recent incident of the five HIV-positive children not being allowed to attend classes, Mentor salutes Cover Principal Sujatha Mohandas and Sishu Griha Montessori and High School, Bangalore, for the school’s trend-setting policy of inclusive education.
The historical perspective of education as a tool to train a highly skilled work force is responsible for society’s mindset and the fact that our public school education system is unfriendly towards inclusive education (which brings students with disabilities into the mainstream classroom). Dialogues and media talk shows can go on till kingdom come; however, it is only when someone acts that the social somersault in the right direction can take place. All are benefitted in a classroom which learns to accommodate, tolerate and embrace difference and diversity. That’s what correspondent Jacqueline Olivia Martin discovered as she sat amid that blessed sound of happy children relating to one another, and listened to Mohandas expound on the central principle of her academic convictions.
Self-belief and self-esteem are a student’s greatest allies…
A principal’s greatest calling is to recognize every student as a unique being. To win at anything in life, the greatest battle is within oneself. It’s a principal’s privilege to make every student realize that the weapon to make one win or lose is in the mind; it’s the mental approach that makes a person strong or weak, tough or flabby. If self-esteem and self-recognition is there, then achievement is inevitable. When each child’s uniqueness is identified, and a child’s development is given prime importance, then success, happiness, fulfillment and all other things follow automatically. From a very young age, I realized this. I wanted to build up self-confidence in those who lacked it. My parents were second-generation Bangaloreans and they were amazed at the way I was always gathering people to teach. Our home was in Domlur, and I would be teaching adults who were 40-plus! I considered myself fortunate that I could do my B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) training at St. Anne’s in Hyderabad, which is one of the best, and very difficult to get admission into.
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