By Ana Karen Perez Guzman

Reporter

The third grade class at Rock Creek Elementary School sat with wide eyes on Dec. 8 as they watched a child their age, with a disability, jet ski in a video. They oohed as another child played basketball or was shown indoor skydiving. Allison Bureau’s son, Wyatt, is shown in a lot of clips in the video.

Allison Bureau started the interactive disability education awareness (IDEA) project a year ago after coming into Wyatt’s classes to explain his disability. When Wyatt was in kindergarten, he used a tablet to help him communicate because he had a hard time speaking. His fellow classmates did not understand why he got to play with a tablet and they didn’t. They did not understand his disability so Wyatt had a hard time fitting in. Allison had the idea of talking to his class about his disability to help them understand what Wyatt was going through. After talking with his class, Allison noticed he was having an easier time fitting in. A while later, a teacher told Allison a student was being bullied because of her disabilities and asked her to come speak with the class about disabilities, just like she had for Wyatt’s classes. Three weeks after she spoke to the class, the teacher informed Allison the student had stopped being bullied.

After seeing the success of the discussions she had with different classes about understanding disabilities, Allison decided to start a school-wide discussion, with the IDEA project. She decided to concentrate on elementary aged students to start with. “If you educate kids about stuff like this when they are young, hopefully when they are old enough to understand, they will grasp it and not bully other kids,” Allison said.

It took four years of talking to more than 30 therapists, most of them being Wyatt’s therapists, and doing research to make the IDEA project come together. The project consists of a 40-minute introduction to the program and then some hands-on activities.

During the introduction, a video is shown where children their age, with a disability, are doing activities they might not think they could do. The purpose of the video is to show them that no matter what your differences, you can achieve anything, Allison said. She speaks with them briefly after the video and hands all of the students a marshmallow. She then instructs them to put the marshmallow in their mouth and press it to the roof of their mouth and then tell someone what they had for dinner last night. The kids start giggling as they struggle to speak, but after the activity she asks them how they felt. Most students said frustrated, sad, annoyed or embarrassed they couldn’t talk. Allison explains that when someone has a speech disability, this is how they feel. Their tongue muscles do not work as well so they cannot get the words out as easily as most people.

Allison did not want to be another adult talking at them, she wanted to do some hands-on activities to help them understand and keep their attention, she said. Which is why she starts off with the marshmallow activity during the introduction. In the second part of the IDEA project, six stations are set up to show what having certain disabilities are like. At one station, the students have to put big snow gloves on and try to button or zip up a jacket. This shows what it is like when someone has a disability that affect their fine motor skills. All of the activities mimic what it’s like to have a disability to hopefully help the students have a better understanding of what one of their fellow classmates might be feeling.

The students come together after the activities and Allison talks with them about how they felt and she sees that they all have a better understanding.

The feedback to Allison has been all positive. Parents have expressed their gratitude for the IDEA project.

“Most parents don’t know how to talk to their children about this,” Allison said. “I want parents and children to ask questions instead of pointing.”

In 2014 Allison founded the IDEA project at Rock Creek Elementary and since it has spread to six other schools with four others showing interest. With the help of PTO volunteers and other members and organizations of the community, Allison hopes to keep the project going and spreading to more schools.

The IDEA project stemmed the hope to help her son, and it is now helping other students with disabilities be understood instead of bullied.