A Heart to Heart for the Divyang

Are Education and Vidya, synonymous? Education or Shiksha, imparted in schools provides certification, but may or may not lead to learning.

- PRIYA S. TANDON

Vidya refers to knowledge and wisdom. It nurtures the intellect and the soul. Imparting and imbibing Vidya, ensures learning.

A mother knows when her child is hungry, sleepy, tired...because she is connected. A father, while communicating with his child, either squats to the child's level or lifts the child up in his arms. Because for effective communication, there has to be eye-to-eye and heart-to-heart contact. Children express themselves best, to their parents. But after infancy, inevitably they need to move on to the schools.

Schools therefore, need to be cognisant of different kinds of learners and different methodologies of teaching. Different children, learn in different ways and at different paces. Each one of us is born different in looks, colour, height, blood group etc. So too, each one of us is differently wired, in the brain. This is called Neurodiversity, and it is nature's norm.

Only a handful of people understand that specially-abled children or Divyang, are not able to learn and understand by conventional methods of teaching. The norm has been to send them to special schools. But this isolates them, from mainstream life. They miss out on a lot and often end up as social outcasts. The New Education Policy - NEP 2020, recognises that all schools need to be 'inclusive'. This means that school premises, curriculum, teachers and peer mindsets should be adapted and open towards including all kinds of learners.

I work as a volunteer with the Sri Sathya Sai Vidya Vahini (SSSVV). Sri Sathya Sai Vidya Vahini (SSSVV) is a volunteer driven, digital initiative of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust focusing on providing Integral Education to rural schools. The Ministry of Education, invited Sri Sathya Sai Vidya Vahini to create content, fit for inclusive classrooms. We started creating such content in January, 2022. The content created by the volunteers of SSSVV is uploaded to the Prime Minister's DIKSHA Portal.