This week I was able to attend a very informative and inspiring conference regarding the topic “Toward education without barriers”.
During this conference, I was able to attend:
a Keynote Speech by Prof. Dr. Gert Biesta "Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities: How Perfect Should Education Become?"
a workshop about Dyslexia by Helen Claus
a muZIEum workshop
a workshop about Bullying
a workshop about Barriers in Education for immigrants & refugees by Nastaran Beik Pourian
a workshop called “I would rather not talk about that...” by Jolet van der Woude
a Keynote Speech by Lale Gül talking about her book “Ik ga leven” and her personal experience growing up in a strict Muslim family
These workshops allowed me to better emphasise with students with various needs, experiences and backgrounds. This empathy made me realise the importance we as educators play in removing barriers that create handicaps and in offering the necessary support to enable access and participation in learning for all students.
While the conference covered many different topics, I missed one very important barrier to inclusive education – the attitude and lack of motivation of teachers to change their practices and teach more inclusive. For this reason, I created a short PowerPoint about the important aspects of this topic that could have been included in an additional workshop.
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