Recently on Parentree I have seen a bunch of parents asking for schools that are willing to enroll their children.
Hyderabad is city that has over 2903 Private — Budget friendly schools, over 46 International schools boasting of vast playgrounds, holistic education, a variety of curricular and extra curricular activties, talented and highly qualified teachers. Apart from these, the Telangana government has done a phenomenal job at raising the standards of government school education drastically. I can say this after speaking some wonderful youth, at a village, speaking flawless English and they were able to hold long interesting conversation on various topics like the politics, history of the Scheduled castes, visions for their future etc.
Naturally, one would assume it is easy to find a school that suits your pocket and your needs. Its one thing that parents have this constant guilt that they are not doing enough for their children. But if you remove that guilt for one second. It shouldn’t be so hard for a parent to find a school for their child.
Naturally when I was looking at these posts prior to Covid, the private schools in existence then, was higher, lead me to wonder why do these parents have to ask others these questions?
Isn’t education meant for “everyone”. All children need to attend school. So why did we come up with special schools? In a world where women are fighting for equality, who is fighting for children with special needs? Why do they not have the same access the schools’ playground, or the piano class in an international school, what every extra currricular activties that his or her sibling has access to?
If I had a sibling that is considered to have special needs wouldn’t I want to be the one shows them how the world works? Instead of keeping them in the dark and apart from me? Would this kind of approach help my sibling and I to live in realistic world? Where there are EQUAL opportunities for everyone. If that is what we are pushing for, because that is the more relastic approach to life. Why not start it as a child?
I would want to see a world where all teachers work in the same school and all children go to the same school. And there are no differences for “normal” children and “special needs” children. They are all children and parents should just want to love them, and the job of teachers is to ensure a student learns however they can. Do away with all the jokes and scolding such as “4 eyes”, “adha ho kya?” “bhera ho kya?” etc. These are not cool jokes to crack anymore. We become cool by opening our door, breaking barriers, building ramps and floor for the visually challenged.
Excuse the passionate vomit of words and thoughts. But the dream is to refine this communication, so much that one day it looks like a set of SOPs to set up a school that welcomes everyone and ensures a safe environment to learn and mostly creates an atmosphere of love.