Hope and Friendship - Roopa Bhattacharyya and Mridula Renjit

A child who has lost hope

In Primary classes, there generally are no children who have lost hope. But if there is such a child, the child will feel left out. She will not participate in group activities, which will affect learning outcomes. She will feel demotivated to even come to school. The unhappiness will affect all learning areas like reading, numeracy, awareness, observation and communication.

The intervention on the teacher's side is, first of all, the identification of the child. The child will be made to sit with a vivacious child who will try to rope her into activities. Conscious efforts will be made to engage her in classroom discussions.

One-on-one discussion with the child about why the child feels less hope. If there is a specific incident or incident, it will be discussed and dealt with. All the other subject teachers and activity teachers will be sensitized about the child so that all efforts are synchronized. A lot of encouragement and a rewarding small attempt by the child will help fill the child with hope.

Lastly, the parents and friends will also be part of this project, so everyone is in sync.

A child who has no friends

Friends are what childhood is punctuated with, and a child with no friends is indeed a sad thing which calls for intervention. Such a child will find no interest in coming to school and lag behind in

learning parameters. There was one such child in our class; let us call him X. He hardly ever smiled and showed no interest in work, play, or other class activities. It was observed that the child did not mingle with anyone, not even during the lunch period. So the child was talked to, which revealed the sad reason that the child had been in a coma for the past 2 years.

The child was assigned a buddy to share lunch with him, play with him, and engage him in group games during lunch break. X was encouraged to participate in group recitation and plays, which he slowly started participating in as he felt less threatened in such situations. The other subject and activity teachers were also sensitized about the child so that all efforts were synchronized. By the end of the session, X had made a few friends and started looking happy.

Mridula Renjit

Roopa Bhattacharyya
Ahlcon Public School