Angela goes to school. She is six years old, and at last there is a school made for her—one that will not burden her with her severe intellectual disability, her absence of spoken language, or her inability to make any voluntary movement. It is in Zingonia, in the province of Bergamo. It is an elementary school in a working-class town at the city's edge, populated by factory workers, immigrants, and small-business owners. A school with blue walls and a yellow floor, red windows, and classrooms with doors always open. The children too are of every kind. There is a Pakistani boy, a little Senegalese girl, a Chinese child with straight hair, a blonde Polish girl, and even a few red-haired Bergamese kids. A public school, multicolored, multiethnic, and "multi-intelligent."
Two classrooms and an equipped bathroom are reserved for six school-age children—three boys and three girls—with severe and profound disabilities. With them are teachers, professional educators, and assistant educators, many of the latter conscientious objectors.
"We began seven years ago," says Rita Rovaris, director of the Verdellino school district, "prompted by four severely disabled students, none able to communicate verbally, and three unable to walk. Each of these children needed a carefully organized and protected environment; they grew distressed sitting in regular class for long periods and in turn disturbed the lessons. And at school, we couldn't design an individualized educational plan that truly answered their specific needs. So we thought to bring together two separate services that existed elsewhere. There was the Enhanced School—a school within a school, strengthened by staffing and resources, properly equipped for these children, where integration with other students was possible, but the educational and care needs remained unmet. And there was the Socio-Educational Center for young children, a facility foreseen by Lombardy's Social Plan but still in the early stages, more focused on education and care but at the expense of integration. The Enhanced School and Socio-Educational Center together form one unified reality that truly answers the needs of children with profound disabilities. It was the first such experiment in the province of Bergamo.
"It is hard to say exactly what this school is," explains Antonella Costantino, child neuropsychiatrist at the Territorial Operations Unit. "Different definitions are possible depending on the institutional tasks and roles of the professionals involved. It is a service that brings together families, educators, teachers, social workers, rehabilitation specialists, psychologists, and a neuropsychiatrist—each approaching the problem from different angles and with different responsibilities. In the end, though, the child is one, and by necessity, we must piece together what we learn into a coherent whole.
Perhaps it is easier to say what this school is not, or what we do not want it to be. From our perspective, it is not a place for "rehabilitation," nor is it simply a "school" in the strict sense, nor is it purely custodial or a "parking lot." It is not merely an "educational" space. It is not a place where children are "filled with" activities and information, nor one where they are "left alone." It is not closed, but neither is it a free-for-all where anyone comes and goes without direction or purpose. It is not against the parents, but neither does it simply do whatever parents ask. These may sound obvious, but I believe those who have walked this path with us know they are not, and remembering them helps us "hold the pieces together."
See also: Why Enhanced School and Socio-Educational Center for Young Children
It is precisely a work of integration—understood not only as integrating the disabled child into the school of able-bodied children, but also bringing able-bodied children into the activities of disabled children—and the integration of different professionals and the expertise of all who live and work with the disabled child has made it possible to define and plan the services offered here.
The Enhanced School–Socio-Educational Center for young children is an initiative for children with severe and profound disabilities, with severe handicaps and their families, where they can experience inclusive and non-marginalizing contexts. The aim is to build and express a personal identity through offerings suited to the real needs of the children.
But it is also a service to the community, because it concerns not only the greater well-being of disabled children and their families, but also—and especially—strengthening the local community's capacity to live authentically with the infinite diversity within it, through gradual inclusion and the discovery and rediscovery of their own abilities, which make it possible to integrate differences step by step.
Not a school only for severely disabled children, then, but a school for their parents, for their peers, for seeing all those professionals work together who orbit around the disabled child.
This school has multiple purposes.
First and foremost is finding ways of interaction and contact suited to disabled children, "made to measure" for each one, that allow them to experience developmental progress, or perhaps even before that, to experience the possibility of making choices, without being forced into predetermined paths. "Realistic recovery," says Rita Rovaris, "must be seen clearly to avoid those reactions of rejection and abandonment that result from fanciful and utopian programs, which disappoint both disabled children and teachers."
"It follows," Antonella Costantino adds, "that another purpose is supporting parents in the difficult task of facing their children's severe and profound disability and rediscovering their own competence, gradually transforming pain into something else that can become enrichment for them and for the community, rather than an endless demand for compensation."
A third purpose is to spread a culture of difference throughout the social community, allowing other children to discover that genuine contact with even severely disabled children is possible—not just a surface gesture—and that pain and anguish can be faced without running away in fear. Explicit work on difference in regular classrooms, particularly through preparation for the admission of all disabled students into their home classes, can significantly ease relationships both with disabled children and with the whole class.
So what will Angela do at school? Many things: workshops in graphic art, painting, sculpture, cooking, drama, movement and dance, music. She will go to class with the other children for music, physical education, and visual arts. She will eat in the school cafeteria, using daily meal vouchers that eliminate the need to pay a non-refundable standard monthly fee if she is absent. She will also see the physical therapist and movement specialist every two weeks, who will assess how Angela's activities serve her rehabilitation goals, working alongside her teachers and assistants. And if she becomes ill, the school can arrange for a teacher or assistant educator to visit Angela's home during school hours.
Many people worked to build this school—which is more than just a school—and to make it run. The school district administration and teachers, the child neuropsychiatry Territorial Operations Unit, social services, and the municipalities. And perhaps this is the greatest lesson of all: not only can we "hold together the pieces" of a disabled child, but we can "hold together the pieces" of social structures themselves, with an eye toward integration, complementary expertise and skills, and interdependence among all parts—the only path forward for the genuine integration of disabled children.
- Manuela Bartesaghi, 1998
