CHENNAI: Picture a quiz competition for school students. Nearly 200 of them are gathered in a room; tension runs high, as does excitement; the buzz that picks up as they sort themselves into different groups keeps up all through the event; some do well and others do even better; there are some giving away the answers, others getting it very wrong.
The whole nine yards. Now, did you picture the participants as children with disabilities? With intellectual disability? Wheelchairs thrown into the mix? Answers being given out in sign language? Probably not. This, perhaps, is reason enough to call for a rethinking of our collective idea of inclusivity.
At least, The Spastics Society of Tamilnadu (SPASTN) and Seva In Action thought as much and came together for the second edition of their brainchild — Quizabled. This quiz contest was born as a means to allow children with disabilities to showcase their creativity and talent in a competitive space outside of the classroom.
It was also a means to show their caregivers and educators that autism or cerebral palsy need not limit the children from exploring avenues typically left to the advantaged kids. “Usually, quiz programmes are conducted only for “normal” people. We wondered how they will do it for special children. Last year, before participating, we received a question bank. It gave us an idea of what to expect and how to prepare the children. It was a novel experience for them,” narrates M Subramanyam, co-ordinator of the special school MITHRA. This year, the school is back with 12 of their students taking part in the event. And this year, they come better prepared,
having put the students through practice sessions. Far from pushing the children to win, they only want them to explore a new avenue, he says. With the Quizabled 2020 (powered by Larsen & Toubro Infotech) having extended itself to Chennai’s neighbouring districts like Cuddalore, Kancheepuram and Tiruvannamalai, many schools have joined in with the same idea — to give their wards a means to experience this competitive world. Besides special schools, the competition also saw the participation of a few inclusive schools; some of them government-run.
Representing visually-impaired students from a government school in Chidambaram, Cuddalore, Nirubha says that they barely had a week to train the children for the event. Yet, they brought them along just to get them to encounter something new. This also opens up possibilities for the children back home, she says. “There are students with other disabilities — deaf and dumb, intellectual disability, autism, cerebral palsy. They can be trained too; they are willing too. Now, we get an idea of how to go about it,” she says. Quizabled has already had such positive chain reactions since its maiden run in 2019. “Last year, the response was so positive.
I heard that many schools started quiz clubs for their children. SPASTN told me about two schools in Tirunelveli getting inspired to do this activity for their students (even when last year’s event was limited to Chennai). Because of this, they are reading things outside their curriculum. That is the reason why the difficulty level has been set a little higher this time to match the enthusiasm of the students who have come prepared. The quiz has actually turned the scales around for these people,” recounts Quizmaster Surya Narayanan.
Having stuck with Quizabled for two years in a row, Surya says that a lot of work goes into preparing a quiz competition for children with special needs. While they are usually aware of the level of knowledge of the participants, here they have to do a lot of research to allow them to work around their disadvantages, he says. “Instead of just answering a question, we get them to solve a puzzle and arrive at the answer. We had to frame the rounds in such a way that they work their skills out and make the best out of it.
We went around talking to these children, getting to know what they know and what they don’t and finding out what they come across in their daily lives. They too watch cricket, Rajinikanth movies; they go to malls and so we worked in brand logos into the quiz,” he narrates. Through the prelims and finals, the children faced questions on brand logos (Netflix, State Bank of India, TikTok), identified personalities (Bhagat Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman), picked answers from multiple choices and worked out clues to fill in a crossword. At the end of the event, four teams (under four categories of disability) emerged victorious.
While adults around them were more concerned with the larger picture of inclusivity and reform, children being children focused on having fun — working with the partner to finish the test quickly, taking bathroom breaks without any fear of missing out, breaking into applause at the mention of any name (even if it was only to identify the person behind a missing ID tag) and getting excited over extra servings at lunch. It was a good day to be young.