Approximately 10% of all school going children have difficulty with classroom learning: Farida Raj.
Hyderabad: Farida Raj, the city’s well known Remedial Teaching Expert, Educationist, Award-winning Author, Social Activist and Columnist launched her latest book “Understanding Learning Difficulties.” Published by Cambridge University Press. It is her second book.
The book is authored as part of a series of books that aims to help teachers in primary and secondary schools with their professional training and development. The series is written for teachers of English as well as those who teach other subjects through English. Written in an easy to understand style and simple language, the books in the series assume little prior knowledge of pedagogy and theories of language teaching. The topics and issues addressed in the books in this series would be relevant to teachers both in India and in other SAARC countries informed Farida Raj while interacting with the media here in the city today.
Some students are a puzzle to teachers. Approximately ten per cent of all school going children have difficulty with classroom learning said Farida Raj. These students are similar to their classmates in every respect, but for academics, she added.
We label such stunts as lazy and subject them to punishment. They get teased by their classmates and come under tremendous mental strain. They fail despite their best efforts. Each of them has different problems with learning. One of them is eight-year-old Atul left his answer sheets blank in exams because he could not read the questions. It was misfortune because he knew the answers. Arti had difficulty copying from the blackboard. Arif wrote b as d n as u and punished every day. Children such as Atul, Arti, and Arif go through a difficult time in the classroom as do their parents.
It becomes necessary for a teacher to recognize the probable cause of their failure and attempt to remedy it. The teacher needs to understand both their strengths and weaknesses to help them overcome these difficulties, says Farida Raj.
Unfortunately, in India and in our neighboring countries, teachers are forced to manage their teaching without ongoing professional assistance. They also know this. To help their students, they want to learn more and teach better, but do not have access to either in service or online courses. The book meant to support such professionals informed the author.
“Teach th child the way he/she learns,” says Farida Raj, whose latest book in Urdu “Hamari Sehat Ki Zamin” received Telangana State Urdu Academy Award recently. She won first prize and meritorious certificate along with cash prize for the book “Hamari Sehat Ki Zamin” for creating awareness on women-related health issues.
Farida Raj was born in Mumbai and is now settled in Hyderabad. She authored four books–two in English (Braking Through and Understanding Learning Difficulties) and two in Urdu(Zaviye Zindagike) a Hamari Sehat Ki Zamin. Her first book Breaking Through got translated into Hindi, Marathi, and Telugu.
Recipient of Laadli Media Award, Farida Raj has been in teaching for the past 35 years. She was into main stream teaching for few years and for the last 30years she has been into Remedial Teaching (teaching students with learning difficulties). She was associated with SCERT(State Council of Educational Research and Training). She set up her own center, Centre for Special Education which assesses students who do not do well in studies and suggests remedial teaching methods.
The Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity is the only one of its kind in the world given exclusively for promoting gender sensitivity in the media. The awards are supported by UNFPA in the past.
She is a columnist and contributed columns to The Hindu Deccan Chronicle, New Indian Express, and Siasat.
Farida Raj visits the old city, creates awareness to women on Breast and Cervical cancer. She is a member of Palliative Care Society of Hyderabad. Palliative is a kind of specialized care given to people with life-limiting illnesses such as terminally ill cancer patients etc. It focuses on providing relief from the symptoms, pain, physical stress, and mental stress of a terminal diagnosis