The International Council for Education of people with Visual Impairment (ICEVI) held its quinquennium European conference in July 2000 in Cracow, Poland. Nearly 500 participants from 38 European countries took part in this conference, among them 200 from Central and Eastern Europe, well over 60 from the host country, Poland.
What has struck me most: much has happened in 5 years' time, a lot of changes for the better since the last conference in Budapest. Budapest 1995 was good, Cracow 2000 was excellent. This was shown first of all by the level of the lectures and posters: the core of a conference. There was much more depth and differentiation, both with regard to themes and origin of the lecturers and presenters of posters than 5 years ago. Much more emphasis on how people are working than on what they are doing.
By means of a call for papers we had asked participants to send in abstracts for lectures and posters. We received about 200 reactions.
The biggest number of abstracts concerned 'early intervention', followed by: 'multi-disabled visually impaired', 'social emotional development of visually impaired children and youth' and 'new technology / information technology. Furthermore we received abstracts about 'low vision', 'the special school', 'integration', 'vocational training and employment', 'parents' and about 'training of teachers and other staff members': all in all a broad spectrum, covering nearly all aspects of the education and rehabilitation of visually impaired children and youngsters.
There were 6 plenary sessions with 18 lectures, 32 parallel sessions with 120 lectures and 3 poster sessions with 70 presentations.
In each plenary session was simultaneous translation in 6 languages (English, French, German, Polish, Russian and Spanish), in each parallel session in 4 languages.
During the opening session prof. Dr. Hab Jadwiga Kuczynska-Kwapisz gave an overview of the history of the education of the visually impaired in Poland and prof. Dr. Renate Walthes from Germany presented a very inspiring Keynote-address with as theme the motto of the conference: Visions and Strategies for the New Century, a multi-media presentation that invites the participants to think out fundamentally what we are doing. One sentence: "The diversity of support and school forms indicate that there are many possibilities of training children and teenagers and that decisions about good or better forms of teaching must be measured by criteria of self-determination, normalisation, respect, individualisation and flexibility". (The complete text will be published in the proceedings of the conference and is already available now on the website of ICEVI-Europe: www.icevi-europe.org).
Early intervention is the first step in the education process of a child with a visual impairment: important for the child itself, even more important for the parents. In many cases early intervention starts from the moment it is discovered that the child is (severely) visually impaired, more and more often in the first year of the child's' life.
Early intervention has the following aims:
The demand for early intervention is considerable, certainly when it is also focussed on multi-disabled visually impaired children. A good co-operation with ophthalmologists is very important, because the detection of the impairment mostly starts in their clinics.
In a number of countries there are good and accessible facilities in this area. In many other countries, also in Western Europe, however these facilities are inadequate or not present at all. There are also large differences as to legislation, financing and organizational design.
In Cracow there were many lectures, posters and videos about the methodology of early intervention by practitioners, very, very instructive ones.
There were four presentations of Polish participants, among others one of Dr Grazyna Walczak, presented in one of the plenary sessions, entitled: "The training of Early Intervention staff".
The number of multi-disabled children has risen dramatically in the last decades, a tendency that is observed all over the world.
Its two most important causes are:
Then they were diagnosed as 'only' mentally retarded, whereas now they are registered as multi-disabled visually impaired. Many of these children stay in centres or special schools for mentally retarded children.
Different speakers in Cracow made a plea the developing of so-called outreach functions for these children at the centres for visually impaired to support teachers or care staff who is working with these children.
Also on this topic there were four presentations from Poland.
I have never been at a conference about the education of the visually impaired, where there was so much emphasis on the social, social emotional development.
Usually there is more emphasis on the intellectual aspects of the development: of course important, even very important, but not without an adequate eye for the social and emotional aspects of the development of the personality. There were presented very interesting papers about the self concept and about procedures to improve the self concept among others by developing adequate social skills: a task for teachers of course, but even more for the care staff in the dormitories and for psychologists.
A good team has not only, probably not even primarily, eye for the improvement of scholastic knowledge, but even more for the overall well-being of the pupil. And this depends largely on social skills.
In Cracow 4 sessions were devoted to this aspect of the education: I have heard and (afterwards) read very interesting papers, not only emphasizing what is needed, but, and that is even more important, how to develop these skills. When the proceedings are published, you can read these papers.
Social learning, given by an expert teacher, should be an explicit subject in each (special) school curriculum. There was no presentation in this field from Poland.
It will be no surprise that also for this topic there was much interest: not only in the lectures and posters, but also on the professional exhibitions.
It is or it will become more and more part of our life, the same in he life of a person with a visual impairment. The only disadvantage is the costs. But I am sure, step by step, in more and more countries there will come more possibilities in this field too.
For central and eastern Europe was important the presentations of the EENAT (Eastern European Network for Access to Technology) project.
Lars Ballieu Christensen from Denmark formulated the importance of IT for the visually impaired short and sweet as follows: "IT will give integration, independence and active participation of the visually impaired".
On this subject there were two presentations from Poland.
There was much more in the conference. To describe all subject should make this article too long: you can read all in the proceedings.
I like to mention one point more: the contribution from parents. There were excellent presentations by parents, from Polish parents too. During one of the post conference workshops the parents set up a European Network of parents, under the name: T.E.A.M., what means: Together Everyone Achieves More. You can read more about this in the December 2000 issue of The European Newsletter of ICEVI.
The proceedings of the conference will be published in spring 2001.
During the closing session of the conference the website of ICEVI-Europe has been opened: www.icevi-europe.org
My dream is that this website will develop in the years to come to a key source of information for teachers and other staff, for teacher trainers and for parents all over Europe.
So far about the core of the conference: the content of the presentations.
There is to say much more:
The
heart-warming hospitality of our Polish hosts;
The
devotion of a lot of people for the exhibitions of the schools of the visually
impaired;
The
gala concert in the Filharmonia: 240 performers: an absolute highlight of a
very high artistic level, sometimes really moving;
The
many young participants, also from Poland: a promise for the future;
The
Opening reception in Sukiennice and the Farewell party at the Royal Castle
Niepolomice; etc. etc.
Finally I like to mention, that about 200 participants took part at one of the four post conference workshops the day after the sparkling farewell party. The involvement of the participants was really great.
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