100 Happy Days: Day 61 Training Children in Pre-Vocational Activity

Happiness is when the child learns the task you were trying to teach.

People ask me what can we possibly teach special children? Well, there are hundreds of things MR child can do. He may not be able to read and write but if trained from early childhood, he can be trained in various vocational skills that will help him improve his eye-hand co-ordination. The training starts from early age.

Teacher demonstrated the technique of placing bamboo sticks side by side, then asked the children to do the same. You would think that child may not have understood or not bothered to notice. But when their turn came, they were able to do the task successfully, some needed help but many were able to do it independently.

There is a sense of achievement when the child learns the task you were trying to teach him.

So here I am, with the project of ‘100 Happy Days’I am posting pictures each day here on my blog then sharing the link on my page on FB too. You can enjoy my work either here or on my page at FB at Pushee’s World

Conducted a workshop for teachers on “Creative Teaching for Special Children’

It's been such a long time since I last taught the classroom of kids, so when the principal of ‘Swami Brahmanand Pratishthan’ suggested that I hold a workshop for her teachers on ‘Creative Teaching for Special Children’, I was hesitant in taking up such a task, fearful that I would make a fool of moi…but refusing this request would also make me a fool, so I opted to go ahead and plunge into this challenge.


The research was necessary to brush up my knowledge and study the latest trends, times have changed and the methods of teaching that were used during my days (15 years ago) are now outdated. I prepared a lesson plan, made some print-outs of the latest trends in teaching and on the day of the workshop, I faced the group of 12 teachers, highly charged to share my wee bit of knowledge.

On the topic of ‘Day of Christmas’ I involved the teachers from first sentence itself, asking them what ideas came to their mind when they thought of Christmas, how they would exploit it and how they would put across their message to the kids who had limited understanding and may not be able to grasp the point, like every other normal child.

The mental age of the student and their capacity to function physically and mentally are very important while planning activities for such children. Every idea has to be explained clearly and in details, nothing should be taken for granted. The lesson plan always follow the procedure from known to unknown as KWL (K-what I know, W-what I want to know, L-What I learnt). Each idea has to be explained from different angles, to arrive at the same point. If possible, all the sense organs should be used to send across your message. Recap is important to understand the grasping power of the child. Your lesson plan is a success, if he answers your query, three times in a row, correctly. Planning the activities related to the lesson is also very important and it enhances your lesson plan.

Next, I divided twelve teachers into four groups and gave them two hours to prepare a lesson plan giving them one object each. Group one had a large ‘toy truck’; group two had a ‘telephone’; group three had an ‘apple’ and group four had a set of ‘pant and shirt’.

Two hours later, we met again, teachers armed with a new lesson plan.

I was pleasantly surprised with the ideas they came up with. We had lots of discussion and debates on their lesson plan, suggesting pros and cons of the methods used and everybody was willing to share their experience.

The group with ‘toy truck’ made a lesson plan on an action word called ‘Push’ using toy truck to push. In her activities, she would include children (asking them to push) to send across her message.

The group two decided to teach the children to dial the correct number. They made a teaching aid with the help of sponge and big- numbers on the cardboard and would teach the children to press the collect number.

Group three wanted to cut the apple and make the children eat and then give them the activities of coloring or matching the different fruits and how they differ from apple.

Group four would teach the children how to fold the clothes.

Although all of them came back with bright ideas, I was surprised that none of them had thought of using computer as a teaching medium. Computer is such an important teaching medium in these times and its capacity of sight, sound and action can be used to show so many things. The last session of the workshop was spent in showing them how computers can be used as the medium of instruction even for the children with mental handicap.

It was day well spend and my greatest reward was when one of the teachers came silently to me and shook my hand, thanking me and asked if I could conduct such workshops more often.

Voluntary work done Involuntarily

My FB friend posts a link that says….. Mozilla Service - Want to Help Source: mozillaservice.org If we can make a browser that makes the Web better, just imagine what we can do for our local communities. Equipped with a group of committed, energized, service-minded individuals and a belief in the open web, there's no limit on how far we can reach! It states that Mozilla for coming up with this idea. From the site: "During the week of September 14-21, you can make a serious difference in your local community. Here are just a few ideas of ways you can help: * Teach senior citizens how to use the Web. * Show a non-profit how to use social networking to grow its base of supporters. * Help install a wireless network at a school. * Create Web how-to materials for a library's computer cluster. * Refurbish hardware for a local computer center. * Update a non-profit organization's website. * Teach the values of the open Web to other public benefit organizations." Thinking back, I can proudly say that I have done all of the above services in my free time. My free time is my time away from my reading, writing, handicraft, art, painitng, entertaining my family and friends and travelling. People often ask me what do I do and I often say ‘Nothing in particular’. The problem with me is that I cannot sit idle, not even for a minute. Am I bragging if I discussed what I actually do with my time? Well, I have taught seniors, children, maids and housewife the use of net, how to operate it, how to surf for information and how to send e-mails and they have been quite grateful to me and the payment I get in return for this service is the beautiful smile they give me, when ever they see me passing by and I am grateful for that. I regularly go to school (at Belapur, CBD) for mentally challenged, which is two hours away from my house (I live in Bandra), I click their pictures and update their blog, and maintaining this blog has been very useful to school. Many people are willingly to be associated with this school because they are sure it is real and not a fictional institution. On festival days, food is sponsored for these children, sometimes, from as far away as Spain, the proof that their money was spent on children for food only, is shown in pictures on the blog and this encourages people to donate more help. The children are always enjoying the feast and are happy to come to school. I maintain two blogs: http://sbp-pushpa.blogspot.com/ is the blog of the school where I blog about the activities at school keeping the parents and the well wishers updated with the school. This has been of great help to the school, because people want to be associated with the school that shows so much progress. The other blog http://arushi-sbp.blogspot.com/ is mainly for teachers and parents to help them understand the problems of dealing with mentally challenged. I write about the various diseases, methods of dealing with them, and the facilities provided for mentally challenged. I prefer to stay focused on just one institution so that I am able to help out just one particular group of people. I seek neither recognition nor any awards for this voluntary work (I am camera shy so I never give interviews) and do it just for my own interest. It gives me immense pleasure to extend my time and support in this little contribution that I am able to make. Actually speaking, the rewards are very satisfying because I would otherwise be bored, doing just nothing in my free time.