From National Focus group's position paper on lang. education, to curricular objectives around lang. education, to Language education: A Reflection

Hello teachers, policy makers, writers, activists and budding professionals!

Here is an experience, that I'd had, while working with my 10 years old learners, studying in a school based out of Haryana, India. But before the experience a brief reflection on the idea, that somebody had well thought about, around the inclusion of a poem by poet Kunwar Narayan, titled, '?? ??? ?? ?????' in grade V, Hindi textbook (??????) published by NCERT (2007).

This experience stands out for me, as there were many 'firsts' involved. First of all, it was my first experience of teaching, 10 year olds in an elite school, also the first experience working around Hindi Language in grade 5, and last but not the least, my first experience to explore texts around dis/ability and inclusion.

When I came across this national artefact called the textbook and very particularly some of the lessons/chapters around inclusion, as a reader, I felt really good. As a student of Bachelor degree in Elementary Education (B.El.Ed), we already had a brief orientation of how curriculum should take care of children with special needs and therefore should provide pedagogical experiences to all children. I could clearly see, how sensitive text around dis/ability and inclusion were included in the textbook thus enabling the readers to have access to human experiences beyond physical borders. Although limited in number, but the three chapters: '?? ??? ?? ?????, ???? ??? ???? ???, and ??? ?? ??????-????????? ???' did seem to serve as good examples of appropriate texts around developing social sensitivity.

This is also one of the learning objectives mentioned in the Learning outcome document and the position paper on Teaching of Indian Languages, under section 7.5 and 7.5, pp: 24-25, 'Most researchers believe that learners should be exposed to the themes/topics that would stimulate them and facilitate learning. The materials should make them socially sensitive and encourage them to respond to issues..' I thought, fair enough, totally convinced that somebody (perhaps a team), had done their research well, and had included such texts, that children as old as 10-11yrs, ought to read, is an appropriate educational step; and so I moved on to skim through other chapters.

It was only during November- December 2016, when I had to take these lessons and particularly, the poem '?? ??? ?? ?????' that I felt numb. Yes, as an adult, I have a standpoint around inclusion and perhaps understand the need for inclusion in every aspect of life, starting in school etc. However as a primary grade teacher, I felt I was not equipped to take this with my students. How do I orient them towards the idea of inclusion, how will it make sense to them and will it become a part of their experience? How will I do justice to the idea and the text and most importantly, how will I be able to achieve the objective that deliberates on developing sensitivity in my learners, by connecting to the text they are about to read? There were many questions I had to figure out answers to.. To top it up, there were some words in the poem, that made (the facilitator in) me a bit uncomfortable, some of the phrases used for the protagonist (a boy named Ratan) were: ???? ??????, ?????? ?????, ??? ?? ?????, ???? ????? ????? etc. Honestly, back then I felt, whether it was fortunate or unfortunate to not have somebody with special needs in my classroom.

With these questions to answer, I sat up to plan my lessons. Here is only a brief account of the same.

Before dealing with the text (poem), I planned some discussion questions around their lived experiences like:- What do you do, when you are not able to do something on your own? How do you feel about it? Do you know people/friends who share their discomforts with you? or are there people/ friends with whom you share your feelings? Is asking for help okay? why or why not? Think of an experience when you felt very lonely or incapable of doing something you loved to do.. Do you think animals feel helpless, why/ why not etc. (in the past 18 months, we (my students and myself) had built a culture, wherein we respected one's thoughts one's silence equally) I remember majority of the female students were vocal in sharing their thoughts as compared to the male students.

Towards the end of the forty minutes I was happy and pleasantly surprised to hear some of their experiences around 'inclusion.' Of course nobody used the term explicitly, but we were all talking and sharing about our hobbies, passions, (new and old) friendship, helplessness and yes, accidents!

I remembered that in one of the paper- Human relation and communication in the B.El.Ed program, we read Prof. Anita Ghai's theoretical work on Disability. Prof Ghai, an academician, an activist, a wheel-chair user herself, had made such an impact on me as a student, that I did begin to observe people in different situations, work more hands-on with children across different abilities, curiosity around social and cultural contexts also started to grow their roots. But what I vividly remembered was one conception of dis/ability as 'Temporarily able-bodied' Perhaps, one could understand this as, what Eliza Chandler (Art Curator and Professor at Ryerson) states, 'In disability studies, we have the saying that nobody is able-bodied — everyone is temporarily able-bodied, because?if you live long enough, you'll become disabled' While ageing may be one example to make sense of the idea of Temporarily able-body, accidents are another way to understand that anyone can wake up as an abled-bodied and go to bed disabled. My students had already shared such sensitive experiences and observations from their lives. And this actually helped me build on their prior-knowledge.

It was the discussions that we had, that had actually put me at ease, and enabled me to look at my students as humans and yes, sensitive human beings. I guess on the fourth or fifth day of my plan, I took up the poem: '?? ??? ?? ?????' and was happy to see how the 10 year olds associated with 'Ratan and his mother' the phrases, which brought discomfort to me initially as a reader, were no longer uncomfortable; Like my learners, I could also associate with the protagonist, his mother and the poet's thoughts. This piece of children's literature would turn out to be such a powerful text, I had never thought of before November 2016. With a little orientation around disability, I thought it would be worthwhile if I include, another text from the book- '???? ??? ???? ???' I was not surprised when students began to articulate and express not only the protagonist, Ila Sachani's will-power, and determination to take life's bull by the horns :) but also shared their anxiety around the unpredictable future! As a language educator, I do acknowledge the power of reader's response to texts, something that Louis Rosenblatt has talked about at great length around the process of reading any (aesthetic) text. If sensitivity is an objective of language education, that can be and ought to be developed in learners, I believe good children's literature has the potential to achieve it while bringing out the vulnerable self. (This applies to writing as well :)

Coming back to my learners, some of them showed keen interest in knowing and gathering data on how many Indian children are added to the category of disability each year. What laws around inclusion are implemented by the government, what could the school do to take care of inclusion. Now these questions were not 'planned' (at least in my mind) but I had studied that according to Jean Piaget (Swiss psychologist who gave the theory of cognitive development) children in the concrete-operational stage (8 to 12 year olds) are not yet able to think about abstract concepts and hypothesise, however, they do begin to think logically and ask questions about concrete events and children in this stage also become less ego-centric in nature and begin to think about how other people think and feel. Which implied, that they also understand that people may think and feel differently about same issues, in our case dis/ability and inclusion. It was indeed an experience for me as a teacher to witness, how these 10 year old were trying to make sense of the text and their experience in a personal and social context. The school counsellor was very kind to be a part of our inquiry. She opened up spaces for dialogue and invited questions around dis/ability and inclusion. It was a worthwhile interaction.

After engaging around the idea of dis/ability and sharing one's experiences, we were fortunate to meet Mr. Deb, who visited the school in early December 2016. Mr. Deb was visually challenged and played the keyboard. My students (as I watched them interact with him) were very excited to see him play the keyboard, sense the rhythmic sounds. They asked him a lot of questions around his passion for music, the challenges he faced earlier and faces now and how he overcomes them. (Yes there was lot of chatting and singing to share here :)

Rimjhim, Hindi textbook for grade 5, also has a 'Note to the adults' ????? ?? ?? ?????' section: '??????????? ?? ?????' wherein it reads: '???? ?? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ?? ?????????? ???????? ????? ??????????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ??? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ?? ??? (name of the three chapters) ?????? ?????-?????? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ??????? ?? ?????? ?? ?? ??? ??? ???? ??? ??????? ??? ????????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??????? ?????' Once again, I saw what this relationship between reading and writing could do in developing social sensitivity in my learners'. We got busy talking, listening, reading and writing about people with disability and issues in inclusion, we shared some of our own vulnerability and hoped for an inclusive tomorrow. We wrote and shared with each other. Ms. Malvika Rai, the Hindi Language academic coordinator found these writings (short poems written by the students) as an important piece of work, and encouraged to get them published for greater reach. We reached out to an NGO, Eklavya (based out of Bhopal, India) who found them worthwhile too and later published the work as a collection of poems in their Children's Literature magazine- Chakmak. (Edition: April- May 2017)

It has been 6 years now, and I am grateful specially to these 10 year olds readers and writers, who created magic in the language classroom, by bringing in their experiences and opening spaces for dialogue and showing me how dis/ability can be understood better, as a teacher and most importantly as a human. I am impressed and appreciate that important work around cognition and social issues were designed so deliberately in the B.El.Ed curriculum.

Now my interaction with children has reduced professionally, but I do share this pedagogical experience with the Teacher Author participants. Because critical, contextual and comprehensive children's literature can help us make sense of humanity.

P.S: The second image is an article taken from the book- Aspects of Children's Literature; Titled: Special Needs- Special books The speakers have shared insights on the need of understanding special needs and creation of relevant and appropriate books for children with special needs. Some very hands-on suggestions and practical pointers for developing such material. One of the speaker, Surekha Panandikar, closes the discussion (held on 14.03.97), by asking, 'whether publishers would be willing to publish such books'

In 26 years, we might have tried to experiment around creation and publication of such books, but I think we need to try harder.

P.P.S: 1st doc- National Focus group position paper (2006),?2nd doc- collection of articles published by National Book Trust(2001), titled Aspects of children's literature, 3rd doc- Grade 5 poem- Hindi textbook, 4th doc- Poems around Dis/ability and inclusion created by my students (2017)

Homeroom teacher of my Fantastic Twenty Five Minds!

Sheetal Paul