Reforming the Normative Child in School: A Glimpse at the Existing Notion of Normative Child

Going back in memories of school days is so amazing and refreshing for me always. The neatly dressed, disciplined girls and boys in the assembly, the obedient students during the classes, the noisy classrooms in lunch-break, the dirty clothes in games period, the friends who fought while playing, going back home hand in hand at the end of the day, all these are just a part of those beautiful recollections.

Since I performed well in academics, teachers always encouraged me to do better and appreciated when I succeeded. I come from a well-to-do family so I never faced any financial hindrance in accessing the best possible resources for studying. I studied in a private English medium school and having decent English communication skills helped me in clarifying my doubts in class as well as outside class from my teachers. I was inactive in extra-curricular activities but that never bothered me and my teachers because for them (and that time, for me too) studying and scoring good marks was more important than anything else. I can say that my school days were really wonderful and one of the best part of my life. But how many people have such good experiences to share when we ask them about their school life? Not many actually.

    

The description that I just gave about my experience in school will be similar to anyone else’s who is called a “normative child”. For the society, a normative child is one who is not bound by any religion, caste, class and cultural boundaries to make attempts for and reach his/her destination. S/he does not have to face discrimination on the basis of the above mentioned factors and is not looked down upon by society for such reasons. A normative child does not have any disability which may become an obstacle in his/her way of success and affect his complete life. S/he has a social status which is acceptable and considered as legitimate by the society. His/her language is the language of the dominant section of that particular region. This concept of normative child rules the schools in every society across the globe and deeply affects the lives of children from both the sides, i.e., normative and those who are not so.

 

School has a structured way of functioning right from the management committee to the classrooms. It has its own set of rules and regulations which are to be followed by teachers and students alike. Whereas teachers become the instructors and decision-makers of the rules at one point of time, students are always at the receiving end. In a classroom, it depends on the teacher how s/he treats and looks at children who come from various backgrounds. This also decides how children will behave with each other.

    

A child who comes from a low-socioeconomic background often faces discrimination at school by teachers and peers both. Poverty is one of the main reasons for which s/he is not considered equal to her/his economically more-advantaged counterparts. The teachers neglect him/her which leads to less intellectual stimulation. These children already face many adversities at home such as family conflicts, violence, less family support, crowded and noisy vicinity along with unhygienic environment. This has a negative impact on their minds and the ill-treatment meted out to them at school makes a permanent damage to their personal as well as professional lives.

  

Caste is another factor which affects the way a child is looked upon at in school. A lower caste child is vulnerable to unjust practices in school as well as outside the school. We are not unaware of the truth that still in many parts of India children belonging to lower caste are made to do odd jobs such as cleaning school playground and toilets. They are not allowed to sit with children from upper caste in class and many of them are considered as untouchables. In urban areas, the discrimination takes a sophisticated form. They are not given equal opportunities in classroom participation and extra-curricular activities. Their achievements are neither appreciated nor encouraged by the teachers. They start feeling that the teachers do not expect anything from them and they gradually stop making efforts and fall behind their peers in academics too. I have seen teachers who used to refer children by their caste such as “chamar, kunbhi”, etc. This not only embarrassed that child but also made him believe that his caste is a stigma and a shameful identity with which he has to live in the society.

One more section of children who are segregated by the society and in particular schools are the ones who belong to minority communities such as immigrant labourers and industrial workers living in slums. These children are in the worst condition because of cultural conflicts too. The place which they come from has different tradition, customs and most important language. They are not able to identify themselves with the culture they are taught about in school. The curriculum plays an important role in emphasizing the status of a particular caste, ethnicity and religion. Many biases are present in textbooks and learning materials. Among these biases are showing the people from second-language minority, women and low-income individuals in a pathetic state. The school’s attitudes towards diversity can be easily seen from the composition of staff and students both.

Children who are unable to speak the language being used in school are unconsciously alienated by teachers and other children. The language that children from minority groups speak at home is sometimes thought of as impure by the native-language speakers. They slowly start learning the second language and try to reduce the use of their mother tongue just because others do not respect it. Apart from second language, now English has become a necessity for communication in schools. Children from low socioeconomic status find it difficult to grasp and teachers instead of helping them, humiliate them and consequently these children fail to understand anything in class.

There is abundant literature about the inequality faced by students who are not economically strong and those who come from a lower caste. But we often keep ignoring the difficulties that children with special needs come across in schools. It is the need of the hour to give attention to this issue especially when we are now talking about inclusive education in schools. These disabilities can be classified as learning disabilities, mental retardation, sensory disorders, speech and language disorders, autism spectrum disorder, etc.

A child with learning disability has difficulty in learning that involves understanding or using written or spoken language and the difficulty can appear in listening, reading, and writing. Such children when taught in regular classrooms without extensive support and care fail to achieve the level of competence with even low achieving children of the same class. The teachers are often quick to label children with slight learning problem as having a learning disability instead of recognizing that the problem may lie in their ineffective teaching. Many of these children with a bit of assistance can grow up to lead normal lives but the insensitivity of teachers sometimes badly affects their lives.

Children with mental retardation actually lack age-appropriate skills in learning and caring for themselves. But because of their different physical appearance, people think of them as mentally ill and behave with them badly. Insensitivity of teachers towards such children makes it worse and encourages other children to ill treat them. This is the reason parents of these children do not wish to send them to regular schools and finally not giving them formal education at all. Children with visual or hearing impairment already have a challenge to overcome their disability. Visually impaired children have to depend on their touch and hearing to learn while those with hearing impairment have trouble in developing normal speech and language. Teachers do not prefer having such children in their classrooms so that they do not have to make special efforts for them and give more time to them. This rejection at the very first step of schooling leaves so many children hopeless with family being the only source of learning. 

Children having speech disorders such as problem in correct pronunciation of words and stuttering can be helped at a very early stage if teachers can recognize the problem. But this does not happen and instead teachers become intolerant of them making them more anxious and afraid of their disability. Language disorder like impairment in understanding a language and in expressing one’s thoughts can cause serious learning problems and in this case also teachers can quickly diagnose it from the child’s way of communicating but for this they need to be sensitized first.

Children, who are gifted, have above average intelligence and are superior in some domain such as art, music, mathematics, etc. Teachers tend to give more work to them instead of giving them work which is more challenging. These children get bored in the classroom as they already know about what is being taught or are fast in grasping concepts than their classmates. S/he also feels socially isolated being the only one in class who has no opportunity to learn things which can nurture her/his talent. Teachers feel that they need not be given any attention as they are ‘intelligent’ and do not make sure if they have really understood everything. Slowly such students start skipping classes and lose interest in achieving thus becoming apathetic toward school.

Here it is also important to mention about the children who are not considered normative because of their family problems. A child whose parents are separated or divorced is sometimes treated with sympathy and sometimes humiliation but not normally. A child whose father is unemployed, a drunkard or a criminal comes across insulting comments almost everywhere. S/he is made to feel so bad that the child does not want to socialize at all. An HIV positive child is one of the worst sufferers of such unjust treatment in school. Teachers instead of sensitizing other children about AIDS indulge in disgracing the child.

There is definitely need to have a normative image of child in school but not in the manner it is perceived currently. Standards are necessary to keep things in order but that should be for the well-being of everyone and not for the convenience of a few. A child who freely asks questions and expresses his/her thoughts without any fear, a child who in spite of his/her disability has the freedom to access resources without any hindrance, whose language is not his/her weakness but strength in gaining knowledge, whose personal problems do not affect his/her social life must be called as a normative child.

The society should come out of such prejudices and should try to establish a school environment in which each child can feel comfortable and free to learn and enhance his/her capabilities. Then only all children will be able to share their school experiences happily as I did in the beginning and that day will be the sign of positive change in our school system and consequently the future of our country.

REFERENCES

[1] Krishna, M. Chapter 1 ‘Introduction: Autobiography as a resource for educational theory’, M.phil thesis, Osmania University, Hyderabad

[2] Purcell-Gates, Victoria. (1995). Other people's words: The cycle of low literacy. Harvard University Press

[3] Shirinivasan, M. (2011). View From The Back-A study of the experience of literacy acquisition of   children from a marginalized community in a mainstream urban government school in Pune. Centre for Language, Literacy and Communication, Phaltan