Determined to succeed

ROSHIN GEORGE

Every time secondary school results become front-page news I am reminded of this cartoon of a monkey, penguin, fish, elephant and a couple of other animals being asked to climb a tree so that everyone gets a fair and uniform test. “But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life thinking it is stupid,” says a quote that has been attributed to Albert Einstein, the Nobel Prize winning genius physicist who was not a conventional student and detested rote learning. American scientist and inventor Thomas Alva Edison is widely believed to be another misfit who, in his own words, “was a mentally deficient child whose mother turned him into the genius of the century”. He had been labeled ‘difficult’ in school and was home-schooled by his mother.

As parents, teachers and the media celebrate the results of the CBSE and ICSE Board exams and the high achievers, let us take a moment to clap for the not-so-high and low achievers. They include those who could not apply themselves for various circumstantial reasons and those with special needs.
Of the former, this year we had those affected by the pandemic, riots or domestic issues. Lauding the 98% pass in Delhi government schools, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said: “The 2% of our children who have either failed or have compartments, don’t worry, we are with you, the whole system is with you; we will arrange for extra classes.” To remember and care for those who have failed is the sign of a civilised polity and healthy leadership.

The latter category consists of children with differential needs or learning disabilities who are often dismissed in mainstream classrooms as dunces. Thankfully, the UAE has an effective system to take care of children with special needs (CWSN). The UAE lovingly refers to people with special needs or disabilities as ‘people of determination’ in recognition of their achievements in different fields. Under its National Policy for Empowering People with Special Needs, a person with special needs is defined as “someone suffering from a temporary or permanent, full or partial deficiency or infirmity in his physical, sensory, mental, communication, educational or psychological abilities to an extent that limits his possibility of performing the ordinary requirements as people without special needs”.

The school education system is designed on a one-size-fits-all policy until Grade 10 in most curricula. The higher secondary streams allow children of determination to excel in subjects they have an interest in, and once they enter graduate college they can zero in on subjects that can kindle their curiosity and potential. Like a student of determination from Millennium School Dubai who scored a 99 in his favourite subject, Marketing. His mother remembered how the school had “taken him in and nurtured him when he got a seat there in KG, in 2007, when no one thought of these considerations”, and getting admission to mainstream schools was difficult.

A special educator at a Sharjah school pointed out that SPEA (Sharjah Private Education Authority) and the CBSE provide facilities and options for children with disabilities but convincing parents to accept that a child has a problem is the bigger challenge. She said it is a case of providing equality of opportunity – if three children of different heights are watching a football match over a wall, the ones who are shorter need to be given a platform to help them view it better. CBSE provides CWSN the facility of a scribe, flexibility in choosing subjects, compensatory time and so on depending on the exact nature of the disability. There is the need for identification of the problem by teachers as well as acceptance and cooperation from parents, she said.

In 2007, when Aamir Khan brought up the issue of dyslexia in the movie Taare Zameen Par, a few teachers dismissed it as nonsensical. Awareness about dyslexia has increased since then, but often some Indian parents limit CWSN to dyslexic ones. There is a whole spectrum of disorders and disabilities which if detected at the right time can do wonders to a child’s well-being and holistic development.

Every child is special; every parent can be too. Why should scholastic knowledge be weighed in terms of marks when you are just 15 or 16? Every parent would do well to remember Kahlil Gibran’s verses: “Your children are not your children / They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself…. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you/ For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.” They are all stars on earth; let us not kill the spark in them by forcing them to fulfil our aspirations and dreams.