Lifelong Learning Programme

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Success Stories

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TITLE OF THE SUCCESS STORY
I believe in disabilities
COUNTRY WHERE IT TOOK PLACE
Greece
AUTHOR OF THE SUCCESS STORY
Teacher
SCHOOL TYPOLOGY
Lower Secondary School
THEMATIC AREA
Students with learning difficulties
DESCRIPTION OF THE SUCCESS STORY
I believe in disabilities. I mean, I don't think they're an invention of a cruel, capitalistic, oppressive system. People are all different, and some of them have a lot more trouble with things that are basic for the majority of other people.

When kids aren't learning to read on time, for example, there's a lot of panic. And there shouldn't be, because kids learn to read at very different points. Some kids don't learn to read until they're 14, and then they read like everyone else. And no one can tell that they were a kid who didn't read until they were 14.
Kids are like that with learning in general. Not every eight-year-old brain is ready to absorb the information that a nationally approved 3rd grade curriculum demands it process. And then what happens when they don't learn it on time? They learn that they are "slow." They might get left behind.
I remember in one of my Schools, there was a funny kid named John X who was nice to everyone. He made everyone laugh with his antics. He was good at making ridiculous faces. He was good at people. And one day I said, "We're going to go around the room and each take a paragraph." We were reading a story about the Sebastian and his very large family.
A young girl started the story and then it was John's turn. He was haltingly trying to sound out the first word.
"Se-baaa-sss-ti-aaaniii."
We all knew it was wrong. And there was a long, stunned pause. How could he not know that?
How could he barely be able to read?
He was bright red. His head was bowed so far forward it was practically on his desk. It was his moment of reckoning.
And I realized in horror that he had gone through this hundreds of times already. That he was used to being this humiliated. But that he was still just as humiliated anyway.
One of the other boys started giggling. "Sebastian," he said, a little too loudly. "It's Sebastian, man." (I don't know why 12-year-old boys called each other man, but it happened a lot.)
"Yeah, yeah," said John, stretching his mouth into a sick grin. He tried to make a joke. He tried to keep reading.
"Can someone take over for John?" I said.
He changed a little after that. His secret was out. We all knew there was something wrong with him. We treated him differently. His humor was less lighthearted. Kids felted that he was just a stupid stupid. Except John wasn't actually stupid. He was quick and kind and funny. He just couldn't read well yet. But "yet" wasn't good enough. It was too late.
I talked to his parents. The school hired for a short period a special teacher. He took over John for almost one and a half month. John progressively responded to the training and almost two months after he was just one of the other kids. Still joking and laughing.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
People do better at life when they feel smart. When they think they're worth a lot.
And it's really hard to make someone feel like they're smart and worthwhile when they aren't on the level that the kids who are defined over and over again as "smart" are on. And when being "smart" in that way is so critical to being whole. When no one is giving anyone an "A" for being hilarious. John had the proper care. The teacher reacted quickly and helped the young boy grow. It was part of his beliefs in disabilities.
Teachers should have the proper training to be able to handle such cases. Even at a social level, since the teacher from our story did not do anything, except trying to get the boy out of this difficult situation.

20 December 2014

Final Partners’ meeting

The fourth partners’ meeting took place in Florence (IT) on 15 December 2014. The meeting had the objective to check the activities carried out since the third meeting of the project and share and assess the in progress results. A special focus has been dedicated to the presentation of the strategies to solve the case scenarios.