Inclusion at Jyoti Sroat School – Shillong

In this film, let’s hear from principal Larisa and teachers at Bethany Society’s Jyoti Sroat Inclusive School in Shillong who share what it truly means to teach in a classroom where every child learns differently!
From adapting lessons on the fly to building trust with children who communicate in their own ways, we hear about the challenges and quiet rewards of inclusive education. This film offers a window into a kind of teaching that can ask more of educators, but gives back in ways a conventional classroom never could.
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Subtitles for Teachers at Bethany Jyoti Sroat Complete Oct 23

Uhh… My name is Larisa Nongspung.

I am the principal of the school.

Jyoti Sroat School, Bethany Society, is an inclusive school, where we believe all children can learn and we have children with and without disabilities studying together.

And we also cater to children from vulnerable groups, from disadvantaged groups and so on, and, uh, of course diverse cultures and, and uh..you… region and so on.

So… we, we follow exclusively the board, the the the state board what we call M Board, Meghalaya State Board and we do also run simultaneously another educational programmes like Open School and IOS and OBE recently… and…umm, we we do also a, uhh, focus so much on on, on the, you know, the capacity building of the teachers, in order to cater to all these children, so…we believe that continuous learning, it, it’s is for everyone.

And we also believe that ummm, unless we learn, we relearn and we unlearn, you know nothing can, can help us to be professional.

So there are many questions many people keep asking us, how do you do this?

Because, uhh, the ratio in, in our school it, it’s uh it’s 1 to 20, how do we, we manage the, the inclusive classroom, many of the visitors, and, and other teachers from mainstream, they keep asking us.

I think, lately it’s, uhh, we we follow UDL principles, you know, the multiple means of…

And we also believe, like designing the lesson help us to cater.

And while designing we also keep in mind, you know, knowing each child, “Know your child” that is our uh main focus.

So we know each children and how do we do that when we have 20 children?

You know, we are not syllabus driven and we do take time to get to know the each child you know in in in 2 week’s time or even one month’s time.

We, we take time we we talk to them, we ask we converse with them, and then then, we know the learning style and so on.

So, accordingly we, we we design our lessons with the help of UDL and also of course technology.

And and we also focus on promoting digital literacy, with the help of Benetech, which is another organisa…US based organisation, they support us with technology, with expertise and also Mjunction, Kolkata.

So this make us possible, to make our school digitalized so, our children learns digital right from nursery till class 12 till higher secondary and 9 to 12 they even give exams using digital so, we we we believe that technology enhance learning, it it also helps teachers, you know to be confident and especially teaching concepts to children.

We do face a lots of challenges and everyday we try to overcome this, to identify where are the barriers because having children with with with you know, diverse learning needs and so on, it’s not easy, because we do have also children like autistic and so on, who who are you know, their behaviours and so on…

How to work with them, it’s a bit challenge, but umm, you know I think it’s the attitude, we we we try to make adjustment and so on.

There are children who cannot sit in one class for, for 20 minutes, so we are very very flexible, again our keyword is “flexibility”.

It’s alright for a child to lie down on the floor and then listen, you know, as long as liste… uh learning takes place we don’t care.

We are not bothered, some child he lies down and he listen, he went up and down you know of the room, out and in of the class room, and uhhh, as long as learnings takes place these things don’t bother us.

And we are very flexible, we believe also that a sad child will never learn, a sick child will never learn, also a hungry child.

So we focus on this as well.

And lately we also focus so much on SEL you know, Social Emotional Learning.

We do have a curriculum for that but uuhh, we don’t make it so visible but we incorporate with the different subject teaching, so 5 minute to 7 minutes it is focused you know on the Social Emotional Learning of each child, you know, keeping in mind all the you know, the, what is happening around us, and also we do have a separate session for these children.

Like, it’s not like all children, yes of course they are inside the classroom, but still, we don’t agree to the fact that each child need some space to learn, so we did take them out for sometime, you know, to learn concept, again we bring them to the class for all activities.

And another challenge is also with with the system because our children now, they they are ready for digital, to give exams and so on, especially students with visual impairment, they are so capable that that, you know sometimes we forgot that they are, they are blind.

And during our first exam, when we look at their answer script they send to us through mails and so on, everything was perfect, the spellings, the concept, and we thought, oh we are great teachers but actually they go to the Google, they copy and paste and their teachers they said, you know, “ma’am look at our children they are cheating”, so we said okay, put off the Wi…the the the, this thing, the Wi-Fi, next day through bluetooth again.

The most intelligent, the rest don’t do anything, the most intelligent writes his exam and pass on.

So, again like this so, children are mischievous no matter what, but we do we we channelize them and then we monitor of course.

We allow each child from class 7 or 5 or whatever to bring mobiles to the school.

But we do monitor them, with the help of Benetech we are able to central locking their devices so that we can monitor which… which apps to be there you know, to download unnecessary things and all and stop them from doing that.

And… and we don’t focus so much on textbooks as well and now all the textbooks is in the cloud and uhhh, this help us a lot to save paper, to save time especially for visually impaired and even to to save money because uhh… to print Braille textbook is so expensive.

But with the help of digital all the books is in the cloud.

Not only textbook that they read, even other books and our children are so happy because they can access encyclopedias, they can access general knowledge, other books more than textbook and who love to reach you know, to read the subjects actually but but so our children can access all of this.

But now our main challenge is with the system, because when we look at the new patterns of of you know framing the question papers, lots of of passages were given, in all the subjects, and 2, 3 pages, and it takes a lot of time for our teachers to transcribe them into Braille.

So we do ask from them soft copy they said, “at the moment we don’t have” and and the system, it’s not yet ready to to to to have this, like our children can go there and write the exam using digital literacy but we are working and and but they are very flexible.

The the examination centres are flexible, they allow our children to, you know, go out have some snack and come back and write exam.

That’s what uh 2 3 ASD children from our school they cleared the board exams, now they are in colleges, because these centres also are flexible.

It’s just a matter of communication. We went and talked to them you know prior to the exam 2 3 times and so on.

Yeah, you know initially when when we start inclusion in our school, there is lot of of you know hesitation from the part of the parents and so on, “how how my child will study in this school and you know they have this children with with disability” and so on, but lately actually children are the one who accommodate you know, more than the adults.

You know, some of our children don’t even think that their their companion is is…deaf or blind or whatever,

There is one scene where a child with locomotor who has an amputated leg, she has got this you know, artificial leg, she came out with with… on the shoulders of two three children and we ask how… where…where is your leg? She said, My leg is behind.

So this tells us like children don’t don’t segregate anything, they don’t discriminate.

So, in fact, children without disability they learn a lot to adjust, to respect other human beings, to see that even these children can learn and and they feel the same you know, there is lot of self esteem improving even the children without disability because they come through very difficult background, from disadvantaged group of the society, so actually their self esteem has improved and then they start to believe in themself, you know if my co, my my peers can do this even I can do much better.

So automatically it build their self esteem and they become very very, you know helpful.

And their attitude towards life has improve, and they start believing in themselves, believing in others, respecting and so on.

Even in the nursery classes we do have 7 to 8 children without disability.

Parents of children without any disability they say, “please enroll our children here”.

So this year around 8 or 9 children we got in nursery in KG and Class 1 which is I think it’s a… there is lot of change and in attitude of the parents and of people around.

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My Name is Aiboklang Sohtun and I’m a person with deafblindness.

I have been working here for the last 12 years.

Teaching in uhhh uhhh uhh inclusive classroom is very tough, uhh, because we cannot go inside classroom without preparation.

So we have to prepare teaching aids, we have to prepare…. our lesson plan.

We have to, we we have to download pictures.

We have to bring real objects and we have to, we have to modify our lesson plan so that it will it will will it’ll it will will fit in in, it will fit in every students’ requirement. So for that we have to make preparation.

We can’t enter the classroom without own preparation.

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Good afternoon everyone, my name is Priyanka, Priyanka Bawri and I am working as an assistant lecturer in Jyoti Sroat School.

Uh… It has been uh three and a half years that I have been teaching here and um.. I am the class teacher of Class 11.

I started working in the year 2021 when I joined here as a visiting faculty for standard 11th and 12th.

Uh… it was uh quite an experience working here because uh my classroom is is quite a diverse classroom because uh I cater to needs of different children um who are uh visually impaired, who are low vision, who are hearing impaired, then there are some kids with uh cerebral palsy as well uh kids with intellectual disability, so each of these uh kids have their own needs, (clears throat) diverse needs.

Now as a teacher uh my main focus is to make sure that these kids uh kids probably learn uh the basics of what is being taught in the class.

I I don’t emphasize on rote learning and bookish learning and this and that but I emphasize on topics which are very uh uh current topics you know, which are, which are around the world and I try and relate it to their curriculum as well uh because the, because the subject curriculum cannot be left completely as uh my students are appearing for board exams.

So being the class teacher of class 11, I have around 17 students and out of which I have a lot of students who are hearing impaired.

Now how do I teach these kids who are hearing impaired is with the help of a sign language interpreter.

So she’s constantly there, not just with me, but also with the other subject teachers, like we have various subjects like political science, education, sociology, English is there, history being my subject and uh together as a subject teacher we work with the uh sign language interpreter who help and sign uh the the topic, the relevant definitions and so on and forth for these uh hearing impaired students.

And uh with regards to the blind uh students that we have uh visually impaired students.

In Jyoti Sroat School, we are also integrating technology uh uh with learning and how are we doing that, we are making use of our Android devices so we also have uh something called the TalkBack uh the screen reader and so many other things that facilitates learning for the blind students and that has made my job as a teacher also very uh very easy.

Being this, uhh a history teacher, I have to make use of that uh the the Dolphin EasyReader, which is a very good app for the blind students.

I I try to make sure that it’s a very supportive environment.

As a teacher, I believe in no discrimination. I believe not in my pace of teaching but I believe in the students’ pace of learning, how much they can learn, how much they can take within a span of 45 minutes.

And again, rote learning is something that I would not prefer.

I would rather scaffold a lot of definitions and concepts so that it remains with them for a long period of time.

So, uh, something that they can reproduce uh uh in their own words.

So, that is how uh things are in my classroom.

And I I just wish that the students uh learn the very best and move on with confidence.

Uh since I teach in an inclusive school, um, I try and make sure that there is a balance in teaching uh uh kids with disabilities and the kids without disabilities.

Now how am I teaching them?

I uh try and give them group projects.

Uh projects, little little projects can be allotted to the students in the classroom.

And uh one thing it’s it’s it’s very interesting to see that how uh the students with no disabilities are trying to make sure that their friends are also integrated well into the project, the classroom projects.

If there are discussions, debates and quizzes that that is happening, so much of uh support is is what they provide to one another.

And uh when it comes to the students with no disabilities, I think they have been very patient.

And I’m not saying this because I have to say, but this is what I have seen in three years of teaching that I’ve not seen the kids get restless uh that the teacher is teaching the same thing over and over again or maybe she’s making the class boring or things like that, but I’ve had students who come up to me and say that, “miss we can help so and so with this topic, uh we can do this for them”.

And I think that, that is a very good team spirit in the classroom that has been uh uh prevalent among the students and uh therefore I enjoy teaching them and being with them and there’s so much to learn from them as a teacher as well.

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Uh, I have been teaching here for the last 23 years.

Uh I am a class teacher of Class 8 at Jyoti Sraot School.

So uh, you know I would like to start with uh saying that the I, I have a class of 20 students where uhh… five of them are with a disability and 15 of them are non-disabled.

Uh four of them are with visually impaired and one is with moderate ID (intellectual disability)

So you know, like uh in an inclusive classroom we, we some uh teachers in the regular schools believe that they are not be they are not able to do it because uh of the lack of training, because they fear that they wont uh be, be able to cope with you know, or give their best to the other students but uh I would like to you know, uh say that it can be possible if you have uh, you know uh, if you have an admission of lesser students in your class.

So they have uh we have different levels of uh you know, abilities of the children in the classroom.

I also believe that if we give our best as teachers the students can also, you know, try their level best with their own abilities and capacities, they will try by themselves also and they’ll give their best.

So what do we do in the classroom is uh for the whole year we do an assessment for the children.

So it is uh basically it is a formative assessment and in, after the end of the year we have summative assessment.

So basically what we do is we assess the child whether he’ll be able to be promoted to the other level or not because uh in the other level we know that the students has to appear for the board exams when they reach higher classes, secondary and high secondary classes.

So at the end of the year when we have the summative uh you know uh assessment the child is being assessed and if the child is able to do well in his academics uh he or she is being promoted to the secondary level, but if the child is not able to do, so what we do is we give him preferences or, or suggestions to you know, to go or to do any kinds of trainings, either you know uh like skill trainings like computer or bakery then tailoring or craft making or we can ask him to do the NIOS course.

The academics that we do here is the state board, so children you know they, we we we go along with the State board of Meghalaya so the students learn uh you know, the concepts, the contents of the state board and examination is done in that way where we set the question paper of 80 marks on theory and 20 on internals.

So, students in my class, they sit along together, they are very friendly, they help one another and we don’t have any discrimination between them.

We are, we, you know, we basically what I do in my class is, I ask the you know, the children who are quite intelligent to sit along with the other students so that they can help the students who are weaker that is how I make them sit in the classroom and like this I feel like they are you know, be able to be together, they’ll be able to help one another and if anyone is having any you know, any difficulties especially in maths and sciences, so the, the intelligent ones can help the other who are weak.

We have an uh you know, an inclusive lesson plan that we all follow in the, in the school uh which is incorporated with the UDL principles and you uh also we, we promote digital literacy in the classroom where students are you know, given choices to write the exams and we you know, we give them choice like, if they want to write in Braille they can do it, if they want to do in you know, in computers they can do, they can give the exams on it.