A Mother’s concern about her child---

This Diwali, I went to meet one of my friend, a very successful businessman and running his own Senior Secondary School, to extend Diwali greetings. His son is studying in one the most reputed schools in the city and the family is proud to acknowledge so. How happy the family was, when his son got selected through a draw system for admission in Prep I, equivalent to LKG. Soon, his academic progress started bothering him and the family. His wife and the grandmother of the child looked quite worried and expressed concern about the inability of the child to perform at par with other children in his class. The mother complained about his slow learning, and not been able to remember the alphabets or numbers. She claims that she tries hard to teach him but the child forgets everything the following day and she has to start again right from the beginning. She got revision assignment sheets from the teacher but the child shows least interest in those papers. The teacher too complained to the mother about his slow progress. The dance teacher told the mother about his inability to remember the steps and was not included in the dance performance put up by the class during the school function

I looked at the child who is as playful as any other normal child. The mother and grandmother expected a remedial measure to correct his learning and develop interest in studies.

I pondered for a while and suggested use of game based teaching. The child likes stories, which all children of his age like. I suggested to use innovative ways to explain concepts, may be story and activity based to attract his maximum attention. The child must feel interested in what he is learning, engaged in what he is doing and happy to work and at the same time challenged to perform and intrinsically rewarded for his new learning. Both the mother and grandmother looked at my face and wondered what kind of methods could they adopt and how can they evolve innovative ways to engage him. They justified doing everything that the teacher told them.

Well, it was the beginning of my further research into what possibly could be the reasons and what more could be done to support the child and the parents in directing effective learning ?

I met the teacher and the head of the Kindergarten in his school, asking what could such parents or the teacher do help the child..

This is a case of desperate parents seeking help to understand real cause of his low pace of learning.

My findings of the case are simple but thought provoking:-

The child in the present case is only 5 years of age. He is playful and has access to all types of toys. He watches cartoon programmes in his free time, which most of the children in present time do. He has every kind of toy with him. Parents being busy are not helping him develop his cognitive processes and letting him experience whatever is exposed to and let the school suggest ways to encourage his engagement. The interest of the child is obviously more in the toys, the TV shows and the games he plays rather in Alphabets or the numbers which are being taught in traditional ways. He is overloaded with information and is perhaps confused what he should really remember.

Then where is the fault. I did talk to another friend of mine, who is a psychiatrist by profession. He put many questions which the parents can only answer better than me:

How is his social behaviour?

How does he react to new things?

Does he break his toys or is destructive by nature?

How are his reflexes to the objects? Slow or fast … and many more such questions…

Well, these are some of the challenges we educators face in our daily routine. I leave this platform open for opinions and suggestions of professionals and educators so that all can benefit from each other’s experiences and learning.

Thanks
J.K.Saini