From 28 to 30 September 2022, Attilio Orecchio, a founding member of Glocal Factory, was a guest at the ‘Constantin Parfene‘ school in Vaslui, North-Eastern Romania. Our member was invited as an expert within the framework of a European mobility project Erasmus Plus – Key Action 1. Some 30 teachers from schools in the area, as well as representatives from Cypriot and Portuguese schools, attended the training sessions.

 

In the afternoon of 29 September, Attilio gave an introductory talk on the topic of inclusive schools, approaching the subject from a sociological and political perspective. Starting from the most recent data provided by the European Commission and the OECD on academic segregation and student stratification, he emphasised how decisive the school policies adopted by each State are in promoting the right of each person to receive a good quality education, regardless of their socio-economic background.

 

In this respect, the positive factors seem to be the volume of public spending on education, the involvement of all children in pre-primary school, accountability and the autonomy of schools; the negative ones, policies that make grade repetitions possible, too early choice of secondary school specializations, excessive class sizes, the concentration of the best teachers (and often also the best-performing pupils) in some schools to the detriment of others.

 

The next day, 30 September, Attilio facilitated a more pedagogical collective reflection on what teachers can do in their daily work to increase the motivation, involvement and learning achievements of all pupils, through a decisive turn from traditional teaching methods towards the ‘Pedagogy of Engagement‘, cooperative learning, Problem Based Learning and the ‘Flipped Classroom’.