At a time when people are confined to their homes and finding ways to keep themselves engaged, a few hearing impaired teachers in Gurugram are taking art workshops online, through an institute in Chennai, with the help of interpreters.
“With the interpreter at one end and the teacher at another place and with several other participants, and an artist, it seemed quite surreal to us to see the class unfold online,” says G.K. Gokulraj of MadCap which has been holding online art workshops ever since the lockdown was imposed.
It is important to constantly keep oneself updated and especially help improve skills of teachers for hearing impaired children, says, Mohammed Aqil Sayeed Hajee, a 35-year-old hearing impaired skill coordinator with the Welfare Centre for Persons with Speech and Hearing Impairment Gurugram, Haryana.
“I look for opportunities for hearing impaired teachers as they could get better at their art and it will in turn be beneficial for the children. We don’t know how long this lockdown will go on, so we try to grab every opportunity there is for our teachers and also ensure they are at ease to learn online,” he said.
Deepak Dangi, a 26-year-old hearing impaired art and craft teacher with the institute, says he had earlier tried to learn art through YouTube videos but since he couldn’t hear, he had to miss out on audio instructions. But here, since the interpreter was also present, he didn’t feel the need to catch up and was getting along at the same speed as others in the session. “I learnt coffee mug painting through the workshop and can’t wait to teach my kids,” he adds.
Deepak Sehrawat, a 28-year-old hearing impaired art and craft teacher in the same institute who is a professional in portraits, has now learnt basics of caricature from the online course. “I wanted to bring in some humour to art and decided to learn it. I never imagined learning online could be possible this way for us and it was greatly beneficial. Art is therapeutic and we try to bring out our emotions through colours,” he adds.