for a special educational formation at ITT(Initial Teachers Training) level for every candidate teacher. In this way, SEN students are not only the responsibility of support teachers, but also of regular teachers, because both of them are involved in the elaboration of individual courses for SEN individual.

Besides this, the document also points out that the skills that support teacher training should be taught as from a comparative analysis of the education systems of the different European countries and finds out the skills a support teacher should have at the end of the training to operate in a inclusive school system.

School about concepts of inclusive education and special educational needs

To understand the birth, the meaning and the change of perspective represented by the concept of Inclusive Education and SEN, it is necessary to refer to the Salamanca Statement (Spain, 1994). The key points in the document, reported in the introduction (pp. VIII and IX) are:

• every child has a fundamental right to education, and must be given the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning;
• every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning needs;
• education systems should be designed and educational programs implemented to take into account the wide diversity of these characteristics and needs;
• those with special educational needs must have access to regular schools which should accommodate them within a child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting these needs;
• regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities , building an inclusive society and achieving education for all; moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system.

The fundamental principle of an inclusive educational system , therefore, is that every student can learn together with other pupils, although difference and difficulties are acknowledged . According to this view, the educational institutions are called to change themselves, to be able to receive and respond to the educational needs of each student, independently from his own physical, psychological, relational, social, linguistic or cultural conditions (Mendez, Lacasa & Matusov, 2008).

In order to create an inclusive scholastic system the Salamanca Statement states that the educational system has to develop a child-centered pedagogy, based on each individual child, responding in a flexible way to every need.

This pedagogy is based on the idea that differences must be considered as normal. This means that when we talk about normality in education, we don't still refer to homogeneity, but to richness and value that come from various realities and characteristics expressed by each one, to the effects caused by different personalities and life stories of each one.

Consequently, also the school educational propose to intercept the so-called normality must be organized as a proposal opened to differences and aimed at including and not expelling. In other words, the full accomplishment of an inclusive educational system does not consist simply of placing someone who has disabilities in a mainstream school, rather it involves transforming schools into places where broad-mindedness and the welcoming of differences become what characterizes and qualifies organizations and their educational and formative purposes.

The change in perspective, which the school system is looking at, is the reflection of what is happening in now in the social context, where terms like “normal” and “special” are redefined: being normal or special indeed are not only two ways of being but situations we face. Consequently we need different strategies to act; so it no longer makes sense to keep on thinking that there are “normal persons” or a “special persons” in that there are situations in which we have to respond to normal needs, and others to special needs. In schools and, generally, in educational institutions it is necessary to learn how to deal with “special normality” that is the potential presence in each student of special needs, with (or at the same time as) normal educational needs.

So the special normality represents the challenge that requires schools today, in the context of a society which has to take into consideration the problem of complexity management. This is resolved by overcoming the “simplification paradigm”; the school system nowadays fit for dealing with this is the “inclusive school”, which is open to every type of diversity.

The Salamanca Statement invites us to think of educational problems as situations that need global and permanent changes of educational systems which have to confront with reality avoiding the use of the logics of emergency. In fact, “diversity” and “special needs” are constitutive and structural elements of the question for education that characterize the complexity of global society, in which there is no sense to plan educational and training courses leaving out of the consideration that school is becoming the place where normality and specialty still do not represent any longer separate users’ classifications.

What kind of support do teachers need for a real inclusive educational system?

It has still been noticed that the educational challenge represented by complexity inherent in the concept of “special normality” cannot be faced by emergency logics, and this involves the acknowledgement that “diversity” and “special needs” cannot be interpreted more as “interferences” of the system, but like constant variables of educational questions that society brings to school.

The adjective “special”, in this way, does not depend on, or refer to, disability but indicates those specific needs that any student can show after temporary or permanent difficulties, whose presence and steady survey require particular attention and specific resources by the school system; without doing this, the institution could fail the right of education that the State must provide for every citizen, not only in the recognition of the possibility offered to everyone to enter an ordinary school, but also granting everyone an efficient answer to the difficulties that prevent or restrict the real and effective exercise[i].

Therefore we would point out that the answer to the question about education coming from contemporary society can only be received if institutions have the courage, the strength and the resources to accomplish deep changes, especially in the organization and at management levels.

Among the basic nucleus of this transformation, the new plan of training courses for teachers and, generally, for school staff (primarily for those required to direct and manage the school system), is the most important aspect. In detail, for what concerns the use of professional resources, like support teachers, it is really clear at a European level the consciousness that “the support is not only to be centered on students” (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2003), both because it would be addressed to non specialized teachers, with the purpose of helping them to improve specific abilities in treating and managing special educational needs and also because it would have the important task of fostering the development of “Inclusive Education”.

Among the European States which started a progress in this way, it could be useful to mention the example om England, when in 2004 a prominent document was published by the Department for Education and Skill.

This document, which is entitled Removing Barriers to Achievement. The Government Strategy for SEN, points out the need for a special educational formation at an ITT (Initial Teacher Training) level, compulsory for every candidate teacher.

This measure has a deep and innovative character, because it removes the absolute separation present still nowadays in many countries, between ordinary teachers (without any knowledge about special education) and support teachers (the only ones at present who share the knowledge about special education).

The difference established between ordinary and support teachers about special educational training consists only in a different level of specialization, that conducts the former to carry out the function of first contact and connection, while the latter are invested with the function of specialist interventions.

Students with SEN are therefore not the object of specific attention only by specialized teachers, but also by ordinary ones; both are in fact involved in the elaboration of individual courses on the basis of individual SEN.

The developing trend delineated in the English case goes from separation to collaboration, and moreover in the ordinary teacher's profession a new qualification is included. The Removing Barriers summarizes the request in the teacher's training about the following knowledge and abilities:

• knowledge of one’s own responsibilities, provided in the SEN Code of Practice (2001), special methods which are requested in some uncommon cases;
• individualization of a method of teaching to answer everyone's needs, including who has SEN;
• identification and support for students who have difficulties in emotive and social attitudes;
• These competences, which use up the bases for ordinary teacher about SEN, are for specialized teachers only the essential platform to add more competences of specialization and a more complex and incisive activity (Orizio, 2006).

Curriculum for support teacher's training into a European perspective

To define in a unique way the support teacher's identikit at a European level is not simple, also because the role and training of the specialized teacher are affected by different educational and formative systems with reference to special education and problems of inclusion.

If we consider the final purpose of this professional figure, the support teacher is configured like a teacher with competences to intervene with SEN's students[ii] and he is an expert in inclusive educational processes (d’Alonzo, 2006).

From a comparison of European States, it appears that this function is accomplished “mainly in indirect ways through the professional job made in collaboration with ordinary teaches” (European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education, 2003).

Among the different variables that would be taken into consideration, in an attempt to obtain a curriculum for the specialized teacher at a European level, the following plays a decisive role:

• who supplies support: in the relation of the European Agency for the development in the context of special education needs comes out a clear distinction between those Countries where the support is assigned to a specialized teacher who is in the permanent staff of the school and other ones in which support is given by a specialized professional recruited outside the school institution; we refer particularly to the Countries in which are present the so-called Special Schools like in Germany where the support structures of the education of disables are endowed with a proper Staff (Formizzi, 2007);
• to whom is supplied support: the logic with which support is assigned is not the same in all European Countries. The support in most European Countries is principally given for the students named “special” or with “disability” (e.g. in Italy). In the Countries where this doesn’t occur, the logic is conceived to support the ordinary teachers’ job and/or for the inclusive process (e.g. in England);
• where support happens: for what concerns the job with student, the support is put in practice always in school (ordinary or special), with much flexibility that depends on student's need;
• which are the typologies of support: we can identify four support typologies: preventive measure, information ( about materials, learning difficulties, know-how), differentiation of school programs (adaptation, repeating teaching), improving school (exchanges, sharing of responsibilities, formation);
• which are the methods of support: we can consider three general ways: giving information (general and specific), taking part in the action, modifying school system.

The comparison among European Countries makes it evident that there are different forms and/or modalities of support:

• support for students: it can be direct or indirect; it depends whether the support's job is directly for the student or in the classroom context;
• support for classroom or school: it can be internal or external, according to whether teachers make lessons inside school or classroom, or outside the school or classroom (because not in all States an inclusive system at 360° is yet applied);
• long term or temporary support: according to the student's needs (this depends particularly on different laws about job, study legislation and support teachers’ enlistment);
• permanent or optional support: the support can be permanent in school institutions or not (it depends on the system logic of the services to the person and on different welfare laws);
• formal or informal support: this is according to which support could be or not be the result of formal agreements between school and social service (also in this case the reference is to the different systems of welfare and different school laws about study's legislation and enlistment of support teachers).

As we can see, from the consideration of the variables which are used in the support activities and from the forms of support we can carry out a comparative analysis of different systems of European teacher education course, from which stand out two principal characteristics to qualify the training courses of support teachers: “integrative support” and “for succession”.

The denomination “for succession” is reported for only one type of structural organization of training courses: first we assume the disciplinary culture, then professional culture (pedagogy and psychology, apprenticeship, school Laws, etc.). In the formation for succession is involved the supplementary training for support teacher (Italian model).

The denomination “integrated” is referred to these two types of integrated structure:

• integration between general-disciplinary culture and pedagogical and professional culture for teachers. Professional integration, but not specialized.
• integration between general-disciplinary culture and general pedagogical culture on one side, and special pedagogy on the other side (as in Spain with the Spanish degree, pedagogical Academy in Austria, special diploma of 3 or 5 years in Poland). Professional integration and specialization.

According to the different considered countries, where the training for support teacher is compulsory or instead accessory it considerably changes. It can consist of one year of further specific training about disability, leading to a diploma or a specialization in a particular type of disability (for example problems about deafness or blindness). About the in-service training, this is closely dependent on needs which appear during the intervention, and is connected with the interests expressed by teachers.

The management and the assignment of formative in-service sessions is one of the means that are more frequently adopted and more useful for ordinary teachers who work with SEN students. Moreover, in some countries, the organization methods of in-service training is extremely decentralized (directed and organized by schools). On the contrary in others countries, a much more highly centralized approach emerges according to national programs.

Both types show positive aspects: the former is necessary for teacher's needs, the latter assures rather a whole and fair access for all teachers. Nevertheless, both seem to allow the same risks, especially in relation to quality control.

From the above-mentioned comparative analysis the important international documents of 2009, a team of pedagogues and experts in special didactics comprising university teachers at different levels and European and Italian researchers presented in a conference held at Venice[iii], a plan for the support teacher training in a European prospect or rather a second level European Master that can be entered after taking the degree which entitles the profession of teachers in the different countries. In the documents presented at the Venice conference[iv], the following skills should be learnt and mastered by the support trained teachers after achieving the second level degree.

A. Personal Domain: Personal Skills

• A1. The ability to externalise and express an individual’s personal prejudicial attitudes towards people with SEN
• A2. The ability to control the individual’s emotions, and to overcome frustration
• A3. Developing the individual’s professional role
• A4. The ability to negotiate in interpersonal relationships

B. Cultural Domain: Cultural Skills

• B1. Mastering and developing the content, languages, methods, techniques of the subjects involved in the disability and psychological pain area
• B2. Understanding the work environment in which the support teacher works: the different kinds of existing institutions, how they communicate, and the organizing, economical, cultural aspects of this environment
• B3. Understanding how to set the development of the right to public education for people with disability against its historical background. Considering legal, social, and cultural aspects of this right

C. Professional (Teaching) Domain: Professional Skills

• C1. The ability to collaborate with schools and local entities (institutional or not) in order to manage collectively the problems and share processes to modify the school system to prevent or intervene in the students’ SEN
• C2. Mastering the processes of planning, programming, undertaking and evaluating of educational interventions in SEN situations. Mastering methods and techniques in order to modify normal activities of teaching/learning to adapt them to the complexity of the SEN situations
• C3. Mastering and analysing methods of SEN situations in order to describe them and to identify professional and technical supports, and human, institutional, and organizing resources which are necessary for special educational intervention
• C4. Understanding the legislation on disability and the documents necessary to identify a student with SEN in order to manage their problems collectively (inside and outside the school context).

Undertaking team-working, also at an institutional level, in order to create networks of services to take a global responsibility for the different SEN situations.

The challenge which looms up on the horizon both for the Italian Education Ministry and the European Parliament consists of producing the conditions for the realization of the so-called inclusive system.

The support teacher’s specialized training however must deepen necessarily themes and questions directly connected with special school needs and cannot neglect the fact that the basic setting of intervention is the school institution and structures and not only the class or the training course with the single student. We can clearly understand as the use and the arrangement of this resource in the school system greatly depends on the concept of the task and the function of such a professional figure at a management level.

Canevaro points out that “the teachers’ training for disabled can obtain from school structures and in particular from school managers some changes in organization, without which such a training can be unuseful” (Canevaro, 2000, p. 64). In fact the successful processes of inclusion go beyond the specialized teachers’ teaching, as they require an institutional and inter-institutional re-organization fit for answering the different aspects of the problem. As has been underlined throughout this article, such a process has the characteristics of a system action that greatly depends on a process of de-structuring and re-structuring in the organization which must involve the different school staff members in order to be carried out in a right way, but even other systems as the territory, the health services, the political Institutions and the economic structures.

Abstract

In specialization courses for teachers that relate to special educational needs (SEN), for an authentic inclusive school system students must be the principal point. In fact, in order to achieve real inclusion for children with disabilities, it is fundamental for support teachers to be prepared so that they can respond to students' needs.
Moreover, regular teachers must also have a good knowledge about special education, to support the inclusion of SEN students, as far as possible. They should not only bet a first point of contact, but they should have a significant role in any specialized intervention planned with support teachers.
This study focused on what needs to be included in a new scholastic system, that supports the development of an education aimed at responding to children's needs.
The example of the school system in England is enlightening: in a 2004 document, published by the Department for Education and Skill, entitled "Removing barriers to achievement. The Government strategy for SEN", the need for training in special educational at ITT (Initial Teachers Training) level has been made compulsory for every candidate teacher.
This requirement has an innovative characteristic, because it removes the absolute separation, still present today in many countries, between ordinary and support teachers.
It would be a great innovation if every country could proceed in this way, which is the only possibility to create a new scholastic system, adopting inclusive education.
In relation to this what kind of specific skills should the support teachers have in a real inclusive school system?

Keywords: Inclusive education; Special educational needs; mainstream teacher; Support teacher; An inclusive system; Support teachers' specific skills

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Notes

[v] In August 2009 The Education, University and Research Italian Ministry published “The Guidelines for the school integration for disabled students” that in the third part outlines the choice of the Italian Government for the realization of an inclusive Italian school system. Such an instruction finds the approval of The Permanent Conference of the European Education Ministries, “L’apprentisage tout au long de la vie pour l’inclusion sociale”, 22^nd session, Istambul 4^th, 5^th May 2007.

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Author: Angelo Lascioli is a Researcher in Special Education at the University of Verona, Italy.

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copyright © Educare.it - Anno XIII, N. 12, dicembre 2013

DOI: 10.4440/201312/LASCIOLI