"A
child is a gift of God, a blessing from above, a picture of purity and
innocence."
While attending
today's online conference on Covid-19: Opportunity to learn, explore and
experiment organised by ELTA Telangana, I came across a presentation on
Dyslexia and I suddenly remembered about the movie Taare Zameen Par which also
talks about the issue of Dyslexia. I got to know many new things which I
thought should connect with the movie.
Firstly we shall discuss about what is
dyslexia. The disorder with specific difficulties in reading was identified by
Oswald Berkhan in 1881 and the term 'dyslexia' was coined in 1887 by Rudolf
Berlin, a German Ophthalmologist practising in Stuttgart, Germany. He used the
term to refer to a case of a young boy who had a severe impairment in learning
to read and write in spite of showing normal intellectual and physical
abilities in all other aspects. Brain takes longer to make some connections and
does it in more steps. It especially has trouble matching the letters you see
on the page with the sounds those letters and combinations of letters make.
(b-d) (top-pot) (mirror image of words) (animal- animl, anml, enaml).
There are 5
types of Dyslexia- Trauma dyslexia, Primary dyslexia, Developmental dyslexia,
Visual dyslexia and Phonological dyslexia. There is no cure for it but students
can succeed in school or later in life with the assistance of teachers, school accommodations
and modifications, support of family and appropriate intervention and
instruction.
Children
with this kind of learning disabilities are not accepted by the society. They
are left behind in academics, they cannot participate in school activities and
they also don't have friends or may have 1 or 2 friends only. Dyslexia is a
neurological disorder as the brain is not able to process the visual matter
effectively. So the child experiences problems to interpret letters, shapes,
numbers or any other visual material. Such children maybe intelligent also but
cannot express their intelligence in tests. Many people in today's time are not
able to understand or accept or maybe do not have knowledge about this problem.
If their child does not perform well, they scold them and label the as
'useless', 'dull', 'duffer' and what not. Everyone wants their child to become
successful. Some children who are gifted (we do not use the word disabled) face
too much pressure from their parents, peers, school that they get emotionally
detached from them. Parents should understand that their child is gifted who
has a special ability to study and interpret images. They may not be genius in
academics but can master other skills like Ishaan in Taare Zameen Par.
Taare Zameen
Par is a 2007 released bollywood movie directed and produced by Aamir Khan. The
film revolves around the life of a 8 year old boy Ishaan Awasthi (starring
Darsheel Safary) who is suffering from Dyslexia. This movie has a wonderful tagline-
'Every child is special.' This indicates that every parent has to understand
then only they can discover the uniqueness of their own child. Ishaan, a boy
who finds it difficult to match his world of colours, kites and animals to that
of the other of his age group who are more into studies and homework. He does
not perform well in school and when complaints start coming in large numbers, he
is sent to boarding school. There is no difference in his regular school and
the boarding school. He is constantly insulted and beaten by his teachers and
becomes a laughing stock of the class. He feels lonely and inferior. He finds
it difficult to overcome his problem. After some time, Mr. Nikumbh (arts teacher)
arrives who realises that he is suffering from dyslexia and tries to help him
in every way possible. He makes everyone understand his problem and request
them to behave normally with him. He makes everyone realise that he is a
special child with unique talent. With time, patience love and care from
Nikumbh, Ishaan succeeds in overcoming his inability and gain confidence.
" Every
child comes with a message that God is not discouraged of man. Every child is a
star on Earth, is special who cleanses the soul, an empty canvas, waiting to be
painted with love."
-
Rabindranath Tagore
1) Ishaan is a skilful,
adventurous, artistic, lovely, sensitive, nature lover and lives in the world
of fantasies. He can solve puzzles easily, can paint, can understand poetry (he
tells the meaning of a stanza from Hindi poem during class). His problem is he
cannot read, write, calculate (surprise maths test), is not able to memorise or
answer, cannot follow instructions fastly (when he is instructed to open a
particular page number and read a particular paragraph and line). When he fails
to do something or he is scolded by someone for something, he feels angry,
lonely, abandoned and frustrated at times which can be seen when he kicks the
flower pots. He lacks motor skills as he cannot know his tie or tie his
shoelaces properly.
Ishaan's Painting
2) One of the
scene shows large insects moving out of Ishaan's bag to reveal that books and
studies seem to be scary to him.
3) Dyslexics
have poor time management, get easily distracted and might lose their sense of
time. This thing is shown in the movie when Ishaan forgets to board his school
bus and the conductor gets him to the bus. At that time Ishaan is fascinated by
the fishes in the school pond.
4) According to
Sally S. (2013), Dyslexics have 'vivid imaginations'. They are disoriented in
time and space. They are known to be "right brain dominant." This can
be seen when Ishaan and his classmates are given a surprise maths test where he
does not know what to do. He stares at one question and then goes away in his imagination.
While be comes back to reality, he is able to solve only one question which is
also incorrect (3×9= 3). ( VIDEO LINK IN THE BRACKET)
5) BDA (2007)
"With proper teaching methods, dyslexics could cope with daily life and in
school. However, dyslexia is permanent and cannot be outgrown." This is
shown when Ishaan is sent to boarding school where he meets his arts teacher
Mr. Nikumbh who helps him in every way possible and uses specialised teaching
methods to help him learn better and in the end, he shows tremendous
improvement and scores higher grades in all the subjects.
6) Mr. Nikumbh
is also shown to be working with children with special needs in another school
where he interacts with them on a very simple level ( with love and care).
Those students perform in a function which is a very heart touching emotional
moment. This shows that children (facing these types of problems) can overcome these struggles if they are treated
in the right way.
7) When Ishaan's
parents come to know about his condition, his father comes to meet Mr. Nikumbh
and says that they do care for him as his mother has been doing online research
on dyslexia. But here, Mr. Nikumbh very gently makes him understand what caring
actually is ("khayal karna is ko kehte hai na? Muje ye sun kar khushi hui
ki aapko lagta hai ki aap khayal karte hai.") He says that parents' responsibilities
don't end with providing the best educational options or materialistic comforts
or a luxurious lifestyle. Taking care of your child means to comfort him, be
with him when he needs you the most, motivate him when he is dejected, just a
hug or kiss is enough to show that you really care.
8) Another
thing Nikumbh tells him of Solomon Islands where people don't cut off an
unwanted tree but gather around cursing it and indirectly it dies after some
time. The same is with a person. Words can make or break a person. A slap will
never have the same effect that harsh words have.
9) Some famous
dyslexic people are Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Agatha Christie, Walt
Disney.