Four appointments led Stephan Prändl, Federal Chairman of the German Association for Special Education (vds), to Russia again. On behalf of the international cooperation programme he visited four locations between October, 28th and November, 2nd 2013.
On October, 29th, at the request of the Russian twin school in Pskov, Stephan Prändl and Marianne Schardt conducted a full-time training day on the issue of “dealing with heterogeneity – supporting each child individually”. 25 participants of all school types enrolled, hoping to get encouragement on their new task of mainstreaming tuition for children and adolescents with and without a disability. The colleagues’ crucial question was on how to apply didactics and methodology of tuition in order to allow for all pupils - according to their individual skills – to learn successfully.
In this context it was interesting to see the different experience pedagogues of the Russian schools had made with individualised tuition so far.
Everybody agreed on the aim to largely let go of the traditional “ex-cathedra teaching” and approach more open forms of tuition.
Tuition with so-called “competence grids” was introduced and discussed taking the example of Pestalozzischule Erkelenz, long-term twinned school of Special School No.1 in Pskov.
On October, 30th Stephan Prändl and Marianne Schardt met up with both Head of School and steering committee of Special School No.1 in Pskov, which has opened up and offered tuition to more and more pupils with mental impairments due to the compulsory education law of 2009.
Nonetheless, all colleagues are greatly challenged, because they teach more than 90 (housed-)children in a so-called “branch”, who as a result of their severe disabilities have not yet attended school or have been home-schooled.
Together with their German colleagues, a school-related curriculum is being worked-out in order to grant all pupils optimal education.
Following up this intense assignment a meeting with the National Chairman of the Russian Union for people with mental disabilities took place at Pskov Curative Pedagogics Centre, which was agreed on at the Weimar SNE Congress earlier.
In Weimar Andrej Zarjov had already sketched up the newly founded National Association and expressed the desire for cooperation with vds.
Primarily the meeting served an exchange of experience, but also the search for similarities and points of contact. Both sides signed a declaration of intend for future cooperation and networking, particularly against the background of Russia’s intent of establishing a professional association along the lines of the German Association for Special Education (vds).
Andrej Zarjov is going to take this task and has asked the vds’ Federal Chairman for support concerning the implementation.
In this regard Stephan Prändl was invited to give a talk at the Nischni Nowgorod symposium in 2014.
On November, 1st a meeting was held at St. Petersburg’s Institute for SNE and Psychology (Raoul Wallenberg Institute).
Stephan Prändl and Marianne Schardt awaited a warm welcome by the institute’s staff. There was a mutual interest on exchanging experience and close cooperation. The talk was conducted in a constructive spirit and led to the predefinition of concrete ways of communication and agreements between both German and Russian partners. It was agreed on the following:
- The “Zeitschrift für Heilpädagogik”- periodical is available online to the institute with immediate effect.
- Mutual links will be installed on the respective web sites.
Academic staff of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute will contribute two papers to the Zeitschrift für Heilpädagogik and will hand them to secretary in the near future.
- Correspondence between Sergej Besprozvanny (Wallenberg-Institute) and Marianne Schardt (National chair, vds) was installed as a direct and concrete line of communication.
- Cooperation between the institute’s Young Academics and German universities’ PhD’s is aspired.
Translation: Ruth Stang