There are
no chairs, tables, toys or board games. Lessons
take place in narrow corridors. The only dash
of colour on the walls is in the odd chart
or map. But a revolution has struck Devanampattinam
municipal school in the tsunami-hit Cuddalore
district of Tamil Nadu, southern India.
"Now, we treat all children equally," says
class teacher Ms Padmavathy.
To anyone familiar withIndia's overcrowded
government schools, the remark is clearly
radical.
"There are too many children," she says.
"Normally, only the brightest or most talented
pupils get any attention. But the tsunami
has changed everything. Now, we seek out
those who have been affected by the tragedy,
support them emotionally and encourage them
to express themselves."
The catalyst for the dramatic change in
teacher-student dialogue was an intervention
by a local non-governmental organisation
working with the tsunami-hit fishing community.
Since January, the Academy for Disaster
Management, Education, Planning and Training
(Adept) has trained 200 elementary school
teachers in villages in Cuddalore to give
psychological first-aid to children and
restore their confidence in the future.
And there are already positive signs.
At a recent feedback session, a government-school
teacher spoke of her attempts to get a traumatised
six year-old to open up. The boy did not
want to speak, sing, draw or play, so she
took the class to a nearby nursery.
The child's interest was sparked by the
plants and he began to ask questions.
Taking the cue, the teacher bought him
a few saplings. Since then, each day he
has been reporting on the plants' progress
to the teacher, and the teacher tells stories
about flora and fauna surviving in adversity.
Today, the boy is back to his old cheerful
self.
Getting pupils to school again was the
first step back to normality, but in the
early days many teachers did not know how
to deal with grief-stricken children. Unwittingly,
they added to the trauma by asking them
repeatedly about the tragedy in front of
relief workers and journalists.
Today, the problem is not in the classroom
but when they go home and hear their elders
talking about the tsunami to each other.
PJ Amlados, a social trainer for Adept,
says: "Sometimes, the fear and insecurity
return. The teachers want us to work with
the parents as well."
Staffroom
