Being Special is not always good: Peeping into the world of CWSN

CWSN means Children With Special Needs

 

 Being  a teacher, we have been taught or we can say that we have been trained to think that all students should hold an equal place in the heart of teacher. No child should be left behind. No one should come into the blind spot of the teacher. But still, there are many who are not so lucky to get that special place in the heart of the teachers and they ultimately come into their blind spot. And, all this happens because that child is "Special". S/he is a child who has special needs. 
World Report on CWSN on disability states that 34% CWSN still do not have access to school. The lack of trained teachers and personals in schools have lead to chaos in the classrooms and negligence of that child by the teachers as the latter is not at all equipped to handle the needs of that child along with the other "normal" children. on other hand, there are always chances of that child being bullied or abused by the fellow students.

The Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995 provides for access to free education in an appropriate environment for children with disabilities till they attain the age of 18 years. The educational needs of disabled children are to be covered through a range of interventions. 

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 requires The State to ensure compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of elementary education by all children of 6-14 years. As per the Act the Government has to ensure that the children belonging to disadvantaged group are not discriminated against and prevented from pursuing and completing elementary education on any grounds (CWSN Home)

SSA scheme also promotes an equity based approach that focuses on the needs of disadvantaged social groups including children with special needs.

Madhya Pradesh is the first State that has taken an initiative to use the ICT for the tracking of the assistance being provided to the CWSN to ensure personalised follow-up. 

The follow up has been done in many more states but the data shows that the efforts made by the government agencies have to accelerate at the pace of a rocket to achieve the inclusion of these children. For instance, the Special Training Centres (STC) (edudel.nic.in/ssa/7.pdf) that were opened in the premise of the government school or are operated by the NGO's; in the NCR Delhi and other states such as Gujarat, Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh (reports by CARE); do not have trained teachers to cater to the needs of these differently-able children. 

The RTE Act under the section 4, Chapter 2 states and emphasises on the inclusion of the children who were not able to get admission into the mainstream school due to any psychological, developmental, social or economical factors. They will be given special training so that they could bridge the academic gap required for inclusion in their respective induced class under the provision of age-appropriate admission under RTE 2009.

These STC are only looking for children who are Out-of-School in terms of their "normality" and "Dropped out" status not if they are special need children such as locomotive, oral, aural, partial sighted, hearing or cognitive special needs.

It is high time now for the government agencies to wake up and learn from other educational policies in countries such as US, Canada, Belgium, Austria, Netherlands and so on. However, they are not to be copied blindly but should be adapted accordingly and contextually to the factors such as teacher training, population, infrastructure and funding.
if you want to learn more about the CWSN, then you could follow these significant links:

1. http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/281_74.pdf

2. www.ncert.nic.in/gpPDF/pdf/tiicsnups101.pdf

3. www.nuepa.org/New/images/department/SSE/2017/Brochure_2017.pdf

4. https://www.unicef.org/disabilities/files/Assistive-Tech-Web.pdf

5. ssakarnataka.gov.in/pdfs/int_inclusiveedu/CWSNDraftPolicy2013.pdf

The Business of the Project Work

Fig 1 

 Recently my daughter asked me to help her out in the Environment Science project on "Clean Delhi Green Delhi". She is in Class III. She told me about the Collage- Making Competition also, that had to be held on the very next day. Now, it was already 8 p.m. and getting things for the collage from the market was not easy. So, we decided that we will stick to the very basic few things. We searched for the old newspaper for:

                  1)  The cutting of the gardens

                  2)   The green complexes

                  3)    The Plant a tree campaign or something similar

Then, we took out a cutting of the tree as shown in the figure (Fig 1). Then we took some Green Floroscent sheet and prepared some slogans and wrote on it. and then we did some additional pasting work and the collage's raw material was prepared. I told my daughter about their placement and that's how it was done. 

She arranged it as shown in the fig and got the "Second Prize".

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I ACCEPTED A COURSE JUST TO AVOID MARRIAGE

First of all let us concentrate on my version of a teacher....

T -  TRUSTED

E - EDUCATED

A - AESTHETIC

C - CALM

H - HONEST

E - ELEGANT

R - RESPONSIBLE

           When i was a student, i had none of the above qualities. I never considered myself to be able to teach even my younger brother... and when my sir asked me to fill the form of DIET, i was shocked. I was an average student. You know, i was one of  those sports students who would bring medals all year for the school and then will concentrate on my studies in those last days when the exams were only 7 days away. I was always scared of Maths and social studies till date...hehe) but somehow i managed to pass it. so when i realised that this course actually will include all those subjects and social science kind of studies, i was like "nooooo  wayss!!!!

            But, i was struggling to find a career as the computer course that i had completed was no more useful as the versions that i had done were becoming outdated in real fast manner. My family was becoming hysterical and were planning to make me agree to get married. So i thought "why not?". Atleast, it will give me a breather from the "M" word.

          So, i buckled up myself for the very first time in my life and started preparing for the entrance exam. i didn't know then it was going to be a life changing movement of my life. For the first time in my life, i cleared any entrance!!!As if it was written in my destiny. I joined the ETE course. i found that the course was interesting and can take you to an UTOPIAN world and you feel as if after completing this course when you will go out, you will actually be contributing towards the creation of this utopian world. 

             While doing that course, thanks to my lecturers, my confidence went up the sky. i was awarded the "ALL ROUNDER STUDENT OF THE YEAR" consecutively for both years. i was ahead in sports competition ( of course it was my forte). Buttt..... the big surprise was that i was among the toppers ...actually i came first.... god i was so surprised.... i was on the seventh sky.

             A girl who was never able to impress her teachers as she was an average students topped a teacher training programme. Then i realized, that an average student can probably become a better teacher.I think in that way because of a reason. One cannot generalized it for others but on me it actually fits. 

           what actually is the main point a teacher should remember.......that all fingers are not same. The "intelligent" students can easily grasp concepts, some learns a bit slower then the formers but there are some poor babies who are "slowest". So my point is that if i can relate to their position , where they actually  get stuck and are unable to form a particular concept, i can relate to them because i was also an average student, therefore i can understand whats, wheres and whys of their not getting the concept. SO I CAN HELP THEM AND CAN MAKE THEM TRUST ME TO SHARE THEIR ANXIETIES AND PROBLEMS.

          So, you see i actually developed those qualities which i admitted in the beginning of the article. So this is a message to all of you out there..... DOES NOT MATTER IF YOU WERE NOT A BRILLIANT STUDENT ... YOU CAN DEVELOP QUALITIES IN YOU IF WORK HARD AND BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. I was a bit late in doing so, but you don't waste time. if something you had planned did not work, the always think that there must be something there out for you. 

        i had always loved kids, i didn't know that i can be a teacher but i have learnt that the best gift a teacher can give to the students is to love them as they are... and by not differentiating .... and i am learning to do that everyday.. it is sometimes hard as i am also a human, i tend to commit follies but then i try to undo them. i hope when i will look back at my life as a teacher... i will be proud of myself. 

thats me... i am just another kid.. the only difference is that
 i have to be more responsible for other kids with me .

                                                        

FROM A STUDENT TO TEACHER

Whenever you think of going back to school, you think about that bench, the  teacher looking through those lenses, the rush to complete work, the playground, the corridor... and woooo.. the rush that we get when we were passing through the principal's room corridor.  ppphheewww...

But now that i am back to school, i am not here as a student, not in my school, but in some other  school. I am back as a TEACHER.. hmmmm.. a teacher. We used to think ," teacher .. what do they have to do.. come.. lecture.. giving the details of the "good" and "bad" things... etc. ( with d

ue respect)... and go back".

On the contrary, when i look back and analyse those memories, i can now understand ( since i am in their shoes) how difficult it was for them to tackle the situations of a very demanding profession. A profession where you are considered next to GOD... then you are the SURROGATE MOTHER of all the kids of your class. You can't be yourself since you have a moral duty to behave as a role model for those kids who admire you like anything and you have to be role model even  if they hate you ( that too happens but i think its for a good reason).

I remember that there was this huge staff room where all the teachers sat together chatting, chirping ( hopefully not about us!!!) and we used to feel so privileged when we were called by the teacher in that territory. We used to boast this fact that we are a frequent visitor... hihihihihi.

But i can understand now that apart from that chirpiness that room also meant... reports, diaries, lesson plans, competitions,  preparation material, assessment and evaluation and above all correcting notebooks of all those kids, not only of one subject or one class but many many.... and then the pressure of syllabus completion and all those inspections to be judged on the base of those notebooks.

I am a teacher now. Its been long ten years since i had joined this " NOBLE" profession. i have seen the dynamics changing during this decade. but now i have started thinking about writing my experiences as a teacher. i hope you will like them also. i am not a perfect teacher... but i am learning ...

My professor once had said, "WHEN YOU ARE A STUDENT, YOU GO TO SCHOOL TO TEACH. BUT WHEN YOU BECOME A TEACHER, YOU GO TO SCHOOL TO LEARN."

i have come "BACK TO SCHOOL" to learn new things and i am still learning.. and learning ... and learning

to become a better person in my life.

 glad that you have read it.