A Special Ordinary

It was the diagnostic test day for the visually impaired students. One by one, we were helping them go to the testing area and take the test. Some of them were quiet, some very noisy. But one after the other, they came to the testing desk and attempted questions that were read out to them slowly two times so that they could understand well what was being asked and what the reply should be.

While the session was about to end, I saw a friend from another campus entering the place and as we were busy, I signalled her to a chair at the corner until I was free.

After I got free, I walked towards her and saw her wiping her tears.

‘It’s unbelievable’, she said. ‘Watching this is so painful and you are living it’.

I didn’t know what to say. For me, it was a task that had to be done, and we wanted to do it well. Our aim was to make them as comfortable as possible so that they could perform well. I had never thought of it as something remarkable. It was simply what was required.

I vividly remember the assessment system created for these students. The diagnostic was done one by one. The end of semester exam was set up in a hall with a facilitator for each student. Each question was read to the student twice, slowly and clearly. The student selected the answer herself from the given options. It took time and loads of patience. But the students left the exam hall happy and satisfied.

Perhaps what moved my friend that day was not the difficulty of what she had witnessed, but the ordinariness of it. We were not making an exception for these students. We were simply making sure the system worked for them too. No fuss, no pity, just the quiet assumption that they deserved to be assessed like everyone else. Sometimes that is all empathy really means.