A very special testimony
From ISEP, we are very grateful to Mayka Gómez for this personal and positive text she shares on our blog. Mayka is a student of the Master in Intervention in Learning Difficulties and has taken advantage of the opportunity we offer our students to bring you a different perspective on disability.
If you want to share your thoughts and experiences in the field of special education, contact us. We leave you with Mayka’s close and personal experience.
A day with families and people with special needs
Among sandcastles, we see Sergio, an 8-year-old boy, laughing with his peers from a disability association on a sunny June afternoon. We are at Gran Playa de Santa Pola, with ten boys and girls, learning new games in an environment equipped with ramps, a shaded area with a wooden platform, a shed for storing materials, amphibious chairs and crutches, a transfer hoist, a marked zone, etc.
Sergio has Down Syndrome. He is very sociable and fun, so he quickly introduces us to his friends. We observe that, with the removal of architectural barriers and adapted materials, everyone can enjoy a refreshing swim, despite having cerebral palsy, spina bifida, or other syndromes that make their mobility difficult in our current society.
Paula, vice-president of the association and Sergio’s mother, shares with us, NGO volunteers, the snack organized for all group members, and explains the reasons for her active participation in this association for the past year.
Facing the news of having a child with Down Syndrome
“I felt many doubts and fears along with my partner when they told us about Sergio’s diagnosis. I thought the adaptation process would be easier, being my second child. However, at that moment I felt overwhelmed, I experienced a state of deep sadness realizing that things would be very different from what I had dreamed. The uncertainty and lack of information, coupled with Sergio’s health problems, made me feel lost. Little by little, I met people who would show me a new path to follow and invited me to walk it with them. Now we want to create more resources to have a better quality of life. As a baby, Sergio was in early intervention with different professionals: physiotherapists, psychologists, and speech therapists until the age of six.”
Iván, Sergio’s father, explains how the Association works, detailing the workshops on psychomotor skills, music therapy, physiotherapy, workshops for the development of autonomy, social skills, literacy, speech therapy, gardening, and activities that promote job placement, in coordination with different companies in the municipality.
There, they run a “Parents’ School” to provide information on different disabilities, treatments, services, and available aid, both material and financial.
There are also individual and group emotional support workshops, where techniques are provided for managing stress and conflict situations, which help to reduce feelings of guilt and worries about the future. In these, parents will also be working on social and communication skills, while participating in mindfulness workshops, psychoeducation, leisure and free time activities, promoting family respite and communication among parents of users.
The association’s social worker, in coordination with social services, provides information on existing resources. Among them is the Law for the Promotion of Personal Autonomy and Care for People in a Situation of Dependency, known as the “Dependency Law“. This legislation is linked to people who, due to loss of physical, mental, intellectual, sensory autonomy or mental disability; need care from others to perform daily life activities that help alleviate their lack of personal autonomy. The association’s psychologist also coordinates with the guardians of the children, students of the different schools in the municipality.
Attention to diversity in learning
On the other hand, this social worker shows us a brochure with interesting information about a new vision within learning in mainstream centers, which aims to create an “education for all and with all”. This reminds me of what I learned in my attention to diversity module, with Jose Luis Soler, and which I want to share with you:
Differences between the integrative school and the inclusive school*
Integrative School
Focused on diagnosis, aimed at special education, based on principles of equality and competition, integration is partial and conditioned, requires superficial transformations, focuses on the student (placed in specific programs), tends to disguise limitations to increase the possibility of integration.
Inclusive School
Focused on collaborative problem-solving, aimed at general education (all students), based on principles of equity, cooperation, and solidarity (valuing differences as opportunities for societal enrichment), inclusion is total and unconditional, requires systemic ruptures (profound transformations), focuses on the classroom (support in the mainstream classroom), does not disguise limitations, because they are real.
Achieving an inclusive school is a goal, where each school is at a certain distance, more or less, depending on the conditions it has in its project.
The conditions for an inclusive school, according to research carried out in Catalonia within the framework of the UNESCO Project (1995), specifically from the experience of one of the schools participating in said project (Faro and Vilageliu 2000), include the following points (Giné 1998).
– Collaborative work among teachers: joint intervention of two teachers in the classroom, joint planning of programming units, joint collaboration towards students.
– Teaching-learning strategies: effective practices, collaborative and cooperative work, classroom organization, resource optimization.
– Attention to diversity from the curriculum: improvement of teacher training in this field, development of shared and defined objectives, definition of Center criteria in curriculum development, agreement on evaluation criteria.
– Internal organization: self-evaluation and internal evaluation, organizational structure promoting cohesion, fostering exchange among teachers, distribution of schedules consistent with objectives.
– School-family collaboration: strengthening communication and avenues for parental participation in decision-making, development of formal and informal contacts.
– Transformation of services/resources for special education: for the entire Center focused on the curriculum, the support teacher, psychopedagogue involved in the center’s structure, the transformation of Special Education Centers into resource centers for inclusive education.
To put all this into practice, we can establish coordination with centers and individuals who have already made contributions to make educational inclusion a reality. “Project-based learning through Multiple Intelligences“, developed by Coral Elizondo, would be a clear example of good practices.
Now that the day is ending, I conclude that the experience has been truly enriching, as we say goodbye to all the children and members of the association because everyone is now in the adapted vehicle on their way home. We are invited to visit the Association one day and exchange experiences that I hope to share with you.
* Source: Arnaiz, 2003; Moriña, 2002.