Walking, unsteadily, a mile
in their shoes
Monday, December 11, 2006
By MICHAEL J. FEENEY
STAFF WRITER
|
TYSON
TRISH / THE RECORD
|
Tristan
They had trouble reading, seeing and buttoning a
collared shirt, but the difficulties the students faced were thankfully only
temporary.
About 370 students, ranging from kindergarten to fifth
grade, wore goggles smeared with Vaseline that distorted their vision and
earphones that muffled their hearing as part of the
"These exercises put our students in the shoes of
challenged students," said Kenneth E. Kaplan, the principal of the
As part of the program, students tried to button a
collared shirt wearing a tube sock on each hand. "It was very hard,"
said second-grader Sarah Mallanga. "I didn't
even get one buttoned."
With the socks still on, they were also asked to
spread cream cheese on a cracker.
Other exercises included communicating by pointing to
pictures, maneuvering a wheelchair around an obstacle course, reading Braille
books and using mirrors to attempt to read words spelled backward.
Matthew Gould, a first-grader who has cerebral palsy,
took the day off from school at nearby Theunis Dey to attend the program with his mom, Kim, who teaches
first grade at Randall Carter.
It didn't take long for Matthew to begin giving
impromptu lessons about his disability from the seat of his motorized wheelchair.
"I was shocked. I just brought him in and the
students started asking him questions," she said of her precocious
6-year-old son, who hopes to become a construction worker. "Who better for
the kids to learn from than another kid?"
First-grader Joseph Perez, 6, said, "I think he's
cool. He's just like me."
The program concluded in the gymnasium with a
presentation about being blind from Seeing Eye volunteer Jack Strangfield and Marilyn Rodda,
who was accompanied by her Seeing Eye dog, Elman.
E-mail: feeney@northjersey.com