Enactive teaching for an inclusive school

Abstract

The sudden increase in number of foreign pupils has shaken the school to its foundations.
Much has already been done to manage the phenomenon in its initial
emergency phase but a lot remains to be done in order to co-exist peacefully in this new, but stable, situation. Many experts argue that foreign students do not require special education, only an approach that interprets individual differences as richness.
The aim of this work is to study the change in teaching approaches used in
classes with foreign students of five primary schools in Venice and Brescia.
Through semi-structured interviews with teachers, information about different aspects of classroom life, as well as teachers’ personal considerations, was collected.
Pupils were also tested on their current level of five specific forms of thought
process. Results show the recognition of difficulties linked to the presence of students with different backgrounds, as well as the teachers’ spontaneous attempts to adopt approaches that are more inclusive, such as enactive teaching. Additionally, it emerged that those who adopted this new approach obtained positive results, enabling a more marked development in the students’ different forms of thought process.