I finished my last volunteer stent at Sydney’s school yesterday,
and then was at Bradley’s school today.
It’s ironic; at the Middle School I spent my time trying to give kids
about 1/10th of the actual feeling of having a Disability in an
attempt to create empathy, and tolerance.
Then over at Bradley’s school, I was helping him do the Jog-a-Thon that
the whole school was taking part in, but doing it in a completely isolated
means from his other peers. In terms of
Acceptance…Man, we have a whole earth to walk to try and find some sort of
middle ground.
I spent fifteen
minutes holding Bradley’s hand and jogging in a circle with him. Our track was much smaller and over
in the corner away from the bigger track set up for the other kids, there were
certainly benefits to this arrangement.
Our kids can get quickly overwhelmed and trying to bring them around a
big track can be quite a challenge. Our
kids can often decide that here is the perfect spot to stop and then do just
that, stop and sit and practice seated running, or my favorite was the little
guy that had had it and determined that he was going to do his part with
vertical running, a term I love and was made famous in the movie “Pitch Perfect”. Personally, I was ready to join that little
guy as vertical running is my favorite form of Cardio. But Bradley and I soldiered on and was doing
well until that darn Tiger Mascot showed up, I had a hard time getting him to
turn that corner from then on, and the Tiger was only there for one of his
laps. Anyway, at the Middle School we
wanted to encourage the connection to happen with typically developing and not typically
developing kids. If one kid could show
empathy then maybe, just maybe we could move from tolerance to acceptance?
For the most part over there; the kids were polite and friendly, and some
just wanted to grab handfuls of my Starburst and sneak off with them. Hard not to get irritated and want to just
walk away when you get that kind of nonsense.
But lucky for me, the Tech teacher was also volunteering and he
personally invited us volunteers to join the teachers in the Teacher’s Lounge
because the Science and Tech department teachers had brought pie, coffee and
tea for the monthly teacher food party. I
was able to quickly put that one annoying group out of mind as I enjoyed some
fabulous pie! J Food helps put most things into proper
perspective! Wink, wink…
By far my favorite class was the one that had my daughter in
it. My Sydney girl ran in, saw me and
grabbed a hug and kiss before she sat in line, then I got hugs as she came and
left my center, and then another as they had to leave to go and change their
clothes to end PE and head out. The
girls that connected that she was mine seem to take a little more time, and put
a little more effort into trying the skills and trying to do everything
well. They didn’t try to steal my candy
so I started giving them extra tasks to try that were more difficult. My Center was Fine Motor, so the kids put
socks on their hands and had to button a shirt and unbutton, string Fruit
Loops, and then open a Starburst with the hamper of wearing socks. For some it was very easy, for some it was
very hard and for some it was in the middle.
If they finished early, I had them untie and tie their shoes, for that
they could earn more Starbursts, they had to work for those, turns out they all
found that task much harder.
At Sydney’s school, I was hoping to see some attempt to
mingle the typical with the atypical and help kids lose their fear of my
different little guy. I was hoping to
reach kids on their basest level, where they are still young enough to learn
something and learn it because deep down they feel it is right. The idea was to try to get through the
stereotypes that are running their young brains through the wringer and get
them to look differently at people who are different. I don’t know that we got anywhere near that,
but perhaps one or two will remember the moments, those lessons and be a better
friend because of them. At Bradley’s
school, I have no idea what they are trying to teach those kids. Separation is the norm and how it should
be? And is a Jog-a-Thon even something that
should be presented as an opportunity to
help create awareness and acceptance?
You see, my son is a little guy, he has no idea why we were
out there running around in a circle.
Shouldn’t there have been a ball somewhere in the mix? That would have been so much fun. Instead we spent our time running in a tiny
circle, all of them wearing the same shirts, and a frightening Tiger mascot
there to scare him around a few turns…yeah…what a confusing mess for him. And if I say No, don’t take him, then the
school gets to say things like: well, we offered to let the kids in his class
be a part of a school function and you didn’t show up…so you are the ones making Acceptance
difficult. Huh… what a fickle and petty little system we have
for all of our kids to grow up in. You
let our kids run around and make money for your school, but you don’t really
care for us being there anyway. Yeah,
that’s not weird at all.
So, all in all it was a good week, but long. I might have reached some middle schoolers, I
definitely loved seeing my daughter, seeing the lady running Abilities
Awareness week, and I love any time I get to be with my son. So I guess in the long run, life is about perspective and keeping mine in sight. I can't change the world to make it better for all my kids in one big fell swoop, about all I can do is work on little parts at each available opportunity...whether it makes sense or not. That’s about one
can hope for and definitely enough to be happy about. But can I just honestly say, I am so happy it's Friday!!!! Enjoy your Friday all!!
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