Paula Andrea Pelaez Velasquez
TO:
Principals, directors, coordinators and teachers
The word inclusion is
an attitude that involves listening, speaking, participating, accepting and
cooperative skills. Fulvia Cedeño Ángel
To be included in a group means that a person
is accepted by others, of course having in mind he/she has duties and rights to
fulfill. The main objective of the Inclusion Policy is that all
kinds of students have the possibility to attend, participate, learn and develop their
knowledge in a common environment. This process is to be accomplished with good
practices in the art of teaching and excellence in the outcome of competences
in every student. Inclusion has turned classrooms into spaces that are rich in
tolerance towards diversity and equitable in understanding and learning
processes. According to social perspectives we notice that inclusion also looks
for accepting and valuing cultural characteristics. Different
contexts and students’ interests are considered in order to satisfy needs of a community, whereas
teachers have the role of being motivators and facilitators that must generate
changes in cognitive and social development.
Something demanding in today’s education is to
have students with special qualities gathered all together in the same room,
sometimes making extra efforts when trying to become more effective (accomplish
a purpose) and efficient (accomplish the purpose the best one can and with the
least waste of time and effort). Consequently the process of a meaningful
teaching and learning becomes a challenge for public schools teachers, one of them being able to identify students’ abilities and difficulties. Those with exceptional abilities can help others in a cooperative model
and those with some limitations can experiment challenges when reaching some
goals. They also will improve values of respect, tolerance, and social
responsibility, reasons that will help them to build their self esteem and
confidence.
According to Koïchiro Matsuura General Director
of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization)
1999-2009, by the time education systems are developed and improved, they must
have to deal to complex and specific problems. They have to accept the facts
that the number of students is exponentially growing and that diversity in
communities is enormous and is worldly recognized and defended.
In order to be optimistic and have good results
with our Inclusion Policy, institutions have to modify curriculum structures
from a traditional to a creative, experimental and constructive one, pay
special attention to practices in the classroom, research, innovate, train
teachers to be able to manage heterogeneous classes and making parents part of
their children’s education.
Paula Andrea Peláez Velásquez
Master’s Degree Student
University of Caldas
No comments:
Post a Comment