L’evoluzione dell’insegnante di sostegno: una strategia strutturale per una didattica inclusiva
Dario Ianes
Over the last forty years 110,000 special needs teachers in Italian schools have contributed significantly to school integration of pupils with disabilities. Today, however, school integration is going through troubled times and this is reflected in the level of dissatisfaction harboured by families of disabled pupils and by special needs teachers, to whom a chance to improve and to evolve both professionally and personally is being offered. This article puts forward a proposal which is in many ways revolutionary, one that has been examined in depth by the author in the recent publication The evolution of the special needs teacher. Towards inclusive didactics (Erickson, 2014): to create a more inclusive school by radically moving on from the «special» professional figure of the current support teacher, without cutting staff but investing heavily in inclusion. Practically, 80% of special needs teachers should become fully curricular in order to perform co-teaching in class, whilst the remaining 20% should take on the role of peer tutor, in other words specialised teachers who are itinerant experts and who can provide practical support to all their curricular colleagues. In this way the entire teaching staff could be rendered key player responsible for integration, avoiding the responsibility-depriving dynamics of delegation.
