We truly believe that the deep changes start in the school. The school is the first place where a child learns to socialize with equals, who have no biological link with him or her and who are as diverse as one could imagine. And yet, they all have the same needs: they need to feel loved; they need to grow with self esteem; they need to find their place in the world. For the teachers, schools become a wonderful crucible of emotions, a neverending challenge with social interactions, and -to sum up- a great board on which to start playing the "fascinating game of social life". This game gets much harder for those children who have been "touched" with a characteristic (of varied nature) that unites them as "Special Needs" children. In all rightness, the majority of the European countries have evolved in the policies that encourage the schools to be "Inclusive". But the word on an official piece of paper is thousands of miles away from the true Inclusion. It is ESSENTIAL that the teachers put into action real procedures that prove effective in the achievement of this goal. There is nothing more effective for uniting two human beings than a common goal, particularly if this goal is challenging and motivating, as Art is. Therefore, we propose to develop a project in which children from mainstream schools and children from "special needs" schools will work together for two years, in the achievement of some Acts of Art that they will show to the public in local, regional and transnational events. The group is formed by 6 schools (2 from Romania; 2 from Belgium and 2 from Spain). We plan to have 4 Short-Term Exchange of pupils, in which the children will show their Art, related to: Drama; Arts and Crafts; Music and Culinary Art and Folklore. Each of the participant schools will mobilize 20 students, some with big Special Needs, and 10-12 teachers plus the assistants approved for the children who need them. The activities will be organized in three levels: 1.- Local: the children will prepare some Acts of Art in a group within the school. 2.- Regional: the children will share the preparation and rehearsals with other children from the other school in the area . They will show the results to the families and the community 3.-- Transnational: in 4 transnational events, the children will have the oportunity to show (all together ) the results of their common work. The teachers will also train themselves to become more efficient not only in the content but also in the way to tackle the challenge, by working all together in 2 Transnational Joint staff events. Our main goal is to help growing in all the children a feeling of being the same (unique and the same), despite the posible diagnoses or labels. This feeling will lead to real inclusion. We also hope to grow in the teachers and the educational community the need to keep on working in following this path. The teachers and the children will also develop their pluricultural skills, not only by using a second language to communicate but also by opening their minds to a different culture and lifestyle. We expect that the positive energies built up by working together in the different local "Acts of Art" and culminating in the Transnational Event Shows will be powerful enough as to seal a strong connection among all the children (Special needs or not) that will remain forever in their lives, blurring or even destroying the pre-judgement of "being different". It will also give them all a boost of self-esteem, essential for all and difficult to get for some of the children. We also expect that the teachers will share the same boost of energy, after witnessing what their students experiment. This will encourage the professionals to continue with a working method that should lead to real inclusion. The impact will also spread in the Community, who will share and witness the positive feelings of the children and -hence- consolidate a predisposition towards real Inclusion acts. We think that this can be transfered to the schools policies (written and non written), leaving a trace of good work that could remain in the schools (and in the Community) for generations.
Our main aim was extremely demanding since it went to the root of the student’s lives: their social skills, their social beliefs and their social life We started with the belief that deep social changes start in school . The school is where children learn to live with others , away from possible privileges of their homes, levelling up with each other. It is a unique opportunity to learn to accept themselves and the others in a complex process that requires scaffolding, training and supervision to help them enjoy who they are and open their minds to other realities. We wanted our project to be the opportunity to test and train social abilities in our students, mingling children from Special Needs schools and/or children with disadvantaged situations with others from regular schooling, in a European -thus- pluricultural and plurilinguistic context, using the “Arts” as the tool for our purposes. We expected this project to have a strong impact in the motivation of the children as well as in their social and pluricultural skills, proving that, with the right environment, the children with Special Needs or Special Situations and the children without them, from three very different countries could feel as One Team with one common goal We also expected that the teachers from the partner schools would benefit from the experience and would bind together, learning from each other’s ideas, cultural differences and proposals, coming closer as a team of European teachers To achieve our goals, we got together 6 schools (3 Special or Inclusive schools and 3 Regular ones) from 3 different countries (Romania, Belgium and Spain) and prepared 6 Learning, Teaching and Training Activities (2 joint staff training events and 4 short-term exchange of group of pupils) that would help our children and teachers to improve their social, pluricultural and inclusive skills at the same time that they enjoyed performing Arts and they worked on their artistic skills For teachers mobilities, the plan was to learn and train together in Arts. The process of training together would be motivational and would bind us together, enriching each other with different ideas for the project For pupils’ mobility, the children would have to prepare something related to Art: a theatre play, an Arts and Crafts activity, a dance/song and some culinary artistic recipes. The activities would work in three levels: first level would be preparing and training at their own schools, where the children would start mingling and joining in. The second level would be between the two schools of each participating country (the regular school and the Special Needs one), thus “pushing” the children towards a cooperation in equality to achieve a common goal. The third and last level would introduce the pluricultural challenge, again “pushing” the children to get together with the teams of the other countries and join in their parts so that they all became one whole pluricultural, plurilinguistic team with a common purpose, in every mobility Each participant schools mobilized more than 20 students, some with Special Needs and some from socially deprived situations, and 10-12 teachers and assistants. Apart from the students and teachers that got in the budget, all schools sent extra students and teachers, squeezing their Management budget, to extend the benefit Our expectations were met greatly. It was overwhelmingly wonderful to watch the children fully enjoy while mingling naturally, using English, their hands or their phone translators and have fun together while performing their theatre plays, their music and dance, their Arts and Crafts or their cooking recipes (online). This, adding to the excitement they showed while experiencing a new country with new traditions and new food. For the teachers it was a unique experience that, in some cases, marked a new beginning in their professional careers. The project “All together, all the same” also was long term inspiring. Time after, the participating students still emphasize how important was the experience for them and how it empowered them. The teachers also claim the high benefit of the experience, to the point that all the participating ones plus some more in each school, are willing to continue in this path. The participating schools decided, on the light of the positive results, to continue with further projects, some of which have been approved under the umbrella of Erasmus + and some of which remain more local. But all of them dealing with real inclusion in a controlled context We are certain that our project will remain for years to come in the hearts and minds of our participating students, hopefully helping them to follow a path of self-esteem, mutual respect and open-minded attitudes, so to build a better Europe. We also know that it meant a positive starting point for the participating schools to follow in the years to come. We expect great still unknown things coming from our project in the mid and long term.