Manju and I just got back from doing a workshop in Delhi for a group of teachers who have just been recruited for a school about to open – it’s called Step by Step and it is to be a fully inclusive place. It was a wonderful experience. The teachers are young, bright and full of excitement about what they are doing – AND a little nervous too. How would they manage with so many children with special needs in their classrooms?
I told them something I learned in a recent article about Dr P K Sethi, the “Jaipur Foot Doctor” who died on Jan 6th. Dinesh Mohan, an old friend, wrote the essay. He said Dr Sethi used to attend conferences and seminars on disability all over the country and at every one, people would moan and groan about the enormity of the problem and say how India was a poor country and we really couldn’t expect to solve it.

His advice, which he apparently repeated at every opportunity, was to stop looking at the issue in its totality, and especially to stop thinking of people with disability as THE DISABLED. He said that way, they remain faceless and overwhelming. Instead, he suggested, think about the two or three people in every village who have special needs. Every village can take care of two or three people. It’s not even a big deal.

The teachers got the point. Two or three children with special needs in their classrooms are really just two or three more children. They’re teachers! Teaching children is what they do!