Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Seeing a new world
|
How do the visually impaired learn their lessons? How should we approach them?
|
Photo: AP
TOUCH AND FEEL When it comes to social skills, the help and support of the family and peer group is vital
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content
— Helen Keller
Every time I crossed the phone booth managed by a visually challenged girl, I was consumed by this overriding urge to ask her to narrate her thought flow. How does the waterfall look in her book? What does purple mean to her? Does she understand how
a jolly green jelly quivers on the palm of a five-year-old? Does she know how the source of her income, the phone, looks like?
Thousands of questions race across my mind… However, I never quite garnered the courage to go up to her, lest my questions should be politically incorrect, or worse, offend that chirpy soul.
How are they taught?
And, so this story was born. It seeks to answer two questions: one born out of curiosity, and the other out of concern. How are the visually challenged taught? How should we approach them?
From experience
Rahiman Chand Bhasha gradually, but totally, lost his vision when he was around five. The visuals he knows are confined to what he remembers from then. For instance, animals such as cat and dog, flowers such as rose and jasmine are all that he can give form to. An advocate based in Coimbatore, he says that after primary school, he joined a regular school in Andhra Pradesh, when Integrated Education (IED) was still in its infancy. Teachers would sit with special children after school hours, and teach them subjects such as maths and science, using embossed papers or cuttings. Most of the learning happened through touch and feel, he says.
Premavathy Vijayan, Head, Department of Special Education, Avinashilingam University for Women, says that at the primary level, the focus is on language development, which is cultivated through incessant talking. Further, parents and teachers are counselled to teach them daily living activities such as eating, bathing, combing and dressing, and, most importantly, mobility training.
“When it comes to social skills, the help and support of the peer group plays a vital role,” she says. As touch and feel is very important, models have a great part in teaching them to explore. For instance, the model of an animal or any other object is used to teach shapes; a woollen thread runs across the contours of the Indian map; bindis are pasted to teach counting etc. Just as important is the use of the olfactory senses. They know it when they cross a flower market, a pantry or a toilet.
However, colour is something the congenitally blind will have to make do without. But, M. Anjum Khan says that they learn colours by relating to objects or situation. For instance, blood is red, and that the sky is blue. “Imagination is the key to learning. In the day, the sky is bright; during rain, it has dark clouds; and at night, it is dark, and has stars and the moon,” says this I year M.A. English Literature student at the University.
Braille is one of the chief sources of reading and writing. They now also have the Perkins Brailler which is similar to the typewriter. And, Anjum types out incredibly swiftly on the machine. At the higher level, learning also happens through continuous student-teacher interaction, listening to tapes of lessons, and with the aid of computers.
More than the teaching, it is the sensitivity of the others that the visually impaired look for. “Do not use the sign language when we are around,” says Jothi Mani, doing II year B.A. Tamil/Economics. Seek our participation in events,” she adds.
Be sensitive
M.N.G. Mani, secretary general of the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment, says that while talking to the visually impaired, one should not hesitate to use words such as ‘blind’, ‘look’, ‘see’ etc., and talking about colours.
When a visually impaired person is in a meeting, he/she should be introduced to the others present, and vice-versa.
Inform the person when you leave. Never speak loudly, for they can hear like the others. To move, always guide them, don’t push, he advises.
“What we need is support, not sympathy. So, feel free to compliment or criticise. Don’t isolate us,” Jothi Mani says.
As for the phone booth, it was removed recently, and I hadn’t asked the girl those questions I had meant to. Though I have the answers, the departure of someone who unwittingly became my muse, occasionally upsets me.
W. SREELALITHA
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
