Swati Lal recalls:

"I had a nine-year-old student who constantly disrupted the class by beating up other students, throwing tantrums, and most of all, by just screaming. When asked to read he would open his mouth and scream so loudly that the whole school could hear.

It became clear, very soon, that his inability to read at the level of someone his age, was the trigger. By then we'd also ascertained that he wasn't suffering from any kind of learning disability.

"The first thing was to make him feel that it was OK not to be able to read accurately – he was not inadequate because of that. He could read at his own pace. Once he had the reassurance of a safe, non-judgmental environment, he gradually started acknowledging his 'problem' and also understanding that his behavior was linked to it.

"The next step was to make him understand the impact of his behavior on his classmates. The other children shared with him how they felt when he hit them or when he kept screaming. They didn't accuse him; instead they started each sentence with, "I feel . . . "

He was then gently asked to explore how he would feel if others hit him and screamed at him. Did all the noise and aggression make for happiness? Was it nicer to have a classroom where we could all share out thoughts and listen to each other; or was it preferable to have everyone screaming at each other? Were his tantrums solving any problems?

"All this, of course, did not happen overnight. It was an ongoing process – part of the larger world of the classroom where we were constantly learning about feelings and emotions and putting ourselves in others' positions.

"What also helped this boy tremendously was the behavior of the others. He may have hit the girl sitting next to him, but she didn't bear a grudge: come recess and she would be sharing her snack with him.

He had problems in the playground, too. He was a good soccer player, but just couldn't bear to lose or not get his own way. At first, he reacted by throwing tantrums and becoming violent.

But slowly he understood how his actions were impacting the game as a whole, and spoiling everyone else's fun as well. He realized how much pleasanter it was when they could actually complete a game without these incidents of aggression. Thereafter, he became much more of a team person.

"The amazing thing was that by the end of the year, this little boy was not just a much nicer person, and very much a part of the class, but he was also an avid reader and writer, and a wiz in zath. It was almost as if unblocking his emotions, making him sensitive to others, helping him to empathize, had opened up a range of other abilities in him."