About Understanding and respecting diversity in others

"I've never thought about it that way before"
The Arc asked us to do a class project to learn more about people with disabilities. We decided to see a cool video called Just Friends. It introduced us to several people with disabilities and their friends.

Read our responses to this video, then tell us what you think!

Take a look at these Award-winning class projects:

VALUE Kids 1999-2000 Year-long Project (see below)
Knight Elementary TAG 1999 Short Project - click to download

If you can not view the document then download Adobe Acrobat by clicking icon below.

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VALUE Kids 1999-2000 Year-long Project

We are the VALUE Kids from the Sixth Grade Class at Knight Elementary in Dallas. After deciding to participate in a year long All Kids Can! project, we named ourselves the VALUE Kids which stands for Valuing All Lives, Understanding Everyone.

This project is part of a program called Texas Community Problem Solving. We work on it during our Talented and Gifted Class Period.

Here are the portions of our project you will see:
Our visits to The Arc of Dallas
Our speech at the Dallas City Council
Our visit to United Cerebral Palsy
Our Silver Ribbon Campaign for Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month
Our Can-Do Kids Coloring Sheets
Our All Kids Can! Skit
Our Version of a Back Street Boys Song
In the News on WFAA/Channel 8
Our Teacher’s Synopsis of the Project
In our own words

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Our visits to The Arc of Dallas

We decided to visit The Arc of Dallas to learn more about developmental disabilities and to get to know some of their clients. It was easy for us to visit The Arc regularly since they are only a few minutes from our school. On our first visit, The Arc’s staff let us ask all kinds of questions about disabilities and about people with disabilities. Here are some of the questions we asked:

Do people’s disabilities last a lifetime?
How much of a person’s life is affected by a disability?
How many people in the world are blind?
How do disabled people live their lives?
Are disabled people able to do things by themselves?
Is it better to be dead or have a disability?
I wonder how many different disabilities there are?
What is the worst disability anyone can have?
What causes disabilities?
Are diseases and disabilities the same?

We asked a group of The Arc’s clients these questions:

Who would you most like to meet?
Where would you most like to go?
What are the things you most like about yourself?
Are there things you don’t like about yourself?
What do you find most frustrating?
How do people react towards you?
What would you life for people to know about how it feels to have a disability?
What is your favorite song?
What radio station do you most like to listen to?

On other visits to The Arc we learned more about disabilities and enjoyed seeing and talking with our new friends. Some of us played our instruments, others shared cool magazines or yo-yo tricks, and sometimes we just talked, listened to music or played games. Some of us visited after school and on holidays. We love our visits to The Arc, and enjoy our new friendships.

What we learned is that people with disabilities are mostly just like us. They have hopes and dreams, they like to look nice, listen to music, go places and meet people. But most of all, after you look inside a person, it’s a lot easier to see the things they can do rather than judging them on the things they can’t do.

Here are some of our thoughts we wrote after our first visit to The Arc:
“(Our visit to the Arc)…really made a great impact on me. I was so amazed at how much people with disabilities have to say. They also left me impressed on how much they can do. It made me change my point of perspective towards people with disabilities.”
- Claudia

“Our visit really changed my thoughts about people with disabilities. Everyone there was an inspiration to me...I was wrong about what I thought about people with disabilities.”
- Diana

“I have learned a lot of new things...Now I know what some people with disabilities think about themselves and what are some hopes and wishes that they have.”
- Berenice

“At first I felt very sad to see some of the people with disabilities at The Arc. But I changed my mind when I saw that they have fun in their lives.”
- Wendy

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Our speech at the Dallas City Council

On March 1, 2001 we went with The Arc to the Dallas City Council Meeting. There Councilman John Loza presented the proclamation below and declared March as Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in the City of Dallas. Claudia represented our class and gave the speech which is printed below. We all wore T-shirts that said “Picture the Potential”, and as Claudia spoke, we stood up at our seats in silent support of her words.

The Proclamation:

WHEREAS, more than 250,000 people in Dallas County have a developmental disability; and

WHEREAS, viable programs and legislation must continue progressing toward making life better for people with developmental disabilities; and

WHEREAS, we as a city can become more aware of the facts, consequences, and prevention of developmental disabilities; and

WHEREAS, individuals with developmental disabilities enrich the fabric of our area’s work force, religious communities, neighborhoods, schools, and circles of friends; and

WHEREAS, we respect, value and salute the daily accomplishments of people with developmental disabilities.

THEREFORE, I, RONALD KIRK, Mayor of the City of Dallas, and on behalf of the Dallas City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2001 as DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES AWARENESS MONTH in the City of Dallas.

Pictures from The Dallas City Council Meeting

 

Claudia’s speech at Dallas City Council:
click to download video

“We’re the VALUE Kids in the Love Field West Neighborhood. VALUE Kids stands for Valuing All Lives, Understanding Everyone. This is what we believe in. Because of this belief, we decided that the goal of our Future Problem Solving Community Service Project this year would be to help improve young people’s understanding of disabled persons. We are creating a video to show young people what we have learned through our experiences with the All Kids Can! project at The Arc of Dallas.

Our message is: “Look past the disabilities. Look at the person inside. Picture the potential!”  We have given you silver ribbons, and we ask that you wear them in support of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.”

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Our visit to United Cerebral Palsy

      
Recently we visited the daycare center at United Cerebral Palsy. We had a great time with the children there. We played with them, sang with them, and performed a skit for them. The staff was wondering if the children would be a little afraid of us, but they weren’t. Even the shiest one played with us, and the one that cries a lot laughed instead. We all laughed a lot and had fun! We hated to leave, but it was time for the children to go home. When we were walking to our cars, we saw their classroom window, so we ran over to it and waved goodbye one more time. We hope to visit them again sometime soon.

 
 

Find out where you can volunteer after school or during the summer and get to know people with disabilities.  Your smile will be a big as ours! 

Here are our thoughts after our first visit to UCP:

Today we met little kids with CP My partner was Gilbert. He was a comedian...I kind of feel sorry for the kids that have CP but they can still have fun. Not to mention make you laugh.
- Jesse

Today we did a lot of cool things. We went to the UCP to visit the kids that go there. When I played with a little girl there...She could not walk but with her walker, she could run. I think that this little girl could have been a very good athlete, but she is still a very nice girl. She could express herself just the way she acted. I think that all these little children were happy the way they were. I would like to go there and visit again.
- Leticia

I played with Olivia. I couldn’t really stand her up and play with her because she was in a chair, but I pushed her around...I felt special to have her hold my hand and give me five. 
- Claudia

We had a lot of fun this morning. [I played wit] Arturo. He was cool! We played with the computer, and we played with the toys. I learned that not to be afraid with other people that look different than us.
- Eric

Our Silver Ribbon Campaign for Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month

To remind people to look past the disabilities to the person inside, we launched a Silver Ribbon Campaign at our school while The Arc launched a campaign through their office. We made posters to put up in the halls of our school, we asked teachers to have their classes to participate. Each class that had 75% participation for the week received a free ice cream party. We had 15 classes participate. We also gave out silver ribbons at the council meeting and at a business luncheon. What a great start for the first year!

Our Can-Do Kids Coloring Book

We created a coloring book for young students to use when learning about people with Disabilities and what all they can do. Click here to see some of the pages from our Can-Do Kids Coloring Book. Feel free to print them and use them for yourself or your class!

Our Version of a Back Street Boys Song

One way we hope to spread our message is through song. We haven’t been able to get permission to actually perform the song with these words, so we haven’t. Here are the words we wrote to go along with the tune to the Back Street Boys song “Show me the Meaning of Being Lonely.”

Show me the Meaning of True Friendship

So many words for all kinds of friends.
It’s hard to see the true person,
So hard to see.
Walk with me and maybe
Your thoughts on us will soon become
New and free
I could feel the love.
Your every doubt will be gone, they tell me.

CHORUS:
Show me the meaning of true friendship.
Is this the feeling I need to walk with?
Tell me why you can’t accept who I am.
There’s something missing in my heart.

Life goes on as it never ends.
Normal people observe the trends/
They always say forever gaze,
If only guilty road to an endless friend.
There’s happiness. Are you with me now?
Your every doubt will be gone the tell me.

CHORUS:
There’s nowhere to run.
I have no place to go.
Let me see who you are.
How can I be expected to know the things
You never show.
There’s something missing in my heart.
Tell me why don’t you accept me for me?

CHORUS 2X’s

In our own words