Massive attendance at seminar ''Inclusion in Life and School: pedagogy with a human sense''

inclusion seminar 1

Panels and conferences addressed the topic from the most varied perspectives, generating a lot of interest among attendees, mainly school teachers and university students. 

A large number of people participated in the seminar ''Inclusion in Life and School: pedagogy with a human sense'', organized by the Regional Center for Educational Studies and Development (CREDEULS) of the University of La Serena, together with the Pedagogy degree in Early Childhood Education and its Research Seedbed, and which featured top-level exhibitors, both from Chile and abroad.

The welcome to the activity was given by Dr. María Teresa Juliá, director of CREDEULS and academic of the Department of Psychology of the university, who gave way to the first conference of the day, ''After the face of the erased subject for standardization and figures'', by Dr. Ofelia Roldán, director of the International Center for Education and Human Development (CINDE, Medellín, Colombia), researcher in social sciences, childhood and youth at the University of Manizales (Colombia ) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo (Brazil).

Then the panels were developed. During the morning, the first of them, called ''Interdisciplinary view: gender, sameness and invisibility'', brought together the speakers Dr. María Teresa Juliá (ULS; Gender expectations in pedagogical discourse: a model of equity analysis gender), Dr. Sergio Manosalva (U. Academy of Christian Humanism; Identity, diversity, differences and disability: the ideological-sign imposition of abnormality) and Dr. Carlos Calvo (ULS; School or educational inclusion: dilemma or paradox? ). 

Panel 2 continued, ''Diversity, discourses, opportunities and experiences'', with Dr. (c) Cecilia Assael (U. Diego Portales; The education of people with disabilities in regular schools: discourse on valuing difference , under the approach of a dominant hegemonic culture), Mg. Georgina García (ULS; Towards an inclusive higher education: an unavoidable social commitment) and Dr. Silvia López de Maturana (ULS; We can all learn: open windows for cognitive modifiability).

inclusion seminar 2In the afternoon, panel 3 A ''Inclusion in school: Basic and secondary education'' featured Ms. Eliana Jorquera (Pierrot School, La Serena; Curricular adaptations: fundamental axis for inclusive education) and mg. (c) Andrea Calderón (Pierrot School, La Serena; Pedagogical strategies for inclusive education); while panel 3 B ''Facing the unknown: Who comes into the world?'' included the presentation of Lic. Gabriela Marino (All Together Association: children with Down syndrome, Argentina).

The seminar concluded with the conference ''Mirror neurons and learning'', given by Mr. Jorge Hirsch, psychomotor specialist and director of the Neurorehabilitation Center of San Juan (Argentina). The researcher provided background information on different brain processes and the functioning of neurons, the concept of learning and the mechanisms for learning, delving into his work with children and the stimulation of mirror neurons, with which a boy or girl can learn. copying'' what your teacher, therapist or family member does, just as if you were looking in a mirror.

He also referred to myelogenesis, a process that allows the person to respond to stimuli. How the child interacts with the environment depends on the maturation and myelienation of certain areas of the brain, since he clarified that from the moment a person is born until he or she dies, he or she generates brain plasticity. Likewise, it affects how much someone can represent her internal world, how much they can understand about her world, and how much they can articulate about the world they inhabit. If a child understands the world in which he lives and internalizes it, he can give answers, and the understanding of the world is done through a third party. Mirror neurons appear there, Hirsch explained.

The expert commented that many of the children who come to integration processes in schools or therapies sometimes have not gone through the basic processes, there was not correct myelination of cells and there is not enough brain plasticity, so their brain works "by islands'', that is, it does some things, but not others. 

For this reason, it stands out that a teacher who teaches using iconic and rhythmic gestures makes his students learn more, because their mirror neurons are equated with those of the teacher, in a kind of dialogue. 

Jorge Hitsch also proposed that cognitive networks are the result of the assembly of emotional networks. The latter ''allow the child to address and expand the construction of cognitive networks. When emotional networks fail because there is stress, abandonment, etc., cognitive networks are not built.''

inclusion seminar 3This is how children with faults in the conductions of the two networks or overstimulated by specialists but not at home, make it difficult to minimize the impact of their injuries and maximize the optimal state of their brain that neuroscience seeks.

For the academic of the Department of Education and teacher of the Ped degree. in Early Childhood Education, Dr. Silvia López de Maturana, the very high turnout is notable, where even the places of the registered people who could not attend were filled with other people who were not registered but wanted to participate. 

He also highlighted the quality of the speakers and lecturers, such as Dr. Ofelia Roldán, who made "a powerful critique of standardization and how children are treated more as a number than as a person who has abilities," excluding them from that form of classrooms. Jorge Hirsch, who showed ''the importance of working with the brain and that teachers should have much more knowledge about these topics'' and also all the speakers who discussed the topics of learning in the classroom. 

''The objective was to make it known that all boys and girls can learn, that there is no human being who cannot learn. Everyone tends to learn. The problem that they don't learn is that many times the school places restrictions on them that prevent them from developing their abilities,'' declared the academic.

Dr. López de Maturana adds that the reflection and question that arose among the audience when listening to the speakers is ''what have I been doing until now? How had I not realized that maybe I was going down the wrong path and that it was simple, that it was enough to just give that boy or girl more opportunities, that if they don't learn it is not because they do not want to learn, it is Because maybe I don't know how to teach him?'' 

Likewise, he valued the work of the students of the Research Seedbed, student volunteers who want to do something different outside of their class hours, because ''they want to get out of the four walls, they research, support events, read a lot, discuss, dialogue and always They are present in everything and it shows. Not only do they attend today, they go to many events and it shows in the conversation, in the participation in classes, in the critical reflection they do.''