“Awkward Cinema” Responds to Teachers’ Anxieties About Inclusive Education: We Are Often Afraid of the Unknown | Culture

Movies can also help teachers in the classroom – “Awkward Cinema Class” recommends three movies on the platform for children for the beginning of the school year.

You will have to learn, but this is the way to improve

From September – a change. It will remove the possibility for kindergartens and schools to refuse to accept children with special needs. Therefore, students with various needs and disabilities can also be included in the classes.

Photo of the organizers/stop shot of the film “Two Worlds”.

Nevertheless, there are some worriers in the teaching community. As Laima Dešukaitė, a primary school teacher at Vilnius Fabijoniškių Gymnasium, said, pedagogues worry about resources – material and human. They worry about whether they will have enough time, support, and learning resources to work adequately with students of varying abilities and needs. They feel that they will need constant support from the school management and specialists such as special pedagogues, speech therapists or psychologists. Some fear that they lack knowledge and experience in working with such children.

“Fears usually come from the unknown and lack of confidence in one’s abilities. When teaching 25 students, among them there is more than one child with special educational needs, and disorders and difficulties are often completely different. “Teachers have to find a balance between individualization and ensuring the progress of the whole class,” she said.

L. Dešukaitei is married and still has to work with spec. children in need. She admitted that it was not easy in the first year, the teacher did not know what to do, how to help such children. Then she read a lot, looked for answers, but she mostly found them in the classroom, in everyday situations. Other specialists at the school also helped.

Personal archive photo/Laima Dešukaitė

Now she already has experience and looks at inclusive education with different eyes – it has become her own way to improve. “The longer I work, the more I see that they are not changing the class, but me in it. I feel more flexible and versatile, I can cover various situations more broadly, I find more opportunities in them,” says the teacher.

Inclusive education is a mirror of society

Jonas Ruškus, former vice-chairman of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, professor of Vytautas the Great University, points out that the legislative framework for inclusive education has already been prepared, schools had four years to prepare for it, there are a number of examples of good practice, and you can learn from more advanced and experienced schools in Lithuania.

J. Ruškus also says that it is natural to worry, but the feeling of anxiety can sometimes arise from unwillingness to change, imagined fears, stigmas associated with disability or the diversity of people. In his opinion, this affects schools, parents, and municipalities, on whose will a lot depends.

“Inclusive education is a mirror of society. Disability is part of the diversity of humanity. It cannot be that school is different from society. Society is diverse, it is made up of different people. The same goes for school – the class must be diverse. So the fear of inclusive education shows the fear of social diversity.

Jonas Petronis photo/Jonas Ruškus

Inclusive education is a process, which means that after accepting a child with a disability, continuous learning takes place – teachers, school administration, parents, a child with a disability, all other children learn. It will never happen that nothing needs to be changed or learned. Each child with a disability has different needs for adaptation to educational conditions, so new solutions need to be sought every time,” he said.

Benefits for all

Teacher L. Dešukaitė says that inclusive education is not only useful for her students, but it also helped her, while still sitting at the school desk, to understand and accept that people are diverse. In the gymnasium where she studied, children with special there were many needs. In the first days, she felt confused, but not because she saw special needs students in the classroom or in the corridors, but because everyone else did not “sort” these children.

“This should be the case in all schools,” the teacher emphasizes, “nearby students who do not have special education.” educational needs, learn important social skills, learn to cooperate, understand and respect the differences of others by learning together with different peers. It promotes the development of empathy and tolerance, which are necessary in modern society.”

Inclusive education is also useful for special education. for children in need. When they are among different students, they learn faster because they usually repeat what others are doing. According to L. Dešukaitė, this includes speaking, answering, reacting, stopping when necessary, etc. Children take these skills outside of school: this is how they prepare for life, the various situations they will have to deal with, learn to cooperate with different people and, as the teacher says, “to understand that those differences are a value.”

Documentary cinema helps empathize with other people’s experiences

How to normalize the differences that exist in the classroom? How to avoid bullying? According to L. Dešukaitė, teachers can hold discussions about differences and diversity, explaining that all people are unique and that differences are normal. Conversations about empathy, tolerance, inclusion would also be useful. According to her, team tasks are also beneficial. They encourage cooperation and create a stronger bond between children. In addition, activities involving all children, such as sports competitions, creative workshops or cultural events, allow children to get to know each other in an informal environment. Documentary cinema can also become a great tool for stimulating discussions about spec. persons with needs or disabilities.

“Documentary cinema helps children and young people empathize with other people’s experiences, “try on their shoes”, see their life challenges and better understand the feelings of another person or the people around them. This is an extremely effective tool when we want to give students the opportunity to rethink their beliefs, which are often shaped by their environment, or to learn more about existing differences and diversity,” says Sandra Gaučiūtė, head of the “Uncomfortable Cinema Class” platform.

„The class of awkward cinema” is a free platform of educational films and tools for formal and informal education and training of children and youth. Teachers, educational support specialists and educators registered on the platform can use more than 50 documentaries on various human rights topics for free during their lessons and educations. A significant number of them are devoted to discussing disability, mental health difficulties and other topics related to diversity.

For the beginning of the new academic year, S. Gaučiūtė recommends viewing three films on the platform: the short documentary film “Brothers and Sisters” for grades 1-3, which helps you understand what it means to have a brother or sister with a disability; “Two Worlds” for grades 6-12, which tells the story of a twelve-year-old who becomes the lips and ears of her deaf parents; The film “Adults” for students of grades 10-12 tells about the community of people with Down syndrome.

“During the festival “Nepatogus kinas” to be held in October we will invite you to learn about autismwearing virtual reality glasses. It will allow you to experience the world as Lu, a young man with autism spectrum disorder, experiences it. This is a great opportunity to help young people better understand the experiences of non-neurotypical children in an engaging way. – says S. Gaučiūtė – We are often afraid of what we do not know. Fear can be overcome by gaining new experiences, learning together, sharing your knowledge and watching documentaries or experiences!”