The field of inclusion is broad, but its benefits are the same everywhere and for everyone. Bart Vanmechelen, part of the leadership team of the new Section for Inclusive Social Development, gives an overview of the complexity of this field of work based on his professional biography.
Would I like to take over teaching the 4th grade class? The question hadn’t even occurred to me when I first visited Parcivalschool, a special education school in the heart of Antwerp, while on summer vacation 33 years ago. During my studies in applied psychology, I had acquired a broad theoretical basis in educational psychology and didactics of learning disabilites. And thanks to my internship in social therapy, I had developed a good eye for when someone was not doing well. My training in social development at Emerson College had also taught me how artistic practice and social design can release forces for individual and social development. But could I use this knowledge to teach a group of ten children with learning and developmental difficulties? The situation was urgent: their teacher had decided to move to another school during the summer vacation, and the new school year was beginning just around the corner.
As surprising and unexpected as this question was, it touched me deeply and awakened a strong desire in me. It reminded me of what Bernard Lievegoed said: at important biographical crossroads, we have the chance to connect our inner and outer biography. This is the only way to live life to the fullest and be there for others with heart and soul. Could I do that for the children? Could I become the teacher who could help them? I was very uncertain, but my willpower was awakened. I felt strengthened by my colleagues and by my wife, who started working as an art teacher at the same school. They gave me confidence and saw possibilities in me that I was not yet aware of. And that gave me courage!
“I’ll come and paint the classroom in the right colors, but in the meantime, please keep looking for an experienced teacher,” I told them. While I was preparing the classroom, my colleagues came and told me that they would be happy to provide me with advice and support to help me get started. The first day of school drew ever closer. “Keep looking! I’ll take the children until a ‘real’ teacher can take over the class.”
Subsequent discussions with the teaching staff revealed that the school would benefit from the findings of anthroposophical organizational development. This was an opportunity to put what I had learned into practice, and it became my spark. I often thought of Jörgen Smit’s wise words during a meeting of the Youth Section: “We are not up to our tasks, but we grow with our tasks.” I worked at the school with full commitment for five years, and, through trial and error, I got to know all facets of this wonderful profession: from self-study to self-administration, from children’s conferences to parents’ evenings and home visits, from class plays to Christmas plays, from planning a new building to fundraising and negotiating the purchase of building land. But, I learned the most from the children.
Joie de Vivre
It quickly became clear that, for various reasons, these children needed more time to learn. They needed more repetition and smaller practice steps to strengthen their concentration and memory or improve their fine motor skills. I enjoyed finding exercises that could help them with this. Above all, however, they struggled with great insecurity and low self-esteem. They had all experienced falling behind in their previous school, not always understanding what was expected of them, failing in the eyes of teachers and parents, and not being able to stay in school. They had had to leave their friends behind and didn’t feel good about that. I was deeply impressed by what this triggered in them. It required my own confidence-building attitude of carefulness, enthusiasm, and encouragement. We worked hard at bringing joy back into life and learning through play and artistic exercises.
I sought contact with the support teachers and special needs educators at several Waldorf schools. I was able to learn a lot from them, but I also tried to motivate them to ensure that children who needed more support could still remain with their own class groups. We thought about the importance of a good diagnosis but also about how to keep the familiar as a matter of course. We learned from each other about the importance of collaboration between class teachers, subject teachers, and therapists, and how the Waldorf curriculum can connect all facets of school life while offering many opportunities to tailor it to each individual child.
Appreciative Gazes
I owe so much gratitude to the school doctors who were able to give advice based on anthroposophical anthropology. I will never forget how the Dutch anthroposophical doctor Ate Koopmans made us aware of the inner attitude from which we can observe children: “Your gaze can be appreciative, so that they can open up in confidence, or, if you look judgmentally, your gaze can be poisonous, so that they timidly withdraw. Only with the former can you come to a fruitful diagnosis.”
After teaching class eight, I was asked to become part of a team of special needs educators and therapists at a small special education daycare center for children with multiple, severe support needs. Due to the complexity of their support needs, these children require a great deal of care and therapy. But they, too, can learn to participate fully in life with individual assistance. The teachers at the Parcivalschool support them in this respect. My focus was now more on policy and on supporting collaboration between staff, parents, external specialists, and the entire organization, including the (subsidizing) authorities, to create optimal learning opportunities for children who are unable to attend school, so that their right to education is guaranteed as well as their right to care. At the same time, I was tasked with occasionally observing children in schools in our region, together with the teachers, and advising teachers on how they could help children with support needs in their classes. Here, too, it became clear that this is only sustainable if there is a broadly supported school mission statement in which teachers, parents, (school) doctors, and therapists can work together from a shared perspective. The discussions with parents were often very intense and moving, and I learned about the effects and the new areas of life and experience that open up when you have a child with support needs, and how much you can achieve through good cooperation.
In this way, I became familiar with the challenges that teachers, remedial teachers, doctors, and therapists increasingly have to face today and the individual support needs of children who find it difficult to integrate into mainstream classrooms or who need a lot of support. It is a complex dynamic with many dimensions and layers, in which a circle of people must be formed around each child.
Diverse Inclusion
This is just one story from one career, but I hope it gives you an idea of how many different issues converge around inclusion in schools. It is fascinating to see what experiences we can share with each other at our regional and international conferences. On the one hand, there is a great deal of diversity in the way education is organized worldwide. On the other hand, there are common developments and a lot of mutual recognition in sharing the experiences and challenges we face.
For example, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted in 2006 [by the United Nations], has given strong political and social impetus worldwide to remove the barriers that prevent people with support needs from exercising equal rights. In this context, schools that are as accessible as possible for children with support needs are an important prerequisite. In many countries, we find that politics are addressing this issue. The aim is to enable as many children as possible access to mainstream schools, with appropriate modifications where necessary, and only be placed in a special setting when absolutely necessary.
This is important not just for the children who need extra support. All children benefit from learning at an early age to be considerate of classmates who have difficulties or whose abilities lie in a completely different arena. In addition, children can often learn special social and life skills from and with the children who have support needs. Special measures that are necessary for one or the other ultimately benefit all children. In order to create a society in which all people, regardless of their talents and abilities, have the same rights and can fully exercise them, it is important that all children and young people learn the skills and attitudes that make this possible.
Through our worldwide movement for special needs education, we have the privilege of looking at these developments from a broad cultural diversity and of inspiring each other. For this reason, we have set up an international online working group in our Section to learn with and from each other. This is where experienced colleagues can bring examples of good practice to discuss and share with colleagues who teach children with special educational needs in the context of schools. The focus is on supporting teachers and special needs teachers in their collaboration within the school, and with therapists and doctors. Cooperation with parents is also an important topic. Last but not least, it is about developing exercises that are adapted to the children’s abilities and stage of life. What professional attitude does such a complex dynamic require? From what source of strength do our inspiration and intuition flow?
More Anyone who would like to contribute their experience to this working group and with colleagues, please contact Bart Vanmechelen: bart.vanmechelen@goetheanum.ch
Translation Laura Liska
Image Folk dance during the conference at the Goetheanum. Photo: Matthias Spalinger
