Visit to V-Excel special needs school, Chennai (Lorie in India, Blog #6)

Through a former Masters student, Katherine Lehman, who has been volunteering and consulting in Indian schools, we made contact with a very unusual school- the V-Excel school in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state.  The day before the tour started, Crystal and I visited this school for the day.  We were very interested in how this school is organized, since 1) it deals with special needs students, many severely autistic but  with other conditions as well, which not many Indian schools are prepared to serve, and 2) it applies Waldorf principles, in conjunction with Hindu ideas, as a source of curriculum and strategies.  Students with high functioning autism and learning disabilities are mainstreamed in regular schools, although some come to this center after school for tutoring or various therapies. 

This school was started 11 years ago by a remarkable woman, Dr. Vasudha Prakash, who got her doctorate at Rutgers University in the USA in special education, and is acting out her dream of bringing special needs services to Tamil Nadu in Southern India, where they generally don’t exist.  She hopes to start many schools in small towns, modeled after what they are learning in Chennai, because the government gives little or nothing to these children.  Parents pay for the services, but they also find private foundation support for those who can’t pay.  We met their remarkable development officer, Agita, and the principal, Gita.  All are inspired women.  Luckily, South India now is a center for computers (a big source of IT for the world, among other things), so it is possible to get some business support for this work.  Vasudha and Agita both have husbands who are high up in the computer industry, so that helps.  However, in the style of Tamil Nadu, all these women are devout Hindus and  traditional in many ways. 

We learned something very interesting—that Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf Schools, came to India and was influenced by it.  Seeing this school made the Waldorf schools in the USA make more sense—it seems to us that he was very influenced by Hinduism.  All of the ceremonial work, lighting candles and arranging flowers, tables with nature worship, incorporating music, dance, and massage, and a generally spiritualist attitude, are common to Waldorf schools and to Hinduism.  The most impressive thing about this tradition is its acceptance and embracing of the students, regardless of their challenges, because in Hinduism people believe that the things that happen are all gifts from the gods which are intentional and are given to bring us wisdom.  Hence the teachers are not so much trying to “fix” these kids in relation to a norm, but feel it is a privilege to be with these children as they are, while gently helping them to use their senses and minds better.  They believe that children with challenges are particularly soulful, and that working with them helps us to stay in touch with our souls.  The poster below expresses this sentiment.

Likewise, the curriculum of this schools follows the Waldorf curriculum of regular schools, and is based on a balance of “heart, mind, and hands”.  

Note the topics: Kindergarten: A magical world; Grade 1, Becoming a whole; Grade 2, Heaven and Earth; Grade 3, The World and I, etc.  These kind of themes, when incorporating Waldorf and Hindu holistic techniques, such as the use of clapping and feet stomping dancing, foot massage (each child gets one each day), various art activities, music, clay, and more, help children who lack language and/or have problems with their bodies in space to relate better to their world.  The school has places where children who “lose it” can go, but there are many fewer eruptions over time as children experience this holistic curriculum.  Interestingly, diet plays a big part in calming the children.  Children are asked to bring a lunch each day according to a certain menu which parents have to follow, but the lunch is always rice, dal, and a vegetable.  The kind of vegetable and dal are proscribed on the menu, and parents send in the right foods each day!  But everyone eats a diet which has no gluten, no milk products, and is vegan (the latter is common in South India).  No sugars or processed foods are allowed.  Children do some cooking at school, for their class to eat as snacks.  Below are the children at music and dance.

Typically, in South India, three languages are taught in school.  Academic subjects are generally taught in English, especially science and math, since this is the common and world language.  Hindu is also taught as the national language, and the local dialect (Tamil here) is what people speak day to day.  All these languages are challenging for these kids, some of whom don’t speak, but are taught through song.

Here are students experiencing dance through hand and foot clapping.  They are studying “hens” today, so are dancing like hens.  Tamil people do very symbolic dancing in which everyone recognizes the symbols, so one can see how Steiner got the eurythmy concept.  

This was a very impressive school.  I can see how the Waldorf approach, which is multi-sensory, helps even extremely challenged children to develop and integrate their senses, language, and minds.  As in the case of Peregrine School, and also in India, this holistic approach is at variance from the typical “special ed” approach in which each skill is identified (generally as at deficit) and taught specifically.  Of course the South Indians carry their holistic practices farther than we do, as in massaging everyone’s feet daily after lunch with almond oil (sounds good, doesn’t it?), but the principle is the same.  When children who are challenged in one area (and who is not included in that?) are exposed to the same material through a variety of sensory and intellectual experiences, more points of contact are made with the material and integrated learning can occur. 

I am also made aware of how and perhaps why Waldorf education is different from Peregrine School.  The root of the Waldorf approach is spiritual, seemingly in strong affinity with Hinduism.  The V-Excel school is remarkable, however, in that Vasudha, its director, is a researcher and is willing to draw from various traditions to make things work.  It was amazing to me and Crystal how much we felt akin to her and to Gita and Agita, despite being across the world.  We were all more in alignment with each other than any of us are with the narrowly focused public schools and Special Education services in our areas.