Enable undertakes school visitation

As part of its initiative to sensitize teachers about the issues of people and especially children with special needs, Enable led by a team which included a resource person visited Baptist Higher Secondary School and Chandmari Higher Secondary School on April 28 and 29 respectively.
The resource person was Kopele Mero, special educator and former consultant of FIVE centre, Chennai and Shree Ram School, New Delhi.
According to a press statement issued by Neikule Doulo, chairperson Enable, around 50 teachers from both the schools participated in the programmes.
Interacting with teachers, Kopele highlighted the different types of disabilities and those which affect the physical being of a person who often get more attention.
She added that there were other less obvious types like learning disabilities that often get undetected.
Many children who suffer from learning difficulties like Dyslexia can have difficult times in schools with teachers labeling them to be lazy or naughty while they may be having a severe concern, she said.
Further Kopele opined that schools need to adopt and create methods to facilitate learning for the special child and the class as a whole. The need for parents and society to accept the situation of such children was a must, she added.
Explaining further, the resource person cited restlessness, laziness, inattentiveness, unresponsiveness as some of the behavioral aspects that were usually passed off as that of an errant child, but these were things that needed to be looked into.
She also said that teachers should be on the lookout for other pointers like poor spellings, speech impairments, and difficulties in peer interaction and in solving problems. She further added that identifying such child would lessen the stress for both teacher and pupil and that ‘common sense’ was the most powerful tool for a teacher.
Some of the methods Kopele shared were to monitor teasing by other students as this was harmful in the long run, to show appreciation to the pupil, render positive teacher comments, add fun factor in the class, adapt teaching according to the need of the class and ‘be interesting’ a catchword for all teachers.
Meanwhile, Enable has informed that it would visit more schools in Kohima as well as other parts of the state to continue in their effort to create a society more conducive for special people.