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This study advocates that professional development within the field of SEN should be based on a holistic–-humanistic approach anchored in theories of learning (Dewey, 1915, 1933; Bruner, 1960; Piaget, 1969; Vygotsky, 1978) and multiple intelligences theories (Gardner, 1983; Craft et al., 2008). Moreover, it should focus on developing holistic-humanistic attitudes of educators (Maslow, 1968; Rogers, 1971; Buber, 1997) who work with children with special educational needs (Vygotsky, 1993; Schramm, 2002; Cameron, 2004; Petrie et al., 2009).

This approach maintains that educators' development should focus on children and their abilities instead of on their deficit and learning difficulties. Moreover, professional development programmes should focus on the radical approach within the inclusive paradigm. To successfully employ the inclusive values presented in the UN Salamanca Convention (1994) such as collaborative, collegial, and cohesive partnerships, educators have to experience these values themselves throughout their own professional development, which I contend needs to be based on a holistic humanistic approach. I concur with Stoll (1999), who maintains that neglecting inter-personal and psychological processes leads educators to behave defensively, protecting themselves from professional development that might expose their inadequacies. Conversely, assessing individuals as people and valuing their contributions can enhance educators' self-esteem and build trust. Similarly, Seligman (2000) and Peterson & Seligman (2000) focus on the process of developing awareness of one's strengths and virtues for one's own development. Researchers refer to the need for raising awareness of professional development that considers the personal dimension through dreams (Newman, 2000) and focus on the relationship between self, others, and pedagogy (Allender, 2001). A humanistic-holistic philosophy of education argues that the concept 'professional development' should be shifted towards an approach that views people's development

and progress through the inclusion of personality-oriented, emotional, and motivational aspects (Craft et al., 2008). The humanistic-holistic perception differs from modern perceptions that are regarded as bureaucratic (Maslow, 1968; Aloni, 2005), which are based on knowledge, effectiveness, and achievements to accomplish goals according to market requirements (Gur-Ze’ev, 1996). Thus, the holistic-humanistic perception facilitates the opening of wide perspectives for viewing educators' professional development by including educators' emotional aspects rather than emphasising only cognitive aspects (Oplatka, 2010). This prepares educators for working positively with challenges, such as empathetic inclusion of children with wide-ranging needs (Banks et al., 2005; Ogbu & Simons, 2005; Wang et al., 2010).

Many researchers who consider educators' professional development, suggest the development of self-identity (Toffler, 1992; Hativa, 2003); autonomy (Aviram, 1995), thought, social commitment, and tolerance (Chen, 2004). These researchers, however, focus on the students rather than on ways of developing these qualities through educators' own professional development. Focusing on students and not on educators requires that educators develop their students' future skills, combining thought, values, self-identity, autonomy, and social conduct of accepting others (McKernan, 1991; Zeichner, 2001).

In contrast, some researchers (Harris et al., 1995) suggest developing a more holistic approach towards educator development, claiming the significant notion of 'the person' (McLean, 1999) and emphasising enthusiasm, flexibility or love of children. Tickle (1999) includes personal life, career experience, perceptions and actions as integral for developing emotional wellbeing, self-concepts, motivation and educators' psychological state (Stoll, 1999). Hansen (1995, p. 10) and Palmer (1998, 2007) raise the issue of teaching 'from within the identity and integrity of the teacher' and not based on technique alone.

Furthermore, an ecological philosophy adopts a holistic approach to understanding professional development. The 'philosophy of life' (Keiny, 2006), focusing on experiencing educational values through all life-circles, perceives professional development as part of personal development. This approach views the connection between theory and practice and between body and mind, acknowledging people as a whole. This innovative reading on life, grounded in the dialectic relationship between

people and the environment, replaces the existing framework that is based on alienated technology (Keiny, 2006).

Along these lines, Korthagen (2005) suggests using the 'onion model' for understanding the role of the inner dimension within professional development. The 'onion model' presents the various levels of different qualities of a good teacher. The outer levels, (for example, the environment), might affect inner levels of educators' behaviour and a repeated behaviour develops the competency to use it in other circumstances. An approach is needed that is premised on participants uncovering their inner selves as a route to more effective engagement within their professional lives.

As presented in the Introduction chapter, I was trained and practised (1972-1987) as an educator in the Israeli education system and joined the educational-therapeutic programme as an Expressive therapist in the year 1998. These years influenced the development of my theoretical and practical approach, leading towards developing the ‘Lovecircles’ .professional development programme (2001).

Social psychology and social neuroscience research have outlined a more complex and varied array of human social-emotional skills than the skills proposed in EI theory. The validity of EI is yet to be determined. Towards the end of the 1990s I realized that the place and role of emotions in professional development has been growing. Hargreaves, A. (1998) claimed the need to expand the focus on educators' emotions in accordance with the reform requirements and expectations from educators. This has influenced other leading researchers in the field of developing educators' personal dimension (Allender, 2001) and emotional awareness in their personal development (Korthagen, 2005).

Social psychology and social neuroscience research have outlined a complex and varied array of human social-emotional skills than the skills proposed in quasi-brain theories. Waterhouse (2006) criticized the theory multiple intelligences (MI) theory (Gardner, 1983), Mozart effect (ME) theory (Rauscher et al., 1993), and Emotional Intelligence (EI) theory (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) claiming that there is no empirical evidence to support them, and these theories do not respect the constraints provided by cumulative empirical evidence from cognitive neuroscience research. Their application to classroom practice on professional development programmes should include awareness

that their lack of sound empirical support may result in little real power to enhance student learning beyond that resulting from the initial excitement of something new. However, Waterhouse (2006) indicated that future research such as this study may shed new light on these theories, and students, teachers, researchers, and theorists should remain open to new evidence.

Review of literature on child development, thinking and learning in the primary years (Goswami and Bryant, 2007) indicate that it is socially mediated; therefore families, peers and teachers are significant factors. This is relevant especially nowadays with the advancement of technology and e-learning. Moreover, data from neuroscience indicate that learning by the brain depends on the development of multi-sensory networks of neurons distributed across the entire brain (in visual, spatial, memory, deductive and kinaesthetic regions, in both brain hemispheres). Goswami and Bryant (2007) highlight active experience, language; pretend play and teaching as well as the contributing factors for development of children’s learning.

Therefore, this implies learning in classrooms should integrate diverse experiences leading towards self-reflective and self-regulatory skills. Thus, individual differences between children in the early years should guide teachers’ attitude to children as a key influencing factor in learning, memory, understanding and the motivation to learn. This sustains that individual differences in the ability to benefit from instruction (the zone of proximal development – Vygotsky, 1978) and individual differences between children are large in the primary years. Hence any class of children must be treated as individuals. Despite contests to their empirical validity, this could suggest nevertheless that quasi-brain theories such as MI and EI may have practical application in the classroom, in offering frameworks for conceptualizing holistic differences and strengths in children and a complementary framework for developing children’s emotional awareness respectively.

In 2006, more research in this has emerged, promoting the study of this issue (Oplatka, 2008; Day, 2012). Since 2010-2012 (Figure 1.1), research in this field has been explicitly dedicated to emotion in education.