Observing Inclusive Education in Italy
As a graduate student at Syracuse University, I heard about a summer class focusing on special education in Italy. I was interested in inclusive education, so I went to the meeting of past and prospective participants.
Carol Berrigan, the faculty exchange leader, enthusiastically encouraged me to sign up. Even though Italy was not known for its wheelchair accessibility, “Everybody helps,” she explained. "We become like a family." I jumped at the opportunity because I had traveled to Italy as an undergraduate, many years before I became mobility impaired with arthritis. Since I would have to leave my motorized chair at home for this trip and take a manual one, Carol found funding for three students to receive partial scholarship and provide me with some personal assistance and wheelchair pushing.
The best and the worst of wheelchair accessibility provided highlights of this overseas program. Parma, the original site of "integrazione" of students with and without disabilities, had curb cuts everywhere, plenty of accessible shops and world-famous integrated preschools. Pompeii, however, was a wheelchair user's worst nightmare. The Roman roads, built to last forever, were stone-lined sewage troughs with stone pillars at each crosswalk so that the Romans could step on them without wading in sewage. It took four people to help me across the street. Consequently, I decided not to inspect every nook and cranny with my companions (to their relief) but instead used them as scouts to tell me whether a particular excursion into a building was worth it. Venice at first was equally challenging, but I soon discovered that many of the bridges had steps leading up and down them with very wide bases for their handrails. I could sally forth with only one companion as I used the handrail base for a foot ramp while my companion took my lightweight wheelchair over the bridge.
In the schools, wheelchair accessibility was labor intensive. If a student in a wheelchair had class on the second floor, then staff would carry them. If I was to observe the student in class, then I was also carried. Strong men often like to show what they can do, and it was sometimes a challenge to show them how to lift me and my chair without scaring me. These occasions caused me to rapidly improve my fluency in Italian.
Integration of students with disabilities into the school system began with the psychiatric deinstitutionalization movement in Parma in the late 1960s, which led to the deinstitutionalization of people with other disabilities and the integration of provincial schools. Integration became national policy during the 1970s, but integration in Italy is still a work in progress. As in the United States, we saw students with severe disabilities in the thick of things and on the margins. There were, however, some major differences. Italians take this national policy for granted. When we went into shops for postcards, food or browsing, people asked us where we were from and what we were doing. When we told them we came to see inclusion, they were shocked to hear that any children with disabilities were segregated in our country. Many people said, "The children belong together." Educators were shocked to learn that parents in the United States often had to undergo hearings and court proceedings to get their child into integrated classes.
Another interesting difference was the extent to which the arts and Italian history were integrated into the day-to-day curriculum. For Italians, their environment is a rich historical and artistic resource and the necessity for the culture to be treated as common knowledge was assumed for all students. Even students for whom curriculum was modified and simplified learned about Michelangelo and da Vinci. The special education teacher, the "sosteno," created adapted materials that were artistic in their own right. Students were surrounded by their own fine artwork, even in the preschools. Aesthetics were ever present.
Integration is further enhanced by the nationally limited work week of each teacher. Teachers work 24-hour weeks, while the students are in school all day. Consequently, an elementary school class will have two teachers who teach alone for part of the day and together in the middle or end of the day. In addition, special education teachers provide up to 20 hours per week of services and support, which are determined by the needs of the individual student. Thus, all teachers are involved in inclusive education for the whole class, with the special education teacher being available to all the children as well as consultant to both the regular teachers and the child with support needs.
Another highlight was a meeting with Dr. Anna Gidoni, a neuropsychiatrist from Florence, who founded a clinic that welcomed families to come with their disabled child. They observed the family, listened to them and helped them to learn how to support their child in ways that often reduced the effect of their child’s disability on their child’s life situation. Dr. Gidoni promoted not early intervention but early listening. As an influence in Italy's integration process, she was an example for me of the many kinds of connections between school and the medical community. The prescription of support services, including how many hours of them each student should be provided, takes place not within the school system but through the health care system. I had a hard time understanding how this works because it is so different from what I know. Yet requiring school partnership in the education of students with special needs reflects the community’s involvement in integrating people with disabilities into community life. I came home with many questions and the notion that a national inclusive education policy makes sense and can work at home. We don't have to wait until we know all about how to do it to begin. After all, nobody waits until they know it all before having children with or without disabilities.
We also saw, and administrators confirmed our impressions, that resources for the schools were considerably more plentiful in the north than the south of Italy. Politics and economic biases in education seem to be universal. Now that the western European countries no longer have economic borders, Italians have mentioned that they hope to export what they know about how to educate all students together, and import from northern Europe some of the technological know-how and devices for students with disabilities.
For people with disabilities, I would like to communicate about the interpersonal and intrapersonal aspects of exchange programs. A handicap I experienced was the difficulty of establishing natural friendships and having peer interactions that were not influenced by my having been introduced to my fellow sojourners as a person in need of assistance. Although I had a wonderful time and made excellent connections with some of my companions, near the end of the trip people were tired and functioning on "one cylinder," which resulted in some awkward moments of isolation. I would recommend asking if it makes better sense, when traveling as the only person with a disability on such an excursion, to have at least one peer with whom you have a prior relationship and who is not the main person designated to assist you. This should not be read as a negative but only as a question to pursue as part of the quest to overcome some barriers built into the American culture. While I’d choose to have this experience again, I can't help but wonder if those moments would have been different if "the children had belonged together" when we were in elementary school.
