Visit to New Sion Municipal School, Mumbai 
US Chapter: Asha Seattle

Compiled by Preeti Agalayam and Santosh Kumar Singh, Asha IIT Mumbai, who visited the school on September 3, 2002.

Agenda and Introduction

The agenda was to visit the mentally handicapped children's section in Sion municipal school, in order the evaluate the proposal of Each One Teach One charitable organization on formation of support structure for these children.

The school has prior history of successful involvement of EOTO. EOTO continues to work with the non-handicapped children in the school lower economic groups, providing uniforms, outside classroom coaching, group trips and various other activities to ensure lowering of drop-out rates and also improved performance in the examinations. They also have experience in maintaining contact with the alumni, to ensure that the process goes on in a continual manner in the community.

The recent project of performing the same kind of role with the handicapped children is a very worthy one. These children are 40 in number right now, and have only three teachers taking care of them. While the teachers say they have some training in dealing with mental handicaps, I dont think its any medical training, plus they are clearly overworked. The children's disability ranges from mild to very severe, with a somewhat equal distribution of mild, medium, severe and very severe cases. There is a large variation in age as well- from 5 to 15. Their individual needs are clearly different (and often have no bearing to their chronological age). Therefore, one-on-one attention is clearly required. Nevertheless the teachers seemed enthusiastic and committed and seemed to be doing what they could with the limited resources.

Some details

There are three classes conducted. First is Hindi. The other two are conducted in Marathi, and do not follow any formal curriculum. Instead they focus on teaching various everyday skills such as identification of money of various denominations, simple mathematics associated with money transactions, and so on. For some of the children, the education is limited to being able to do namaste and respond to simple voice commands, stand up, sit down etc., due to their lack of capacity for anything more complicated. One particular example of a girl Rekha, who is severely retarded (and does not speak), was shown to me. She now gets up and walks to you when her teacher asks her to, something she was not able to two years ago. The teachers also have some teaching aids that they have made from low cost materials (coloured paper, charts etc.) themselves. They tell me that unless something is shown visually either in a picture or as a toy etc. the children do not understand at all.

Remarkably, 5 of the children have been found that are interested in learning about computers and are being trained, with the help of EOTO, with some basic computer knowledge. We did not meet these 5, possibly these are the very mildly handicapped children. There are two that are very interested in drawing and painting who are getting trained as well. These I think are very positive signs.

There are records of each child. Some of the material in these was compiled last summer and has been sent to Asha-Seattle. These records are periodically updated based on the observations of the teachers. Some distinction between the children is made by means of their IQ – as identified by a medical doctor sent by the school. For the ones with higher IQ some additional things are taught. I did not perfectly gather the information about how often the IQ is re-evaluated, to indicate progress in the class. When I asked about progress they showed me the girl Rekha.

Non-academic activities

There is one college student that is working currently in having the children make some simple handicraft items with paper and glue and sequins. These are to be sold in a citywide exhibition in October. Several other agencies in the city are participating in this. This is also an initiative from EOTO, with input from the school teachers. But this is only till October and not a full-time activity.

In terms of regular hands-on work, every year at the appropriate time the children make Rakhis that are then sold outside. Some work with greeting cards and bindis and diyas as well, but no formal structure exists either in training the children in such activities with the idea of making it their career later, or wide-spread marketing of the goods made. Within the municipal school structure it is likely that this is not entirely feasible.

Santosh and I also attended a cultural function/ prize distribution ceremony conducted by EOTO. There was one dance performance by the handicapped children. There were two older children (15+), and 10 little ones  (5-10) participating. The dance was very well choreographed, and co-ordination was good. One of the little ones had broken her hand but still managed to come on stage and perform. They were uninhibited, although it was their first time on stage. Their teachers were on the sidelines in case any help or guidance was required, but for the most part they did not interfere. I met the two young men that choreographed the dance; they are part of the larger school.

Facilities

There are three classrooms for the 40 children. We saw one of them- this is where they spend a lot of the day including lunch. The room is very near the bathrooms and although all the children leave their slippers near the front of the room, the floor is a little dusty (there are no benches, children sit on the floor for the class/lunch).

Outside the school

There are some meetings of teachers with the parents, informal so far. The teachers say that still there is a lot of superstition, with the children dragged off to villages, etc. where these beliefs are indulged. The teachers are very disappointed as one of their colleagues (from the regular curriculum) also did this with his child. For the most part the sense is that the parents of these 40 children do not treat them very badly, however, I don’t think this has been evaluated very well. At least they are sending the children to school, which is a good sign.

There is a vocational center in the city (in Chembur) where the children can be sent to after they turn 18. This will be to enter simple jobs such as public call booth operator and so on. However there is no formal placement system, most of the mild or medium retardation children end up with reasonable jobs only based on word-of-mouth. The others are probably not able to cope with jobs (I don’t know what the doctors say exactly).

EOTO's proposed role

The role EOTO intends to play is basically one of over-seeing what the municipal teachers do, and providing additional man-power/resources in order to do what is possible for these children. Uniforms, books, school fees will be provided. Ms. Jyoti Tanna of EOTO says that she would like to hire a few qualified individuals to provide medically recommended kinds of activities for the children. She has in mind yoga, karate, and whatever creative avenues the children show interest in. I think the sense is that while the teachers are putting in effort, their training is not sufficient to do remarkable progress with the children. Also there is the matter of being stretched too thin, with each teacher handling 15 children at a time.

Final note

For questions about this report and about Each One Teach One email Jayant Madhavan.