Inclusion and Didactic Innovation

The concept of inclusion has made its mark in the Italian and international education field in the past few years (UNESCO, 2008) referring to the need faced by schools to provide appropriate learning opportunities for all users, whatever their specific psycho-physical and social conditions. Originally targeting particularly students with psycho-physical disabilities (Allen, Schwartz, 2000), internationally inclusion is currently involving the sphere of potential handicap linked to types of individual or group differences deriving from specific economic, geographical, gender, linguistic and general cultural conditions (O’Mahony, Rieser, 2001 in Ianes 2005; Canevaro, Mandato, 2004; Canevaro, 2006; Thomas, Loxley, 2007; D’Alonzo, Caldin, 2012). In Italy the concept of inclusion is progressively replacing the previous idea of integration, by convention assuming that the inclusive perspective better represents the need to guarantee at the same time the right to equality and the right to diversity of all individuals. The right to education has been the object of numerous interventions in the international community aiming to guarantee its effective implementation throughout the world. The main documents in this regard are: the “United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children” (United Nations, 1989) which establishes the rights of children against all discrimination with a view to safeguarding their wishes and points of view; the “Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education” (UNESCO, 1994), which invites all governments to give maximum priority to school integration; the “UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities” (United Nations, 2006), which invites all Member states to ensure an inclusive education system on all levels. In Europe, the European Union document know as the Lisbon Document (Unione Europea, 2000) that almost everyone places at the origin of the “knowledge society”, is very clear in this sense: this society sets professedly clear objectives of development for all, of social inclusion and modernisation. “The school of inclusion addresses all children, whatever their gender, class, culture, language. Here even those children who, due to psycho-physical deficits or socio-cultural disadvantages in the past as in the present risked living situations of handicap, can find an appropriate educational response. The educational project of the school of inclusion aims to provide everyone with equal opportunities for development and at the same time to allow everyone to enhance their own specific resources, their own individual way of being and living. Today, in the school of inclusion we have to go beyond the culture of the “respect for differences” to clearly state that it is difference itself which lies at the centre of the educational project and no longer represents merely a marginal element to be tackled with tolerance and willingness.” (Guerra, 2010). A school which intends to base itself on the principles governing inclusion constructs its methodological- didactic project on the need to recognise the twofold right of its students: the right to equality and the right to diversity (Guerra, 2010). These rights lie at the basis of a knowledge society that does not aim to be exclusively of “knowledge”, but also of justice, solidarity, participation and cooperation. On one hand, therefore, the school of equality chooses the didactics of individualisation, and presents itself as an educational environment able to provide all students with a systematic and planned framework of learning opportunities, with the aim of facilitating the achievement of learning objectives by all. In this, the curriculum is adapted as far as possible for each single student, who must be able to pursue the achievement of the set cognitive objectives through different learning pathways provided by the teacher. On the other hand, the school of diversity chooses the didactics of customisation, and presents itself as an environment that aims to enhance the motivations and specificities of the single students, promoting a curriculum which starts with the students, their interests, their curiosity, their rhythms, cognitive styles, cultural and motivational background. The school of inclusion sets out to remove the obstacles which prevent or hinder the full individual and social realisation of the individual and the community they operate in. In this perspective, it is a school that is “open inside” and “open outside” (Frabboni, Guerra, 1991). Open ‘inside’ in the sense that it places its attention on both the students and its internal structure (student-teacher relations, sharing of didactic experiences, documentation and the dissemination of ‘good practices’ etc.). Open ‘outside’ as it is a school that goes beyond its internal dimensions to collaborate with other public and private educational and health services working in the community as well as with the students’ families.