Learning about disabilities

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:52:30 GMT

By Tom Kang

Brianna Armstrong
SHARING LIFE STORIES: Guest speakers Todd Sabin and Mosetta Rose share their stories of overcoming challenges.

(November 1, 2006) -- The sound of soft saxophone music rang out in the dimly-lit auditeria. The musician was Bert Grose, an African- American man; with him on stage were six other adults, and to the side of the stage stood a young African-American woman, Ayana Cahrr, who led in a blind woman, Leela Kazerouni, as students walked in. As Kazerouni was guided up the stage, her colleague, Todd Sabin, hit the chair to lead her the right way. A moment later Arnett Coates, a visually impaired African American, walked in with his friend, Mike Novak, from the side of the stage. Novak had difficulty maneuvering his own body due to the car accident he had at the age of five. Coates needed to repeat everything Novak said because of his limited ability to speak. With the cue from Cahrr, all nine disabled adults warmed up by yelling and letting themselves free. These were the members of “Changing Perceptions: Theater by the Blind and Physically Disabled.” With a short introduction from Assistant Principal Joan Shoff and Cahrr, “Our Stories V: An Original Play” began. Not all students could attend the play on Oct. 24 because the performers requested that only a small group be present at once. The second and fourth period P.E. classes and Maral Guarino’s creative writing class were the only ones to attend the play. The actors and actresses were enthusiastic as each told his or her own story about how he or she came to be disabled. Most of the members were visually impaired, except for Shannon Dieriex, who has Down’s Syndrome. Near the end of the presentation, the actors had an open discussion with the students. When asked about the difficulty of learning to read Braille and learning Judo, Coates replied, “If you have a strong desire, one can almost learn to do anything.” He also said that since judo is a very hands-on martial art, it’s easier to learn than other martial arts. Sabin talked of his difficulty with obsessive-compulsive disorder. He said that it was hard for him to receive proper treatment when he was first diagnosed since not much was known about its symptoms. Freshman Keith Sugimura and sophomore Janet No responded warmly to the performance. “Since I am handicapped, I could relate to it. How people treat me is similar to how [the performers] were treated,” Sugimura said. “I thought it was cool that physically disabled people came to our school and talked to us,” No said. She seemed glad that she and her peers got a chance to shake the performers’ hands. “They’re not sad about their disability,” No said. “They’re funny.” When asked about what she hoped would come out of the presentation, Shoff answered that she hoped students would develop an awareness of disabilities and overcome what she called “the fear of the unknown.”

Clark Chronicle

Learning about disabilities