1st EBU International Conference on Education, 19-23 July 2000, Montegrotto Terme (Padua) - Italy
Education is a process that occurs in a specific social and cultural context, with the subject and his/her unique individual characteristics as the protagonist. This process will have brighter prospects when the activities planned and carried out by the parents, schools and other national education agencies to respond to the needs of the subject are more qualified, coordinated and properly finalised.
In particular, the aim of education for blind and partially sighted children and adolescents is the development of the subjects' potential through overcoming the problems of visual impairment. In this way, these people can acquire behavioural and working strategies and the necessary knowledge and competence to be as independent, personally capable and fully integrated as possible.
If this definition is accepted, even in part, the criteria of evaluation relevant to the significance of training and work of the specialised teacher who is called to support the visually impaired who go to mainstream schools need reviewing. Once, when blind and partially sighted children were educated in special schools, their education depended almost exclusively on the competence and sensibility of the teachers and educators. The time spent with the family (for those who could) was quite short because many institutes tended to fix holidays in relation to the age of those concerned, as if adopting the ancient Jesuit "ratio studiorum" principle. The time spent with the family was less for younger children, so as to avoid negative interference in the formative process.
The family and the schools are no longer the only educating bodies. The child lives with the family and interacts constantly not only with relatives but within his/her own social context, which is determined by numerous factors (economic situation, cultural level, presence of services, groups of various sorts, mass media, etc.).
The formulation of the formative process occurs in the family and is strongly conditioned by the evaluation (generally negative) of blindness by relatives and those closest to the person in question.
The first fundamental learning is in pre-school age, when the first sentiments that develop personality, such as thinking for oneself, self-appreciation and self-evaluation, manifest themselves.
In some cases, when the child starts school, particularly kindergarten, the teachers must (more correctly "should") make up for backwardness or correction of involuntary errors by the family, which is too often left to carry out a delicate job alone, for which they cannot be prepared. But, even in the case of a blind or partially sighted child whose family have managed to plan and carry out the formative process as correctly as possible, what are the aims for the teachers?
I will list those that I regard as vital:
To carry out this complex job profitably, the teacher specialised in teaching the blind and partially sighted must be properly trained, know the methodology and didactic procedures for these particular pupils and the instruments which they must use to perform certain activities.
We cannot be generic in evaluating the teachers as unprofessional. As regards special teaching methodology, we know that this does not present insurmountable problems for a sufficiently motivated professional.
After these clarifications, however, I must underline that, in my view, excellent professionalism and knowledge of the specific methods and technical apparatus used are only part of the requirements that the teacher and educator of the blind and partially sighted need to possess. In fact, to be effective, education presupposes an important factor that is not inferior to professionalism and specific knowledge: experience acquired "on the spot", from which a particular attitude towards blindness and low vision derives, which I could define as "familiarity with the disability". During a meeting on 8th June at the Ministry of Education, it emerged that 33% of support teachers have no specialisation and most of the others, as well as being inadequately trained, lacked any experience whatsoever.
The lack of a system that enables preservation and accumulation of experience is surely the biggest deficiency of the Italian system for educating disabled people.
It emerged from a study carried out by the Italian Union of the Blind and the SWG Institute that, among other things, 19% of support teachers were not able to communicate with their blind or partially sighted pupils. A high percentage of the rest had difficult relationships with their pupils.
If we consider that the work of the teacher and the educator is founded primarily and essentially on communication, it is not difficult to imagine the negative consequences on the training of pupils entrusted to such teachers.
The teachers, whose professionalism derives from good training and work experience in support of mainstreaming of blind or partially sighted pupils, will not only not have problems communicating with their pupils, but, being freed of prejudice towards blindness, will be able to conduct themselves in the same way as they would with sighted pupils. They will also be on the same wavelength as their pupils, finding adequate ways of advancing activities, motivating work, requesting respect of times and rules and forming objectives in line with real attitudes and interests of the child or adolescent they work with.
But the current situation in Italy does not allow for the accumulation of experience. In fact, there are 2,500 blind or partially sighted people who go to state schools in Italy. This means, on the one hand, that it is practically impossible to organise valid apprenticeships for teachers undergoing training. On the other hand, there is little chance that a support teacher will be called upon to teach more than one blind or partially sighted person during their career. Also, almost all the support teachers ask to be transferred to normal teaching duties because of the lack of consideration that most schools give to support activities.
The solution to the problem, which is currently being pursued by the Italian Union of the Blind, consists in promoting the setting up of a resource centre on a national level, with local branches (the financing law for this has already been passed). One of the jobs assigned to the centre will be training teachers specialised in teaching the blind and partially sighted. The specialists will be able to lay the foundations for gaining experience by carrying out apprenticeship activities in the schools with the highest number of visually impaired pupils, collaborating with experts and visiting foreign centres specialising in support activities for mainstreaming.
These specialised teachers will operate from the national centre or one of its branches. They will act as travelling teachers, within territorial limits, doing counselling work for families and schools. They will participate in elaborating personal education plans for each student within their territorial limits, and collaborate with specialists in the National Health Service (psychologists, psychiatrists and others) in solving particularly serious problems. With the setting up of these resource centres, there will be no more dissipation of experience and the school life of our children and adolescents will surely benefit.
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