Bookworm Trust has been organising an Annual Teachers Meet every year for teachers and Heads of various schools which are under the Libraries in School (LiS) program, to get together to interact and provide inputs about the program itself. This year apart from our regular LiS schools, we had invited other schools too. We had a very good response from many new schools and Sanjay School, Porvorim was one of these schools. Sanjay School is a school that caters to special children including the Hearing Impaired, Partially blind, physically handicapped, mentally challenged and children with complex learning disabilities. And we were quite surprised when we received an invitation from the school to meet and discuss how we could take our program there. We do not have any kind of special training to cater to the needs of these special children and so what could we do. But this was a challenge we readily accepted. After all, a library is a space for all, Inclusion has to happen everywhere and what better place to start than from a library. Every child deserves stories and books.
One round of discussion and a proposal later, we were invited to speak to the parents. It was an orientation program where we reiterated what we do in other schools and that what and how we plan to conduct our sessions would be purely an experiment of sorts. The parents seemed eager and supported our initiative and we were set.
The HM requested us to take two groups, Shruti and Shraddha. Group Shruti consisted of the Hearing Impaired children while Group Shraddha consisted of children with various learning disabilities.
I was confident about the second group Shraddha and felt that we could surely read aloud stories that were curated for the regular Class 1 in our LiS curriculum. These stories had large illustrations and simple and easy to understand themes. I could at least start my sessions with these stories….
I was worried about Group Shruti. How could I read aloud stories to the children when they were all hearing impaired? How could I communicate with these children? How would they understand or answer my questions? What would they think about me, my stories? These and many such questions swirled around in my mind. The HM had assured me that all the teachers would support me during my sessions. This reduced my anxiety levels partly.
As luck would have it, my first session started with Group Shruti, I was extremely nervous with butterflies in my stomach. I gathered the teachers and showed them the story book. It was a simple story called ‘I Like Stars’ by Margaret Wise Brown and had stars of different colours. As I read, the teacher ‘read’ too using sign language. It was a slow read aloud but worth it. There were so many actions to look at. And I needed to look at everyone here. In a regular class, children will raise hands, demand attention and shout out the answers but here I had to look at each and every one and wait for them to finish their signs, speak slowly so the older ones could read my lips and then the teacher would explain. The children followed us with their eyes eagerly. The big book was shown again and it excited them very much. The teacher and I explained to them that they could borrow books and take home and they were very much surprised. They kept showing the sign for home and we had to nod and assure them.
The Shraddha group has children with various learning disabilities ranging from Mild Intellectual Disability, Mild Retardation, Downs to Autism. I have been using the same story that I use with Group Shruti. But here, there is talking and singing and discussion taking place. There are also many children who sit quietly but are watching me and the story book.
It has taken me eight sessions to now slowly understand that S needs to go every ten minutes and sit on a chair for reassurance. Once he feels safe, he will go back and sit in his place and continue to listen. E can suddenly become violent and has to be distracted and moved away immediately. I know that R is listening to me even if she is not looking at me or the story book. I also know that S may not want to sit in one place and can scream anytime or repeat a word consistently very loudly but is still ready to sit and draw something from the story or will go and choose a book all by himself.
There are so many challenges during our sessions and we are trying to figure them out one at a time. We have been trying to help the children get used to a certain process during our sessions. One such practice in our LiS sessions is the Book Talk. We encourage children to come ahead and talk for a couple of minutes about the book they had borrowed. This helps build curiosity about the book, also encourages others to go through their books, read and share confidently. We thought of trying this out in these two groups. Group Shraddha has vocal children who have been coming and trying to do book talks.
But Group Shruti….how could they do this? Would they do it? I discussed this with the teachers and they said we could try. I demonstrated a book talk with gestures, pointing to the title, author and illustrator name and then pointed to a picture that I liked the most. It seemed to have caught their attention as many raised their hand to come ahead. So far it has been only two sessions that we have tried this and it is a slow process as it takes a lot of time for each ‘talker’ to do this. But the smiles that are beamed across and the helpful gestures of other children to remind them about what to point to next are making it all worthwhile.
Interacting with the children from Group Shruti has been an enormous challenge so far as some of the older children use the sign language very swiftly while the younger ones are still learning. When we sit for book browsing after they borrow the books, it is very interesting to observe them to having silent discussions and heated arguments about their books. They browse through their own books and their friend’s books too and try to tell me about these books.
After four years of very vocal classes, it has been a huge adjustment for me to have one silent class and another class which has only a handful who speak. It has been extremely nerve wracking for me at times when S gets up in panic and needs to be reassured, or S refuses to do anything and start screaming or R gesturing wildly with a frustrated look on her face as her teacher and me are unable to understand what she is trying to say. I have come to accept these as minor differences and move ahead. Every session is like a first session for me and I am nervous with trepidation. Will they understand the story, will they like it? Will I understand what they want to tell me? Will we able to do what we have planned for the session? But every time I see R looking up from the floor and giving me a shy unexpected smile, T waving her hand enthusiastically to come ahead to show her book, S not panicking and sitting calmly, I feel reassured that yes, today’s session has gone very well indeed.
