After our needs assessment, we really had to sift through the themes that we were going to work on with the PKSS teachers, while tapping the sectoral expertise of mental health professionals at Meditrina. To start with, we picked up two related sub-topics – learning and behavioural difficulties.
While at this stage it is not fair to ask teachers to identify and handle specific learning disabilities, the idea was to create awareness of why some children learn at a different pace from others – or behave in certain ways. Between July and October 2015, the teachers participated in some truly rich discussions, particularly a case-based session in which they identified students they termed “slow learners.”
Every child has unique talents. Some may need slightly different forms of input and attention from teachers – but all need encouragement. That was one of the beautiful takeaways from the sessions on learning and behaviour.