lekotalk:  February 2006

Contents:

• Like Me

• Friendship - Facilitation Strategies - What Do Students in Middle School Tell Us?

• New Sites, Staff and Services

• How Can I Make a Difference?

• Toy of the Month: Little Tykes Bowling Set

Like Me

By Emily Pearl Kingsley

I went to my dad and said to him,
There’s a new kid who’s come to my school.
He’s different from me and he isn’t too cool.
No he’s not at all like me, like me,
No he’s not at all like me.

He runs in a funnyish jerkyish way.
And he never comes first in a race.
Sometimes he forgets which way is first base,
And he’s nothing at all like me,
No he’s nothing at all like me.

He studies all day in a separate class.
And they say that it’s called “special ed.”
And sometimes I don’t understand what he’s said,
And he’s nothing at all like me, like me,
No he’s nothing at all like me!

His face looks kind of different from mine,
And his talking is sometimes so slow.
And it makes me feel funny and there’s
one thing I know;
He is nothing at all like me, like me,
No he’s nothing at all like me!

And my father said, “Son, I want you to think
When you meet someone different and new
That he may seem a little bit strange, it’s true,
But he’s not very different from you, from you,
No, he’s not very different from you”.

Well I guess, I admitted, I’ve looked at his face;
When he’s left out of games, he feels bad.
And when other kids tease him,
I can see he’s so sad.
I guess that’s not so different from me, from me,
No that’s not very different from me.

And when we’re in music, he sure loves to sing,
And he sings just like me, right out loud.
When he gets his report card, I can tell
He feels proud,
And that’s not very different from me, from me,
No that’s not very different from me.

And I know in the lunchroom he has lots of fun;
He loves hot dogs and ice cream and fries.
And he hates to eat spinach and that’s not a surprise,
‘Cause that’s not very different from me, from me,
No that’s not very different from me.

And he’s always so friendly, he always says hi,
And he waves and he calls out my name.
And he’d like to be friends and get into a game,
Which is not very different from me, from me,
No, I guess that’s not different from me.

And his folks really love him. I saw them at school,
I remember on Open School Night –
They were smiling and proud
and they hugged him real tight,
And that’s not very different from me, from me,
No that’s not very different from me.

So I said to my dad, Hey, you know that new kid?
Well, I’ve really been thinking a lot.
Some things are different …
and some things are not …
But mostly he’s really like me, like me,
Yes, my new friend’s … a lot …like me.

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Friendship – Facilitation Strategies – What Do Students in Middle School Tell Us?

by Janis Chadsey and Kyoung Gun Han
Edited with permission from Teaching Exceptional Children, December 2005

Can you imagine a life without friendships? Much of our happiness depends on having friends.  Friendships are important during all stages of life, and especially for students during middle school years. Students with disabilities want friends too but frequently friendships between students with and without disabilities do not occur. When friendships do not occur, it’s important to develop strategies that encourage friendships. For example, you may decide to teach the student with a disability social skills or you may ask a peer to sit with the student at lunch. And still the friendship does not occur. There may be many reasons why but one possible reason could be that teachers take the lead in devising and implementing the friendship strategy.

This article interviewed middle school students who did have friends with disabilities. The participants in the interviews met their friends with disabilities in their classes and those with “best friends” had known their friends for a long time. The friends with disabilities had disabilities ranging from mild to severe. The participants reported that they had no brothers or sisters who had disabilities, although some of their family members had mild disabilities. When asked why they had friends with special needs, they said that they liked their friends’ personal characteristics and the disability did not matter to them.

The students suggested nine ideas for promoting friendships between students with and without disabilities. In general they urged teachers to have students with special needs included in their classes and suggested creating after-school programs for students with and without disabilities. The authors found the following peer suggestions for teacher facilitation strategies:

• Segregation is unfair. Put students with disabilities in our classrooms more often and provide them with extra help.
• Teachers should come into classes to give us more information about students with disabilities.  Tell us why they might act differently or have
  trouble learning. Tell us how we are the same.
• Don’t let students make fun of students with special needs. Praise students with disabilities in the classroom so we know you think they are
  doing a good job.
• Create programs where both students with and without special needs can hang out together.
• Use volunteer peer partners. Let us be buddies. Make sure only nice students are volunteers.
• Group students with disabilities into our social networks. It’s better to include students with disabilities in our group rather than pair them alone with us. Also, include them in a group with popular kids.
• Have students with disabilities tell us about their disabilities.
• Clubs or after-school activities should include kids with special needs and should be of interest to everyone. Students with disabilities should be
  included in extracurricular activities and not only in classes during school hours.
• Let students with disabilities take the same bus as us. Some of our buses should be made accessible so all of us can attend school and afterschool activities together.
• In addition, several students mentioned that students with disabilities need to assume some responsibility for the friendship process. Lekotek
  looks forward to implementing some of these strategies at club and at Leko-Pal activities.

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How Can I Make a Difference?

• Volunteer
• Play in our golf tournament May 1st
• Sponsor a hole with a donation of $1,200
• Donate your old cell phone or office phones
• How do monetary donations make a difference?
  • $30 provides a scholarship for Leko-Music
  • $100 provides a scholarship for computer camp
  • $240 provides a scholarship for annual play sessions
  • $1,200 purchases adapted input devices that allow children with physical disabilities to access technology and all its benefits
  • $5,000 provides services to ten families
  • $12,000 purchases the toy inventory
  • $25,000 funds a satellite
• Visit the website at www.lekotekga.org to make a donation on-line

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Toy of the Month:  Little Tykes Bowling Set

The little tykes bowling set comes with six pins, a bowling ball and base. The base has recessed holes to help the child place the pins back in the stand. Colored balls inside the pins make sounds when the pins are knocked down. If the child can not hold the ball using three fingers, the ball can be gripped
with both hands and rolled from a standing or sitting position. Bowling strengthens gross motor skills and eye hand coordination. It’s a fun game to play with siblings and friends while encouraging turn taking and counting.  Lekotek’s mission is inclusion and toys are our tools so that every child is a player.

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