Ovide Decroly: A Pioneer of ICF-Based IEP
Ines Guerini, Virginia Benedetti, Monica Neccia
This paper aims to describe the life and thinking of Ovide Decroly, a Belgian pedagogist who lived at the turn of the 20th century and is counted among the main exponents of pedagogical activism. His is a reflection that departs from the need for children to learn by moving freely in nature rather than sitting within the walls of a school. A great opponent of the traditional educational method, through his work with disabled boys and girls at the Hermitage School, which he founded, Decroly devised the method known as the global method, according to which knowledge takes place over three stages (observation, association and expression) and through a process that leads from the global to the particular. According to Decroly, pedagogical activity should also be based on the curiosities that the child manifests and that the teacher can discern through observation. The latter is to be done using the medical-pedagogical dossier, a tool that contains information about the pupil’s educational and bio-psycho-social situation and which, in our opinion, together with all his pedagogical thinking, makes Decroly a pioneer of ICF-based IEP.
Keywords
Decroly, Pedagogical activism, Bio-psycho-social approach, IEP, Inclusion.
