Theme
Rationale and background
Aims
Target groups
Expected impact on each target group
Activities
What is innovative about the network
Inclusive and cognitive education
Inclusive education is defined as providing adapted, individually tailored education for all children in peer & age-related groups, across a variety of needs, abilities and levels of competences. i.e. teaching children with learning difficulties (whatever their origin – social or disability) together with “normally” learning children.
Cognitive education is about activating a child's basic cognitive skills (involved in learning basic academic skills, as well as social, motor, artistic and emotional adaptive learning), in order to develop its capacity to learn how to learn, to find the “clues” of learning.
Hence the name IN-CLUES
• Needs
- Inclusive education is a worldwide movement, based on a human rights issue, that every child, whatever its level of difficulties, should have the right to individually tailored high quality education together with more able peers and not be excluded from the mainstream because of a certain learning difficulty. Other motives for inclusive education are that mainstream schools are the best places to develop social and cognitive compentencies for all, provided a welcoming attitude for differences is created. Inclusive education has become official policy promoted by the United Nations ( UNESCO Salamanca Conference 1994 ) as well as by the European Union ( non-discrimination clausules in the treaty of Maastricht, Amsterdam & Madrid)
- Even in countries where legislation exists (in Italy and in Norway already 25 years, in the UK about 10 years and in the Netherlands more recently), there is still a huge gap between desires and actual local practice because of lack of training, organisation, attitudes and teachers' skills. In countries where inclusive education is almost non-existent, except for the highly intelligent rapid learners ( former Eastern countries, Belgium), this is partly because of budgettary allocations ( the budget for special needs goes to special schools, not to inclusion), partly because of lack of attitude and training.
- On the other hand, our modern society calls for the development of basic cognitive skills for all people, to adapt to social and technological changes. Without a minimum of cognitive skills, one cannot access the many aspects of information, technology, economic life and social relations. In 1995 European commission's White Paper 'Towards a cognitive society" , stressed the need to transform educational systems and teaching styles, involving teaching thinkings skills, in order to teach the younger generation how to learn and adapt. Yet, despite scarce initiatives taken by the member countries' educational policy makers, the educational system continues to be very exclusive rather than inclusive.
- There still is a 5x higher referral of children from poor socio-economic backgrounds to special education. This reinforces the vicious circle: poor schooling, poor employment, poor social opportunities, social exclusion, repetition in the next generation. These children do not belong there. But to keep them in mainstream schools, attitudes, organisation and methods of teachers and evaluators need a radical change.
- It is not sufficient, to prevent later social exclusion, just to mainstream “at risk” children in normal schools. They soon would drop out, or learn nothing if nothing is done to provide them with a positive experience.
- A common characteristic of children ( or general: people) “at risk of exclusion” from the educational system, because they are not successful in the classic educational system ( and hence do not obtain diploma's, work, etc.) is their deficient cognitive functioning . This in turn can be reinforced by poor cognitive stimulation, lack of proper education within the family circle as well as within the school system. This cognitive deficiency is reversible ( even, to some extent, for those with a so-called “organic” disability), provided they are properly activated. This can be done in families and schools, using a variety of cognitive stimulation programmes.
- There is a dangerously poor level of critical thinking in youngsters, leading to a paneuropean spread of extreme-right thinking and narrowmindedness. Therefore, there is a need to develop critical thinking habits in youngsters: to learn how to think and act well, to learn broad-mindedness, mindfulness. This is linked to social needs: develop social values, e.g. democracy, respect for other's opinions and life styles. Inclusive schools will create a more humane and welcoming attitude.
- A bottle neck is lack of proper teacher training and attitude-development (1) in the acquisition of “an inclusive attitude”, in methodologies how to include, teach and evaluate a broad range of children with various levels of competence and levels of difficulties, as well as (2) in a cognitive methodologies and process-oriented teaching of “learning how to learn”. Linked to this is a certain rigidity in teacher's attitudes, a uniformity in ways of teaching and evaluation. Teachers should be made aware of other approaches: cognitive-mediational education, using creativity, music, art. There is a task for teacher training colleges as well as for post-graduate training projects.
- Another bottle-neck is the way children are evaluated. As long as selection is done according to standards ( as imposed by various cognitive and academic testing procedures), this is likely to lead to more exclusion. Networking by linking individuals and institutions who have expertise and those who are aware of the need to change and learn, is needed in order to create a momentum towards change.
• Background
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Some of the partners worked together in previous European collaboration projects ( Helios II, Leonardo, Comenius, Equal opportunities), in the field of inclusive education, cognitive education, or both, or met during educational conferences. Various partners, independently from each other, developed considerable expertise in this field, often developing their own methods. Four of them have worked together in a Comenius development Project INSIDE (57174-cp-3-2000-1-NO-COMENIUS-C31) ( www.sclm.ua.ac.be ) , which enabled the creation of innovative materials and methods. A common ground for this actual partnership proposal is the sharing of experience and vision that inclusion should go together with cognitive activation and training different teacher attitudes, otherwise inclusion would just remain “social” and not really succeed. The combination of inclusive education together with methodologies of cognitive education gives more educational opportunities for those who are threatened with exclusion from society (some people with disabilities, learning difficulties, socio-ethnic minorities with little educational opportunities). But further support is needed to establish an ongoing network before it can live on its own. Various products about cognitive education and inclusion methodologies need a forum to be disseminated
- change teachers' attitudes and classroom practice: the ultimate goal of this project is to make teachers ( and others in an educating, evaluating or training role) more aware of the hidden learning potential of people who are “educationally at risk” of low schooling or exclusion, and of their capacity as a teacher to develop better learning experiences and competencies (by developing different attitudes) and therefore exclude less
- promoting cognitive education together with inclusive education. Focus will be on cognitive education because it helps to develop the mind of the child in acquiring basic prerequisites of thinking, which are (mental) instruments to develop autonomy in order to learn how to learn . Teachers must work to achieve in children the highest level of cognitive, social, motoric, artistic and emotional development that are adaptive for living in a modern society. To this end they must be re-educated to teach in a more process-oriented way, to individualize contents and degrees of difficulties and levels of evaluation, to improve learning experiences and competences. Hence the word “clues” in the acronym – giving clues how to learn
- transform school systems, curricula, and teacher training, by infusing them with a cognitive and inclusive dimension.
- exchange experiences with implementing cognitive activation methods and good practice of inclusive education in various educational settings; exchange methodologies and didactics
- disseminate products, materials, experiences and methodologies aimed at inclusive & cognitive education; in the first place the materials developed in previous EU projects, such as Project INSIDE ( Comenius project), but also other interesting materials.
- Promote innovative didactic approaches which address several “forms of intelligence”: next to the predominant logico-verbal modes of teaching, also creativity, music, drama, movement, etc.
- promote different, more dynamic systems of evaluation & assessment of cognitive capacities by school guidance services, as well as of knowledge & skills by schools themselves. Psychologists must reorient their evaluation , more to learning processes than to standard products.
Direct:
- Teachers (kindergarten, primary and secondary) in mainstream schools
- Special needs teachers (working with children with “learning” difficulties in a broad sense)
- Rehabilitation staff working with special needs children with cognitive, motor-, contact- difficulties or both
- School Psychologists dealing with educational assessment
- School directors
- School inspectors
- Special needs advisory staff
- Trainers of teachers
- Educational policy makers
- Parents of children with special educational needs
This target group is necessarily wide: inclusive education and cognitive activation can only succeed in a meaningful context where everybody works together. In order to make a meaningful change towards better inclusion and better learning development, all parties must be addressed at different levels of the “ecology” ( cf. Bronfenbrenner): the child, teacher, authorities, parents, community and laws. A changed law without change of teachers does not make much sense ( cf. Italy ). A changed teacher without a change of law does not make much sense either ( cf. Belgium ). Optimal staff, methods and attitudes at a school, but with a psychologist measuring the child up to IQ standards, blocks the child's inclusion as well
The project does not aim at a quantitatively large target group, but at quality.
Indirect:
Pupils at risk of educational failure regardless of etiology, in particular children with general and specific learning difficulties.
The indirect target group is also necessarily wide: about 10-20% in each class do not perform well at school and are at risk of dropping out of the system. In some schools, where there is concentration of children with difficulties, it is much more. Also, cognitive activation concerns all children: all children need to learn how to learn. But in some this is not happening spontaneously. Inclusive education is more defined as an educational approach than education for the disabled in the mainstream. Therefore the target group of inclusive education is wide ( all “different” kids, including the highly gifted, the deprived and the disabled).
Expected impact on each target group
- Teachers (kindergarten, primary and secondary) in mainstream schools: change of attitude from a predominant “instructional” , product- & standards-oriented, excluding teaching style to a process-oriented, mediating, inclusive, differentiating teaching style; become more skilled in adapting materials, teaching a variety of children, varying the curriculum, activating thinking processes
- Special needs teachers (working with children with learning difficulties): becoming more challenging for special needs children, more oriented towards inclusive activities, cognitive activation
- Rehabilitation staff working with special needs children with learning difficulties: having more attention for stimulating cognitive learning processes and a mediating attitude, understand the link between therapy and learning, have a more dynamic evaluating attitude, more oriented to learning potential than to correcting deficits
- School directors: In every partner country recruit at least 2 schools willing to run pilots in inclusive & cognitive education & mediational teaching strategies, by allowing teaching staff to be trained and monitored; create a more inclusive, welcoming climate at school, refer less to special education, organise curriculum diversity, encourage a truly process-oriented teaching in schools
- School Psychologists dealing with educational assessment : work via top-down approach by involving school psychologists' associations and bottom-up approach by involving professional journals and direct consulting via special needs children ; invite them to conferences and training workshops; impact = raised awareness of need to adopt a more dynamic assessment approach as alternatives to IQ and other testing. If 2 psychologists/ partner choose to go for a thorough dynamic assessment training and implement it with children, this might make a change for hundreds of children in the end
- Special needs advisory staff ( SEN coordinators): for those already working in inclusive situations ( Norway, Italy, UK), inviting them to training modules on cognitive education, and applying these with children; for those not yet working in the mainstream, think more “inclusion”, more challenging, more in terms of plasticity and modifiability and become skilled in applying methods of cognitive activation
- Trainers of teachers : involve at least 1 TTC (teacher training college) in each partner, to become interested in introducing modules on cognitive and inclusive education
- Educational policy makers (government, local educational authorities): involve at least 2 educational policy makers per partner, by inviting them to local/ international conferences or become involved in advisory committees on building inclusion policy. If budgetary allocations change ( shifting some of the special needs budget towards supporting inclusive schools and teachers; and making the rules more flexible so as to allow for more inclusion, that makes a change for hundreds of children
- Web-based discussion forum & quarterly newsletter
- Collection & web publication of meaningful experiences
- Collect & exchange information regarding didactic methodologies & educational materials dealing with inclusive and cognitive education
- Organize regional and international seminars
- Promote the organization of local workshops
- Monitor local progression with implementing inclusive and cognitive education
- Translation & dissemination of interesting teacher and pupils' materials into Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Czech, Latvian, Norwegian, etc.
- Network meetings with a limited number of experts
- Editorial work: publish a series of special issues of a professional journal on the subjects of dynamic assessment, cognitive & inclusive education, a book and a CD
- Lobby on national/ regional levels with educational authorities and main actors
What is innovative about the network
- inclusive education is not yet common in most countries; this is to be considered innovative as long as it is not government policy, nor common practice or favoured by financing and training facilities. Even when there is inclusion, it is often only “geographical”: putting the child in the mainstream but leaving it without support or leaving the curriculum intact. This is not inclusive education
- neither is cognitive education common in Europe. In the scarce places where it is applied, it is still pioneering work, applied by an individual teacher. Some special school are starting to work with it, but hardly mainstream schools
- certainly innovative is the combination of inclusion and cognitive activation, the idea that cognitive activation helps the child's autonomy and hence inclusion (while changing teacher's attitudes)
- usually methods are restricted to one of the target groups; there is hardly any mutual benefit; the proposed network, on the contrary, uses experience/ practice from special needs for mainstream education and vice versa; target groups as different as Roma children as well as children with disability benefit as well as “normal children” from learning how to learn
- “learning how to learn” is an established concept, but what is innovative is the way how this concept is operationalized: we want to disseminate a selection of methods and approaches which have proven their effectiveness.
- the idea of “dynamic assessment” (as opposed to standards) is a total innovation. It is a key for successful inclusion because it addresses learning processes