TPM Portugal Almada

ERASMUS + 2018-1-TR01-KA229-058891

Sınırları Aşıp, Engelleri Kaldırıyoruz! / No Obstacle, No Boundaries!

Portugal Mobility from 1st to 5th July

First day

Welcoming of participants at the National Archaeological Museum, Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon. Opening session was conducted by the Director of Externato Frei Luís de Sousa, Fernando Magalhães, the General Coordinator of the ‘Sınırları Aşıp, Engelleri Kaldrıyoruz!’ (SAEK) project, Süleyman Doğruyol and the National Coordinator of the SAEK Project in Portugal as well as Miguel Feio, who presented the main work actions of the training program. Afterwards, the opening conference was held by Luís Raposo, President of ICOM Europe, with a lecture of “History of Portugal from the stones”. The lecture was aimed to start the work with a little of the history of Portugal, so that the trainees could gain knowledge about the values and the identity marks of the country where they develop a formation. Subsequently, a lecture began by Professor Mário Antas, PhD in Museology, with the title "Breaking obstacles and boundaries: how to develop strategies in non-formal education to promote inclusion in museums". The inclusion process is not only done by schools. Non-governmental organizations, museums, palaces, monuments… are responsible for non-formal education. Thus, given the context in which the first day session was held, it was crucial to promote the understanding of inclusion processes through non-formal education, as well as to develop skills in teachers to establish bridges between school and cultural institutions in order to provide students new forms of learning and inclusion, encouraging dialogue between cultures in order to ensure more intense and balanced cultural exchanges in the world, in favor of intercultural respect, respect for difference and a culture of peace. After lunch, the group visited the UNESCO cultural heritage sites namely the Belém Tower and Jeronimos Monastery. By visiting these monuments we hoped to educate the trainees on new approaches towards education.

Second day

The second day of work began at the Jean Piaget University Institute, with the welcoming by the director Clementina Nogueira. The first lecture “Inclusion through the schools in the municipality of Almada” was given by PhD João Couvaneiro, Vice-President of the Municipality of Almada, who was considered as one of the 50 best teachers in the world by the Varkey Foundation global teacher prize 2017. This lecture made known how Almada schools work on the inclusion dimension with students with special needs. The second training session was conducted by PhD Luzia Rodrigues, from the National Association of Special Education Teachers, with a workshop that allowed to involve all participating teachers in contact with strategies to promote inclusion in education. Then, there was the sharing of experiences with inclusion practices among all partners, ending with examples of success cases in Portugal. After lunch, we went to the practical part and the trainees came to know examples of working practices in a CERCISA special school.

Third day

The third day was dedicated to culture, where it was possible to visit Fatima and Batalha Monastery, as well as to understand how schools can work inclusively through the heritage of their country.

Fourth day

The fourth day took place at Externato Frei Luís de Sousa, with a conference presented by PhD David Rodrigues, president of the National Association of Special Education Teachers, entitled “Education Inclusion in Europe”. This conference made known the Portuguese legislative framework for inclusion and, at the same time, comparing with other European legislative frameworks. The Inclusion numbers of Portugal and Europe were presented as well as strategies for inclusion in Europe. Later there was time for debate where everyone could question and share experiences. After that, a guided visit was made to Externato Frei Luís de Sousa, where it was possible to show the spaces where the process of inclusion in the school is developed, as well as the answering of all the teachers' questions. After lunch, the practical part was developed with visits to the AFIDE Foundation, a special educational institution, and thereafter to the Carcavelos High School, a regular school that had the worst results in the whole municipality. The retention rate reached 50%, there were problems of indiscipline, inclusion, drugs, delays and low pass rates. Today all this has disappeared. The trainees were able to get in touch with this exemplary experience of Portuguese regular education, and also ask questions to the school director Adelino Calado. The day ended with the farewell dinner.

Fifth day

On the fifth day the training mobility balance was done and the evaluation thereof, thus the goals for this mobility was accomplished. The teams declared that the mobility has had amazing opportunities for learning new experiences about the educational inclusion. All participants have obtained an European view about the educational inclusion for the special need education students. On the other hand, all participants are agreed that the project is going on well for all the teams. The teams are willing to take and adopt their new learnings to their own schools. The next mobility was also projected in Romania.