Reflecting on a CIE with your colleagues can maximize your learning opportunities through the comparison of different viewpoints.Let's see some suggestions on how to use it as a group exercise working on the following example:

1. Read the following critical incident individually, underline words or sentences you consider crucial to interpret this episode or that impress you the most:

The following episode occurred in a primary school.

An Albanian student – who speaks and understands Italian well – was not doing too well in school and often misbehaved, arguing with his classmates and even raising his hands against them. [...] His teachers tried to implement possible strategies to overcome these problems. They succeeded at the academic level. As for the rest, the situation remained mostly unchanged.

After a while, some parents of other students started to express their disappointment to the teachers about their children often coming home with scratches, bruises... The teachers decided to summon the boy’s family. A written notice was sent through the boy’s diary, with a request for a signature by one of the parents to confirm they actually read it. The notice was not signed, despite repeated requests made to the boy. One day the pupil reported that his parents did not want to sign. The teachers interpreted this refusal as a severe lack of respect towards them. (Adapted from Luatti)

2. Individually try to answer the following guiding questions:

• Why do you think the boy’s parents behaved the way they did?
• What personal or cultural-specific motives may explain the parent’s refusal to sign the notice?
• What would you do if you were the teacher?
• Re-read the CI aloud together with your colleagues and share your reflections about it;
• Consider what missing information may be important to correctly interpret the event and the reactions of all the parties involved. This missing information may encompass both:
  • the contextualization of the case (e.g., how was the relationship between the teachers and the boy’s parents before the episode? Did the parents speak Italian? Did they ignore other written notices before?);
  • specific culture-bound values and/or assumptions implicitly at stake (e.g., what cultural values about school, education or family-school communication may be behind the parent’s refusal?).

You may need more time to make assumptions and gather more information (especially at the second level). In this case, you may consider to assign each member of your group a specific task in collecting missing information and plan a second meeting to share the new information collected.

3. Jointly discuss possible strategies or an alternative course of actions you would use if you were in a similar situation;

Move on reading to know the conclusion of the episode.