The average, able-bodied person doesn’t often stop to think about, or fully appreciate, the blessings of good health.
At Redmond’s Rosa Parks Elementary School, a Disabilities Awareness Week, Oct. 12-16, included a workshop for grades 3-6, in which children sampled small doses of what it might be like to live, every day, with a physical or mental disability.
Stations throughout the Rosa Parks gym offered simulations of challenges faced by individuals with limited mobility, hearing or vision impairment, communication disorders, dyslexia and others. Kids took turns using a wheelchair or walking stick, trying to read words with jumbled letters or performing fine motor tasks — such as tying a shoe or writing with a pencil — while wearing large rubber gloves.
Kids also learned about a wide range of disabling conditions such as traumatic injuries, strokes, cerebral palsy, autism, mitochondrial disease and more.
The awareness workshop was modeled after a program created by a local non-profit group called YADA (Youth Disability Awareness Assemblies). In YADA presentations, adults who have actual disabilities or caregivers of disabled individuals, oversee the activities and answer childrens’ questions.
Amy Young, who is vice-president of Northshore Special Families and a friend of Rosa Parks principal Jeff Newport, wanted to make awareness programs more widely available. Borrowing ideas from YADA, she decided that the workshop stations could be manned by volunteers from the schools themselves.
In the Lake Washington School District, Young’s version of the disabilities awareness workshop was successfully presented at John Muir Elementary in Kirkland last spring. PTSA member Colleen Murphy spearheaded the effort to bring the workshop to Rosa Parks for the first time.
Newport described the presentation as “a wonderful opportunity for our kids and for us. It will help us grow as educators and as empathetic, caring, human beings.”
Throughout the week at Rosa Parks, students and teachers also watched DVDs with the theme that not all people have the same abilities, but all people want to be understood and accepted.
And to further bring perspective to the subject, the students heard about very famous people who have triumphed over challenges. A short list includes President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was paralyzed and used a wheelchair; Ludwig van Beethoven, who was deaf when he composed his 9th Symphony; scientist Sir Isaac Newton, who was believed to have what is now known as the autistic spectrum disorder called Asperger’s Syndrome; actor Tom Cruise, who is dyslexic; and Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps, who has ADHD.
To find out how your school might organize a Disabilities Awareness Workshop, contact Amy Young at amylouyoung@comcast.net.
