Starting next Monday, September 1, Italian schools will be officially open again. While the attention is focused on spaces, desks, responsibilities and safety devices, Dario Ianes, Professor of Pedagogy and Special Didactic Activities at the University of Bolzano and Manager of Edizioni Erickson, has no doubts: “The first to be called and welcomed should be students with disabilities and other issues. Ten days would be precious to help them recover the competences and independence they often lost during the lockdown period. This could be done by involving all kinds of personnel: retired teachers, final year pedagogy or psychology students, educators and even parents. Unfortunately, school administrators are comprehensibly working on safety measures, distancing and responsibilities, but it would be important to completely change this approach, shifting from a defensive to an expansive attitude. Only by reforming school, as was promised during the lockdown, can we win this challenge.”
We fully share the idea of an expansive school that “enlarges its horizon and looks towards new solutions such as widespread community schooling involving a wide range of local realities and associations.”
Interviewed by Redattore Sociale (see Rientro a scuola, “da lunedì tornino in classe studenti disabili e fragili” – in Italian) Dario Ianes provides three proposals for an inclusive reopening of schools:
- Small school alliances
- Relations with families and adapted materials
- Normalisation of special personnel
The Fondazione Mondo Digitale’s collaboration with the “Centro Studi Erickson” started with the publication of Educazione per la vita e inclusione digitale and continued with the Didattiche Conference and the collana laboratorio ICS series.
