Shemrock Blog

This is for Kids who are Different and get Teased,
Those who try their best but can’t get others Pleased.
For when they will eventually Grow, As history does Show,
It’s their differences that will make them a Winner,
And those who ridiculed them will watch them, guilty as a Sinner.

Getting your toddler admitted in a preschool of choice is a challenge in itself and many of us are often left complaining about the trauma that we as parents are put through. But just for a moment, think about those parents who have to seek nursery/preschool admission when a child has some form of mental or physical disability. Such children are often called children with special needs.

Early childhood disabilities are defined as Special Needs and that is exactly how they should be perceived.

For a special child securing admission in a good preschool/playschool or any pre-primary institution is a challenge that we can’t even imagine. In a society that is extremely obsessive about its defects and borders on narcissism when it comes to becoming ‘perfect’ in some way, a special child has only himself and his family to ensure that life isn’t a bed of thorns that others would like him to believe.

However, just every pre-primary school cannot be out-rightly blamed for this problem. It is just that they aren’t well-equipped to handle the requirements of educating a child who has a physical/mental disability and there hasn’t been a strong initiative by the state to ensure that every nursery/preschool makes sure that the school campus can accommodate children with special needs too.

The movie ‘Taare Zameen Par’ beautifully portrayed how insensitive people could be to such children. That movie would have touched a cord with every parent of a ‘defined’ slow learner or a dyslexic child. The scenario gets even worse when admissions are sought for students who are autistic or have some form of facial (or any other very visible physical) deformity. I hope the DoE wakes up and realises that these ‘different’ children deserve every bit of care and love and hence, equal preschooling and schooling opportunities and makes sure that schools aren’t allowed to discriminate against them.

As the image suggests, ‘No Boundaries’ is applicable to every child — with our without any Special Needs.

Those low on motivation to help out their child who presents a ‘perceived’ inadequacy might be inspired by reading ‘The Helen Keller Story’ — it is an amazing real-life story about a young girl who lost both her sight and hearing when she was only two-years old — yes, her family had to witness her being rendered blind and a deaf. Read about how she conquered every crippling misfortune that lay in her path.

Many schools have woken up to the needs of special children in the society. As the number of parents applying for admission for their disabled kids have gone up, schools are waking up to address the issue of disabled children being a part of a regular school.
Many parents over the years have encouraged their disabled children to grow up feeling like a normal person, which off course requires a lot of patience and understanding on their part.
They also expect the school to have the same kind of understanding and patience with the child in order to help them.

In the past a very few cases of normal schools accepting disabled children have come up, but now schools are putting up extra credit points in the marking list for families with disabled children.

Principals from various famous organizations have come forward to comment on the issue and accepting the fact that though they are not a special school they welcome kids with special needs.  Some schools have even gone ahead to have a doctor on the panel to assist in the proper admission and further studies of these children.

A Times of India Story

Seems like Aamir Khan’s effort with Taare Zameen Par has paid off and the schools are waking up to missing element of compassion for kids with disability.