Best Practices Of Inclusive Education

Best Practices of Inclusive Education

Table of Contents Introduction

2

Aim of documentation

3

Orientation

3

Nabaa concept of inclusive education

3

Principles to have quality of inclusive education

3

How to make schools inclusive

4

Benefits of community engagement

5

Making links between schools and community

6

Engaging parents and local community

7

Engaging children in the decision making

8

Activation of children opinion

10

Spreading the culture of child rights

11

Breaking the postglacial generation

11

Children as planners and definers of their needs

15

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education

Introduction The project designed and implemented a holistic sectoral program in UNRWA & governmental schools; the program balanced between working with children with and without disability,

their parents,

teachers and local community. The program aimed to support children (with and without disability), with an inclusive schools and active participative methods through providing them a kit of rights and

non formal activities.

The activities

helped in including both categories (children

The

with

reports

and

without

disability)

in

creating

best

practices held with the

regarding the differences.

parents and children of

Aim of Documentation

-

the

friendly atmosphere that gather the children

both

-

documentation

categories

(with

and without disability)

To present the experiences of working with

during the life cycle of

children with & without disability.

the project.

To benefit from the best practices with the target groups.

-

To measure the change on the level of behaviour of the target groups, their communication and social life.

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education The project begin with orientation to the target group, the target group was invited to a meeting, they were introduced to

the

project’s objectives, aims and activities. In the meeting the parents & the teachers discussed the problems faced them with the children, most of the parents specified problems related to inclusion and difficulties in accepting and dealing with children with disabilities. The ideas and opinions discussed were as a base for the project that leads us to discover more problems facing the children parents, & thus plan the activities as well as the impact on the children. Naba’a concept for inclusive education Education aims at improving personality, mental and physical skills of the children, through preparing them to take an active role in the community. Inclusive education means that all students in a school, regardless of their strengths or weaknesses in any area, become part of the school community. They are included in the feeling of belonging among other students, teachers, and support staff. The philosophy of inclusive education is built on the idea of cooperation and communication between all parts and members of the local society, from children, parents, teachers, municipalities, and local organizations and involving these aspects in children's lives and in school plans, and in equipment within schools. That is done through working on policies and activities to make the school active, safe and child friendly where they can express themselves and freely practice their hobbies without pressure from authority.

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education For that, the aim of inclusive education is to make schools open to the outside environment to accomplish its mission.

In making the school inclusive and friendly to all children we induced some basic principles to have quality of inclusive education, some of these principles are  All children learn in different ways.

each child have abilities to learn whatever the way was, but each can learn in spite of the quantity he/ she can learn. For this using simple ways and active friendly tools can help the children to learn.  It is every child's right to be included.

Every child has the right to participate & give opinions freely what ever was his/her mentality, background, physical status, religion, gender.... Making children engagement requires working with them inclusively in a close way, so this requires the schools plans and programs to be based on their rights & the children be active members in planning, implementing and evaluating the activities. How to make schools inclusive? To make the schools inclusive there is a need to create a friendly-inclusion atmosphere, that attracts the children, parents, teachers and members in the local community. So

there

are

some

concepts

we

should

take

into

consideration: 1-

The first one is how do the children like the school to be?

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education So including the children in creating the required atmosphere is beneficial to make the school for all, in other words to make all children participate in the decision making. 2- Attracting parents to be effective participants and positive providers for the children. Including parents in the process of making the school inclusive aims to give the children better chance to develop educationally, psychologically and socially and to insure their well being. 3-

Community engagement: r m s The community engagement means that all community members can take an active part in the scholastic life for supporting the children. This means that the school will no longer a closed place on the children and teacher, but it become an open place for all to participate in various activities for the development of the child.

The community members

should be actively participative, Enthusiastic to take an active part, and ready to make a change in the lives of the children. What benefits we could gain through having well community engagement at many levels: At the level of Communities: • Greater strength through collaboration with schools and parents • Greater impact of services through comprehensive, integrated approach • Increased access and cooperation with the school. • Greater sense of community towards children issues. At the level of children:

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education • More positive attitudes toward school • better cooperation of children with other members of community, which in return allow the monitoring of children and becoming an active part in the learning and teaching process. In addition to increase the children participation and self confidence. • better education achievements. At the level of Parents: • Greater knowledge of important of inclusion and their participation for their children development. • Knowledge of how to be more supportive to their children • Greater confidence about ways to help children learn • More positive views of teachers 

improvement of communication skills with their children.

Teachers and Administrators: • Greater teaching effectiveness • better communication with children. • Increased ability to identify children’s needs. Making links between the community and school: Linking the community to the schools helps in making the school an open place for all, thus the learning and teaching process will no longer based only on the children and teachers, but also on all members of the community. The links in our experience were the committees formed in the schools, so that creating committees can attract and gather the children, teachers, parents and active members of the community, since the committees are formed of them. This in return effected positively the children’s participation in making decisions. So that they can raise their voices to ask,

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education implement or plan for activities in addition to helping them discuss, solve many problems related to them. How to form these links or committees? To have effective roles, the members of the committees should believe and encouraged in the work they are doing in addition to their abilities & desire to join in. For informing the participants about the possible roles and tasks they could achieve through the committees, try to implement discussion circles, conference or meetings( in which all the participants are a warred about the importance about their participation

for

the

benefit

of

the

children

educationally,

psychologically and socially in addition to the benefit in supporting the school to reach its educational objectives). After introducing them you can simply ask them about joining the committees “who would like to be a member in the committee?” Then

the

committees

participants:(the

will

committees

be should

formed

of

include

the

children,

proposed parents,

teachers and active members in the community). Engaging parents and local community members in the scholastic life as participators with the children: Knowing that most of the parents are busy and couldn’t provide their children adequate time, and so are

the parents of children

with disability. So we tried to engage parents in different activities to make time for their children. Through our experience in working in the field,

we noticed that

there is a big need before including parents in activities with children to awaren them to different issues related to child rights

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education (protection, participation, communication, inclusion) and to other issues like: psycho-social problems facing children, how to deal with children facing difficult circumstances and with disability. These awareness workshops helped the parents to improve their communication with children and increase their participation with them. In addition they become more able to determine their children’s needs and help them and become more courage to participate in activities with the children. The children here played an important role in awarening their parents and the local community on the previous mentioned issues, through implementing different activities to ask for their rights like implementing open days, drawing competitions... In addition to engaging the parents to be members in the committees, they were invited to participate in various activities with the children, and they conveyed messages concerning inclusion to others through inviting their friends and relatives to join the activities. In

addition

they

were

invited

to

plan

for

activities

to

be

implemented with the children. The touchable positive change of the children was a motive for the parents to continue their participation in the activities. Engaging children in the decision-making process Engaging children in the decision making process means that the children have to participate in taking decisions that affect and impacts their lives.

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education In other words the children should take an active part in the activities that related strongly to their rights. At this process the children should be entitled with their rights and able to recognize what are their needs and how they are going to ask and fulfil them. Here is a step-by-step guide which will help you when you are involving children/young people in the decision-making process. The following methodology was used :

1 To make sure that this activity will involve the children in the process of decision making you need to determine

the important

objectives and information before starting , these information could be determined by the following questions : 1. what are the results that should we achieve? 2. What information we have ? 3. how the children will benefit from it? 4. Do we have the ability to resource it properly? 6. can we involve the children from the beginning of the process? 7. Are we honest with children? 8. What are our expectations? 9. Are we to deliver the children the roles or some roles? 10. Do we recognise this as a long-term commitment? 11. Are we prepared to build in changes long term and not just have a one-off event?

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education

2 After being sure that we can fulfil the above information, then we have to look in the issues related to Children’s &

their parents

desire to participate. • Making the activities more responsive to the children: the activities should be based on the children’s rights and are of their concerns, to make sure of that we achieved many workshops and express your opinion campaigns about the activities..

3 Give the children a chance to plan for the activities, so that their opinions should be taken into consideration. Related to this issue we build a partnership with the children in planning for activities, so that designed with the children a simple plan for them that is easy and reachable for all children, then they implemented with other children training workshops to test the plan and be sure that it mostly answer their needs.

4 • Children as creators not consumers Developing the skills of the children is important in making them creative creators in planning, implementing

and evaluating the

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education activities. In other words the children can develop ways of conveying and coping their needs. In working with children, we noticed that believing in children’s abilities is a motive for them to be creative and participative. A number of theorists have looked at ways in which children and young people can participate, with the most acknowledged being The Ladder of Participation . Activation of the children opinion to be active members and affect the decision : In activation of the children’s role we think of what can provide the children and raise their participation. We think of question of what their definition for the child friendly communities. The questions related with their thought to the real environment that they imagine and impact their life as well as the impact on their life, schools, homes and local community. The children become thinking of things that make their lives at risk, or of a need. The children through CTC committees implemented projects related to their needs. One of the most important projects implemented by the children and made them participate in the decision affection their lives. the most important thing is practicing what they need to develop in their lives, homes, schools. The children become able to ask about their rights and in another way they become entitled with their rights. The children become able to design projects related to their needs and implement these projects in partnership with the parents and municipalities.

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education Spreading the culture of child rights in the community: The culture of child rights should be widely spread in the community, since they should be believe in. Awareness

workshops

with

parents

about

child

protection,

participation, conflict resolution, communication, inclusion, psychosocial problems and how to deal with their children, made a shift in the way of thinking about the children with disability, they become aware for their children rights. They improved their communication with their children and increased their participation with them, in addition they become able to know what are the needs of their children. They become no longer shame of having disabled child and try to face their fears and problems. The children helped us a lot in the awarening the parents and the local community, they implemented their own campaigns (express your self campaigns) and other activities that symbolize the acceptance of others even they are disabled and insure the ability to work and play with them. Breaking the postglacial generation: Aiming to re-continue the life after the war especially because of the tension, stress and depression that the children had experienced, we try to re-include the children in the schools with safe place rather than the ordinary school, so we thought to include the child friendly environment into the teachers concept to have a well balance activities, as well as the teachers are in direct contact with the children. In other words a series of training workshops for the teachers to support the concept of child friendly environment. After these training we aimed to create a balance between the theoretical part of training and practicing with the children, through involving the teachers as animators in the activities. On one hand developing the

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education skills of the teachers and using friendly tools helped the children to feel and touch the friendly environment inside their schools. We distribute our works among 3 levels : At the level of teachers: How we integrate the CFE concept to the teachers? The child friendly environment concept is being infused into the following points: Child Development: the teachers were trained and a warned about child’s rights, so that they can recognize the elements that are important for balance development of the children especially the psychological one. Moreover the teachers should support the children with equity regarding any difference. Including the children in the process of learning & teaching as partners & not receivers: let the children propose games or ways to present a lesson, motivate the children , encourage them to ask and talk freely.

Provide the children with simple and creative tools that

help them in getting the information simply and wisely as well as giving them a chance to get, develop & deliver the information, some of these tools are drawing & painting, songs .... Practicing what we trained: after each training let the teachers practice and benefit from the training. So that they must implement activities related to the training. Monitor the effect of the training on the children. At the level of parents: It is vital to implement activities in partnership with the children, liking inducing the children and parents to be as a team in the activities. So that creating and implementing group games can develop the knowledge they gain after training and give them a chance to use it practically. In engaging the parents in planning the activities creates motivated atmosphere based on practicing child

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education rights and wider the dealing and working within it, which in return constitutes sustainable awareness within the community. At the level of the children: In working with the children, we thought of things that stimulate the children and attract them to make a difference in their lives especially after the war. We aim to let the children feel that they can play and educate at the same time, even if they are spending most of their times in the school.

So providing the children with

such friendly place to implement activities and favourable things, it is good to create a room in the schools to implement the activities, so that . This room create un-ordinary things in the children’s lives, so this provides them a chance to do favourable things under a climate of safety, protection and satisfaction. Another thing we thought about in working with the children is how to reduce their stress especially they experienced the war: - so the first step was discovering the problem and it’s effects. - Then problematic analysis: Tree of problems, is a technique of going deeply in analyzing the causes and results of such problems, this techniques helped us a lot in analyzing problems faced the project implementation. - After the analysis, the appropriate treatment and activities will be provided in adequate manner. One of the most highlighted ways of reducing the children’s stress is providing them with a space to talk: Children can exchange thoughts among each other, Most of the children who experienced the ware have difficulties

in expressing

their thoughts and feeling. To let them talk, we implemented many activities that increase their self confidence and motivate them to talk and express freely, and some of these activities were: open podium, drama and self expression, group discussion and role play.

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education The children in group discussion and open podium were sit in a group facing each other to let them feel comfort and without differences. The main aim of the discussions among the children is to exchange and share ideas, feelings, experiences and to let all the children express their selves freely. On one hand they learned to listen to others (even if they are different), accept others and many concepts that help them in communication. On the other hand they reflected what they learned on others, in addition they repeated the activities with their classmates, sister and

brothers which forms an indicator to the

sustainability of the project. Presenting a story to the children which treat problems facing the disabled and non disabled children was a good tool to encourage the children to express their opinions, so that they express their opinion about the idea of the story, members and concepts of the story. At the end of the story they discussed solutions which in return they used in planning and implementing other activities. Moreover providing the children with different friendly activities in which they are participants in planning, implementation and evaluation and not passive ones . so that they can talk, play and work freely. In creating the safe place we thought that it must be reachable for all children, then it must be favourable for them. To determine the location of the safe place in partnership with the children as they have the right to express and participate, we achieved a workshop with the children to take their opinion about the location of the safe place.. The safe place let the children forget the differences; they become concerned with the rights and entitled with it.

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Best Practices of Inclusive Education Not only the children can express in the project, but also the parents,

they

expressed

their

selves

freely

through

group

discussions and meetings . Children as planners and definers of their needs: The children are the best persons that can define their own needs, but they need a simple way to convey their messages to adults, so at this point begins our role in facilitating them ways to express themselves and needs freely. Some children have difficulties in conveying their needs. To help the children express their selves, its useful to -

Let the children write what they want to say on piece of paper.

-

Draw their opinions, needs and desires.

-

Let the children implement focus groups, discussion circles to gather their ideas and opinions in partnership with other children.

-

Implement with them open podiums so you can discover their needs through their speech and quotes.

-

Implement with them “express your self” campaigns, to induce the children talk freely and convey their needs.

Developmental Action Without Borders Naba’a

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