Eight years ago this
January we met in the classroom at Spanish Fort High School for the first
informational meeting of the club that was going to be designed to help focus
on the students with special needs. The purpose of the club was relatively
clear and unclear all the same. I knew that as a classroom teacher, I wanted to
help my students connect with their typical peers within the school. However, I
was somewhat limited in figuring out how this was going to happen. I had a
bundle of ideas, but wasn't sure just how well the student body would accept
it. According to some of my fellow teachers, the Project Reach program
was not overly accepted during its first year. Mainly due to lack of
understanding and misinformation about the students in the class, the teachers
and students just didn't know how to wrap their minds around the students that
I was now teaching. Honestly, I wasn't even teaching students that first year,
as I have been hired to teach one student specifically. However, as the days
continued, I spent a great deal of time thinking for more ways to connect him
and the others with the population of diverse students at our school.
There were two other teachers that I worked with that first year. We surely
did not see eye to eye on many levels, but one thing that we all agreed on was
it was a good idea to connect our students with their nondisabled peers. One of
the teachers that I had met, Mrs. Ojard, seemed to have what I felt was one of
the best classes in the school! Her food and nutrition class was one that I
could always tell when they were having a good day, because the aroma of what
they were cooking permeated the halls of the school. You could smell the
cinnamon as it floated down the halls and it made anyone's mouth water as they
walked to the gym. Since I knew a great bridge between people was food, I asked
her if she would be willing to start a kind of reverse inclusion experiment.
The idea was for her students with predetermined menus, would come into our
special services class, and cook something with our students. There was
obviously hesitation when you think of the safety of all students involved.
Many of our students were known to have upsetting behaviors and who thinks
adding hot plates to that equation. Sounds like a good idea, right! But we both
agreed with safety first, that this would be a really positive interaction and
we decided to move forward. We even started with some tasks that did not
require cooking at first but mere assembly of items. As the experiment
began, the students were amazing. It was
so cool to see the kids in my class taking directions from their typical peers
from measuring out items, to mixing and pouring. Like in any class, some students exceeded expectations
while some just got the job done. But
more than anything, the bridge between students with disabilities and their
non-disabled peers had grown, and we were all the better. After each class did their experiment, I
would ask the students to evaluate how it went and what we could do to make it
better. It was great to hear things that
were at times humorous like, “Maybe pouring liquids is a bad idea.” Or “ I
think we need to wash our hands more after someone picks their nose.” All things that were definitely needed to
take into consideration, but the best comment we received was when I asked the
questions, how would you help these students with disabilities in our
school. There were so many answers from,
“let them join a homeroom,” to “throw parties for the classes on
holidays.” But the best idea of all was,
“we should start a service club for students with special needs.” And so we did. And 8 years ago this January, that is what
started the official beginning of Project Outreach.
What makes this story seem
like a dream from so long ago, is that this past week on September 30th,
we sat in the conference room of Spanish Fort High School and signed the
articles of incorporation making Project Outreach Gulf Coast an official
non-profit organization. This step will
only allow us to move forward throughout the county to help all students with
disabilities experience what those students did that first year and every year
after. Fortunately, this is only the
beginning. I would have never thought
that making pancakes or cinnamon rolls would have been so instrumental in my
life, but that image of those students working together has been life changing
for so many, and I hope with this new initiative, for many many more.
