Shree Rakum school , Indranagar , Bangalore is a residential school offering free education for the underprivileged and the blind . They have a wide range of students from the age group of 5 to 22 .The school is mostly functioning on donations given to them in any form.
On the first day at the school we met Mrs Vasantha who was managing head of the school . I could sense the feeling of how she was trying to secure their kids just by the questions she asked us about our purpose of visit. She then offered us an opportunity to sit and observe the IAS students while their lectures went on . At first I had several assumptions which made me nervous. I had several questions in my head about how the students would react to the unknown , would their behavior change , would they be awkward , would they get offended by any of our gestures etc . However as the class began i realized they had no fear . It felt like they had taken their blindness as a boon and ignored our presence and continued just the way they did everyday. This just marked this one particular point in my head where i could see a clear difference between the sighted and the non sighted . I realized the beauty of not being able to see .
One more particular idea that striked my head was " writing on the written" . The students were using newspaper bound books as their notebooks . It felt strange to see someone writing on something that already was filled with words and sentences . But!! this was everything for them . Something that we would consider to be scrap was everything to them .
The next lecture that we attended was a math lecture which just blew my mind off . Initially i thought their teachers would do the calculations for them but what i saw was just brilliant . While the teacher was reading out the question i started righting down the sums and solving them along with the blind students . I was shocked to see how these students could announce the answers much before i could get there . I felt these students weren't blind , instead they had other senses which were just unbelievably powerful .
After the math lecture we got sometime to interact with these students .We spoke to them about their daily routines and about the subjects they were studying . They seemed to be quite inquisitive about us and where we came from and what we did . They also seemed to know a lot about the everything beyond their world . They seemed to be living a normal life just as us.
On the second day there was program conducted for the kids for children s day .Here i particularly decided to notice the interaction of the kids with space and people around . It was nice to see how each one of the blind kid had a buddy and how everyone was supportive and ready to help . I also noticed how they marked their space and knew exactly where to turn and where to go . They used numbers and counted every step that they walked to analyse the space. It was shocking to see how they could sense the presence of the number of people around them .
I could see the amount of respect these students had . They were extremely well mannered and respected and valued everything and everyone around them. We thought indulging these students in some sort of creativity other than what they would normally do in school would unfold new pathways for them . I got a very broad idea about how their lives work and how it could function with just subtle changes as well . I think going back to the school and engaging myself with the school teachers and spending some more time with the students in order to get better details would work good . Looking forward to our visit on Saturday!
On the first day at the school we met Mrs Vasantha who was managing head of the school . I could sense the feeling of how she was trying to secure their kids just by the questions she asked us about our purpose of visit. She then offered us an opportunity to sit and observe the IAS students while their lectures went on . At first I had several assumptions which made me nervous. I had several questions in my head about how the students would react to the unknown , would their behavior change , would they be awkward , would they get offended by any of our gestures etc . However as the class began i realized they had no fear . It felt like they had taken their blindness as a boon and ignored our presence and continued just the way they did everyday. This just marked this one particular point in my head where i could see a clear difference between the sighted and the non sighted . I realized the beauty of not being able to see .
One more particular idea that striked my head was " writing on the written" . The students were using newspaper bound books as their notebooks . It felt strange to see someone writing on something that already was filled with words and sentences . But!! this was everything for them . Something that we would consider to be scrap was everything to them .
The next lecture that we attended was a math lecture which just blew my mind off . Initially i thought their teachers would do the calculations for them but what i saw was just brilliant . While the teacher was reading out the question i started righting down the sums and solving them along with the blind students . I was shocked to see how these students could announce the answers much before i could get there . I felt these students weren't blind , instead they had other senses which were just unbelievably powerful .
After the math lecture we got sometime to interact with these students .We spoke to them about their daily routines and about the subjects they were studying . They seemed to be quite inquisitive about us and where we came from and what we did . They also seemed to know a lot about the everything beyond their world . They seemed to be living a normal life just as us.
On the second day there was program conducted for the kids for children s day .Here i particularly decided to notice the interaction of the kids with space and people around . It was nice to see how each one of the blind kid had a buddy and how everyone was supportive and ready to help . I also noticed how they marked their space and knew exactly where to turn and where to go . They used numbers and counted every step that they walked to analyse the space. It was shocking to see how they could sense the presence of the number of people around them .
I could see the amount of respect these students had . They were extremely well mannered and respected and valued everything and everyone around them. We thought indulging these students in some sort of creativity other than what they would normally do in school would unfold new pathways for them . I got a very broad idea about how their lives work and how it could function with just subtle changes as well . I think going back to the school and engaging myself with the school teachers and spending some more time with the students in order to get better details would work good . Looking forward to our visit on Saturday!
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