It will never cease to be moving and transformative to see how Successful Educational Actions (SEAs) improve the lives of children and adolescents cognitively, in values, and emotionally. No matter how much research has confirmed this on multiple occasions in publications with international scientific endorsement and in diverse contexts, it still moves and transforms to witness what is achieved in less than a month, where children go, for example, from an approach to diversity based on a deficit perspective to an inclusive approach with high expectations through SEIs.
Undoubtedly, attention to diversity, especially for students with Special Educational Needs (SEN), may require specialist intervention, sometimes individualized. In reality, it is support that all of us need at some point; thus, we see how the most advanced students also need reinforcement (which often translates into private tutoring, help at home when possible, etc.) to reach the levels that they, their families, or both desire. Even more so, students with greater difficulties need that reinforcement and support; not having it, either due to lack of resources or the dedication of those around them, is an injustice and a deficit (in this case, yes) in the educational system in which the child is immersed, something we should not overlook or fail to address. Nonetheless, providing this support during school hours, inside or outside the classroom, from a deficit perspective and in situations of stigmatization, if we think about it, constitutes a violation of the child’s rights as serious as failing to offer the help they need in the way that the best evidence of social impact has shown generates the greatest benefits for the student, their family, and their classmates.
It is moving and transformative to see how students go from the paralyzing effects (of individualized and stigmatizing support inside or outside the classroom) to voluntary participation generated by Dialogic Gatherings and Interactive Groups; how they go from the fear of speaking in class and the panic of reading aloud in public, to spontaneous intervention in an interactive group and reading aloud half a page of a play like Romeo and Juliet, which they wish to share for discussion in a dialogic gathering.
The safe environments of SEAs, the participation of families (both their own and others’) as volunteers in the tutored library, in interactive groups, and in dialogic gatherings, generate trust, high expectations for everyone, and environments where students feel safe and secure, which encourages their voluntary participation and, as evidence shows, greater understanding and cognitive development.
To guarantee human rights 26 and 27, related to education and science, combining inclusive specialist support with individualized attention during extended hours is a need and an obligation that schools and teachers should request from the administration and should provide until it is guaranteed.
Article translated from Periódico Educación
Secondary education teacher. Full Professor of Spanish Language and Literature. Founding member of Asturias AEBE.