A few days ago we learned of a story that left us amazed: the parents of two schools asked to throw children with special needs. They decided to strike their children, that is, they did not attend classes, because according to them, both children also suffered from behavioral disorders that led to attacks on their classmates.
To know a little more about the inclusion of children with functional diversity, we have interviewed Carme Fernández Oliva, director of the Gerard Foundation, which works for the promotion of people with functional diversity and their families.
Are all schools prepared to have children with special needs? What does a school need to be able to serve these children as they deserve?
In reality, and with exceptions, schools are not prepared for any child, whether or not they have a functional diversity. It is not about doing something special for them (I mean for the latter, the so-called “special” children), but that teachers are prepared to teach any student, the whole range of diversity. Give each one what he needs, that is the question, but without being separated from each other.
That way no student can be indicated by their peers as different, because they are all after all. It is clear that to reach this scenario it is necessary to modify many things, starting with the training that teachers receive, and following a filtering or selection of “the best”, making a continuous assessment of the school context, and determining standards minimum quality among many other issues.
Inclusion is a concept that includes all students and not just a few. It is the fundamental principle of quality education, so if there is no inclusion there is no education. And above all it is a human right that must be respected and not impeded. It is not as complicated, or at least not as much as many insist on teaching, teaching diverse students. We have multiple educational tools for this, whose effectiveness has already been proven. First of all, attitude, will and motivation for this are lacking, starting at the top, by our politicians and rulers and following the entire administrative structure, schools, and ending with society in general. And there are too many hidden interests in maintaining and perpetuating "the special", too much wanting to live without "moving the ass" and too many prejudices and misconceptions about diversity.
What benefits and harms does a normal school and a special school have for children with functional diversity?
As I said before, education, to be a quality education, must imply inclusion. Only in an inclusive context can human potential be fully developed. The person has the right to learn knowledge, to learn to do, but also has the right to learn to live and live with their peers, to be respectful of human rights and to learn values and principles that make us more dignified and that match us more essential
Special education centers have no place in the framework of the recognition of inclusive education as a human right, included in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007, an international treaty ratified by the Spanish State in 2008 and mandatory. Special education centers are defined by the UN High Commissioner, an expert group in education, as a discriminatory approach that must be replaced and reconverted to take advantage of its resources and serve the entire educational community.
"We must begin to see human diversity without seeing in it degrees of affectation, labels or diagnoses, much less as a carrier of any problem"
But too many interests in maintaining them show them as the best alternative for many students, abusing the ignorance and good faith of many families, and the weariness and wear of others. Why so much resistance to transfer the resources of these centers to ordinary centers, or to convert them into inclusive schools? The provision of human, material and economic resources to these centers is bleeding the needs of ordinary schools, which they see as they increasingly have to do more with less. The unification of the different modalities of schooling in just one, is not only something necessary to realize the human right to inclusive education of all students but is the only option for quality education and a much more sustainable way in circumstances of scarcity and austerity in which we increasingly have to survive and manage.
There are children with different levels in the problem they suffer. How and who decides if a child should enter a normal school or a special education center?
We must begin to see human diversity without seeing in it degrees of affectation, labels or diagnoses, much less as a carrier of any problem. The problem exists, but it is in the environment, in a world not accessible to all and often challenging and provocative. The educational environment becomes for many students with functional diversity in the worst of nightmares. Even getting sick causing health, physical and mental problems. Sometimes this happens involuntarily, due to lack of resources or training of the educational professionals themselves. But in others these are bad praxis executed conscientiously, either actively or by default. In our country, despite being obliged to comply with the UN Convention, many students continue to be referred to special education centers, without even taking into account the opinion and desire of their parents. Many of these students do NOT ever set foot in an ordinary school ... since they were three years old.
For this there are the so-called counseling and psycho-pedagogical attention teams, formed by officials of the Educational Administration, who among other functions have the task of assessing together with the schools the teaching / learning contexts of certain students to determine their needs and the support they need . But far from this, in many cases such evaluations and the technical reports that motivate the subsequent “opinion” are made to justify a proposal for a special education modality. It is therefore premeditated and biased actions, with the sole purpose of separating or preventing a student's access to the system of conventional schooling. That is why more and more families are reporting such facts to justice.
In the case of the two children with autism the conflict lies, according to the parents who asked that they be thrown out, in that the children had violent behaviors with their peers, are there parents who do not want to see their children's problems? Do other parents have the right to worry about their children? Is that the way to act?
To begin to clarify that only in one of the two cases is it a child with autism. But after all that is the least. Of course there are parents who do not want to see their children's problem, but then we are talking about other parents, not these two families in particular, whom I know personally. As I have said before, behavioral problems always occur as a reaction to a challenging environment, they do not come standard with diversity. The lack of supports or unsuitable supports are usually at the base of them. Any person with or without diversity, in circumstances of helplessness, deprivation and / or impeding their ability to function, participate and succeed in a given environment, would react defensively and even "attacking."
All parents have the right to worry about their children, and of course all children also have their rights. But act in the way that these families have done in both cases, promoting and executing a strike behind the backs of those affected, without taking into account the damage they could cause to these children and their families ... instead of supporting them and looking for a solution by pressing together with the Educational Administration to improve support resources and ultimately the coexistence of everyone with everyone, that way of acting rather reveals ignorance, the prejudices that inhabit them and the discriminating and intolerant attitudes that reality in the We live reaffirms. Because the reality endorsed and promoted by our own governments is a reality of segregation and exclusion, that of the existence of special education centers. And for many people if these centers exist it is for something.
What would be the ideal solution for the inclusion of children with functional diversity? Why do not you do?
The solution must be the result of a systemic analysis, the focus of which should not focus exclusively on students with functional diversity but on the entire educational community. It is something complex because of the number of intervening variables, but we must not assimilate complexity to difficulty. It would be a question of putting on the table a road map with actions and strategies that will bring us to the maximum and progressively to an optimal standard of inclusion, which we are currently quite far from, and also very unevenly.
This implies taking a step forward by our politicians, who are the ones who must raise this issue as something “forced” and necessary, in order to comply with the UN Convention, in order to really realize the right to inclusive education of all students, as set out in article 24 thereof. And this road map should consider as key targets those social, attitudinal, economic factors, etc., which are interfering very negatively in the progress of such inclusion. It takes courage, decision and above all a lot of honesty. Yes, a lot of honesty with the human race, with the values that dignify it and the rights that match us. The lobby of "the special" is very strong, and the ties between it and the powers of the State are even more ... I do not know, perhaps we can only rely on justice ... and the strength of people ...
We thank Carme Fernández who has agreed to answer our questions and we hope we have given good information to parents about the inclusion of children with functional diversity.
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