Special educational needs of children between memory and narrative competence
Francesco Paolo Romeo
This article proposes the analysis of the construct of memory in pedagogical key and also the links made with the narrative, particularly in regard to the children and their capacity to plan future scenarios after traumatic experiences which are difficult to be processed. Using an approach that has been little explored in the pedagogical literature, the paper offers original trajectories through which the memory can be considered as a cognitive function, dynamic, social and perspective rather than static, individual and retrospective. Furthermore, narrative can be seen as the mental tool which helps to recognise, position and orientate oneself after traumatic experiences, like a “gps experience”. Memory and narration are necessary key competences for lifelong learning, especially after the introduction in the italian debate on Special Pedagogy of the concept of “special educational needs” (BES), already present in the documents of 2003 of the “European agency for development in special needs”, which includes all situations operating problematic for the person, who by this problematic is impeded in getting satisfactory answers to their needs. Working as a Honorary Judge at the Juvenile Court of Taranto, my aim is to consider the absence of retrospective and narrative intelligence as special educational needs, on the contrary, the ability of the children to build “trampoline-narratives” as chance to emancipate themselves from deviant and marginal social representations, to escape discomfort and experience a sense of ease.
Keywords
Narrative skill, memory, special educational needs.
