Inclusive Education Experiment in Smolensk in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

The clarification of the current priorities in the state policy on inclusive education caused the revision of the existing experience of co-education and co-upbringing. The work of the Smolensk regional school for the blind during 1925–1927 is of special importance in this context. In this article, the author analyzes the inclusive education experiment conducted by Boris Ignatiyevich Kovalenko, one of the pioneers in Russian tiflopedagogics. The Smolensk inclusion experiment comprised the practical training at the brush and sewing workshops and the classroom work at the school for the blind and visually impaired. The author presents the key conclusions made based upon the results of the experiment. These include the therapeutical education training for teachers, vocational training with the opportunity to sell the products at the market, material motivation for students, differentiated load for students with various degrees of the disability, limited numbers of students in classes, and monetary support from the government. The experiment took place almost a hundred years ago, but its results are relevant up to this date. The author provides evidence that the co-education was useful for both the healthy students who got the vocational training and learned about the education of the blind and the blind students who received help from their sighted peers. The archive materials are published for the first time.