These stereotypes and social attitudes gave rise to a segregated education system

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‘In teaching children with special educational needs, almost from the beginning of the formation of formal educational structures, two positions are at stake: segregation and integration.

The first of them arose mainly on the basis of social stereotypes ordering isolation from people who are different in any way – sick, disabled, in conflict with social norms, of different nationality or exceedingly capable.

The creation of schools where, over time, not only children from wealthy families could study

But also all children living in a given area, it was therefore accompanied by the establishment of shelters, orphanages and homes for abandoned children. As Surdacki writes, even in the 16th and 17th centuries, the abandonment of a child was not a criminal act, hence, for example, in Rome over 500 children were sent to care facilities for abandoned children annually (1998, 10 and 107).

The segregation of students was also favored by the medical model of understanding disability and disease. For many years, until the second half of the 20th century, people affected by any disorder were treated primarily as patients who needed treatment and specialist medical care.

Failure to take into account the mental and social needs of patients in this model led in many cases to the improvement of physical health, but at the same time to irreversible psychological damage, known e.g. in the form of the so-called ‘hospital sickness’. /…/

Nowadays, we observe a systematic development of the idea of ​​integration, which means that most children with special educational needs study in inclusive and mainstream schools. However, public hopes are even greater: the school is expected to take the next step in developing the education of students with special educational needs – a step towards inclusion.

Inclusion grows out of the social model of disability, disease and disorder

Inclusion grows out of the social model of disability, disease and disorderIt means that it is not the student with difficulties to adapt to the rules of the mainstream / integrated school, but it is the school and the environment that is to remove barriers that hinder the health, mental and social functioning of a student with special needs.

In this model, the appearance of a child with special needs at school (e.g. with Down’s syndrome, diabetes, an extremely gifted child or a refugee child) should not come as a surprise and make teachers face the need to suddenly change well-established patterns of conduct. The school is to function in such a way as to be open to all students and ready to accept anyone who would like to learn there ‘,’ Introduction ‘.

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