School and disability, Nocchetti's appeal: "Dear Minister, at least don't call them handicapped"

A minimal request, which may seem superfluous to those who do not experience any kind of disability directly, but it is also from these nuances that the degree of civilization of a State is measured. And then the president of Tutti a scuola, Toni Nocchetti, who with his association for years has been fighting for the defense of the rights of disabled pupils, tries and appeals to the Minister of Education, University and Research, Lorenzo Fioramonti: "Eliminate"mentally handicapped"From the summoning letters of the support teachers", he asks in a video released on Facebook.

"Dear Minister of Education, I imagine that these are complicated days for you, but for a few moments I would like to take advantage of your attention to a detail that concerns the school of the disabled – Nocchetti begins -. Don't worry, I won't ask you to force curriculum and support teachers into training; I won't even ask you to increase the number of support teachers by at least 40,000. " And again: "Don't worry, I won't even ask you to make the individual educational plan mandatory, shared and sanctionable in the event of non-compliance by the school. Don't worry, I won't ask you to guarantee material assistantships and school transport to all disabled students who have the misfortune of being born below the Po river. Don't worry, I won't even ask you to eliminate the architectural barriers that offend the our feeling of community. My request is marginal, but I assure you it has its own reason. Delete the word "psychophysical handicapped" from the convocation letters received by the teachers. That word, "handicapped", sounds bad, says bad, makes us think badly. It takes very little to cancel it, at least start from there ».

READ ALSO Martuscelli, letter to the Minister Fedeli di Tutti at school: «Absent without warning»And he concludes by quoting a poem by Gianni Rodari: "We have words to sell, words to buy, words to make words. Let's search together for words to think. We have words to pretend, words to hurt, words to tickle. Let's search together for words to love. We have words to cry, words to keep quiet, words to make noise. Let's look together for words to talk ».

In short, as Nanni Moretti also claimed in the film "Red palombella", Words are important. And even more so are those chosen by the State when it communicates with its citizens. And unfortunately that expression, "mentally handicapped", is not only contained in the letters summoning the support teachers, but it is enough to carry out a quick search on the internet to realize that calls, sentences and guidelines published by the Ministry of Education use the term "handicapped" to identify a person with a disability. A wording that belongs to an ancient nomenclature, which dates back to a time when people with disabilities were considered inferior and therefore marginalized. Since then, great strides have been made and, at least in theory, disabled people are no longer considered a burden, but an active part of society, so that at least a couple of decades the expression has spread "disabled"To define them. Of course, then in our country we are still very far in the realization of the inclusion of subjects with psychophysical problems, but if the State does not have enough resources to put into practice that promised inclusiveness, at least update the bureaucratic terms using the right words: more appropriate and less offensive. © REPRODUCTION RESERVED