Mathru School - Observing, Absorbing, and Interacting

On 13^th November, Sandhya and I went to visit Mathru School in Yelahanka. We observed the 9^th standard children learning about Gandhi’s non-violence beliefs in Kannada. They write an incredible speed! Braille follows a 6 dot system, and the tool used to write braille are very unique. One is a slate, which has rows of rectangular windows on the top sheet, and rows of 6 holes on the bottom. Thick paper or several layers of thin paper is placed between the top, and bottom sheet. The kids then used a sharp stylus-pen to punch holes and write their learning. They rewuire both hands while writing, one to feel the slate as the stylus moves across, or to use more force on the stylus to write faster.  As the holes get punched through and through, the kids wrote only on the write hand side. It was curious to see that they were righting from right to left. When I asked them later, they explained that they write from right to left but read from left to right since the pages get turned after puncturing.

Nagamini, Hans, Ganaraj, Satish, and Srinivas were the five kids we interacted with on that day. It’s truly inspirational to see how ambitious they are. Mathru school stops teaching Science and Mathematics to children after primary school. A small discussion made us believe that it must be difficult to teach science to the visually impaired without the aid of numerous diagrams. The kids are still thirsty to learn more about the sciences, and make full use of their school library to do so. These children were so smart and happy – it was a joy to get to spend some time with them.

Thoughts:

If I didn’t understand something when the teacher was teaching, I would read it then and there to clarify my doubts. Here, the children were listening intently to write every word that the teacher dictated carefully. They don’t seem to pause to ask doubts or re-read they’re written text to clarify doubts.  The lesson was being taught in Kannada so I couldn’t figure out how well they were absorbing the lesson.

A friend of mine is working on a project, and asked me the core question behind his idea. “What did you feel insecure about when you were a teenager?” My issues were trivial ones, and mostly influenced by trends that my friends followed or that I saw on TV. It made me wonder what what kind of insecurities these happy 9^th graders might have. They live in Mathru school for atleast 10 months with minimal exposure to teenagers outside their school. What must they feel apprehensive about?

When I was in school, me and my friends would make up code languages to pass messages to each other during class. It would be interesting to know whether the children at Mathru have similar.