Redwood students experience challenge of being disabled
By Michelle Knight
knight@theacorn.com

WHEELS-Rachel Donley, 12, takes a turn in the wheelchair at Redwood Middle School during Abilities Awareness week, a program that allows children to experience what it's like to have a disability.

Last week, Redwood Middle School students got to experience firsthand what it’s like to have a disability through five days of outdoor exercises and interaction with athletes during Abilities Awareness week.

This is the third year the Redwood Parent Teacher Student Association has hosted the event so that the students could experience and learn about physical, visual, auditory and learning disabilities. The program won a national PTA award in 2002.

"It’s not enough to just talk about what it’s like to be differently-abled; you have to experience it," said Shari Ferezy, PTSA member.

On Friday, Michelle Kelley of the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness talked to students about her life as a deaf person. Kelley didn’t learn sign language until she was 16. She got by in mainstream school by learning to read lips, she told the students. One child asked her about cruel classmates. Kelley said there were some, but she developed friendships with other children.

Simi Valley resident Josh Munoz talked to the children about the obstacles he constantly faces in his wheelchair, such as uneven surfaces, curbs, tight spaces and service buttons placed uncomfortably high for people in his position.

Mark Chulack, an amputee and parent volunteer, helped kids experience what life is like with a motor skill disability. Wearing bulky gardening gloves, the children were given the frustrating task of buttoning shirts, lacing shoes and picking up coins and jewelry.

At another booth, while looking in a mirror, children traced a route through a maze using a pen in their less-dominant hand. The activity simulated the frustration and anxiety that children with dyslexia experience at school. They had the added pressure of completing the task in 30 seconds.

Ferezy said the experiences show children that those with disabilities are forced to use their brain differently to compensate.

Earlier in the week, students experienced simulated impairments in track and field competition as they ran alongside world class Paralympic athlete John Siciliano.

About 60 parents and community volunteers helped at the event.