and on one side of the room there’s a
girl about five feet tall with blonde
hair and on the other side of the room
there’s a six foot three boy kind of
tall in my eyes brown hair you’re
sitting there and you look at both of
them picture this though when you’re
sitting there you realize that the girl
has Down syndrome
and that the boy has a mental disability
that hinders his speech you’re sitting
in a room with them but it’s no
different than sitting in a room with
anyone else see I’ve created a deception
of your stereotypes that you created
over 15% of the world’s population has
some sort of disability so at some point
in your life you will encounter someone
with a disability and it is nothing to
be afraid of kids nowadays think that
they weren’t taught how to talk to kids
with disabilities but you were because
when you were in kindergarten you were
taught how to talk to the girl or boy
sitting next to you like they were your
best friend and a child with a
disability is nothing different than you
are a quote by John Quincy Adams says
patience and perseverance have a magical
effect before which difficulties
disappear and obstacles vanish I am a
member of this school’s Special Olympics
Club Executive Board and partners PE
class I have worked with many kids over
a three-year period they are the most
incredible kids you offer me I met a
girl two summers ago she was the most
amazing person I’ve ever met
she taught me incredible life lessons
and it all started in our pool I was
standing up on the edge of the pool and
she was in the pool already see I look
at her and she tells me to get in but my
fear tells me not to jump in because at
this point one of us is going to sink
and I didn’t think it would be me but at
this point our sink or swim aspect had
to come into play and after her
constantly telling us to just hop in the
pool and come with her I realized that
what was holding us back that day was
not her or her disability it was my fear
because her disability was not something
to be afraid of it was just something to
add to her personality she also has
taught me
fact that you can do anything no matter
how big or small you are one day at our
bocce tournaments she came up to Exim
Ian was standing there and our sponsors
came up and told us that we were going
to be singing the national anthem in
front of the whole crowd I was
intimidated because that was a large
crowd of people but she walked up there
she took the microphone and started
singing
she sang every note of it and tried her
very best I’m standing there almost in
tears because I am shocked at what she
had just showed the audience the
audience I don’t know how many of them
were in tears but I know I would have
been if that was what I saw she was
incredible and I moved on to see her do
this many times we didn’t do it once we
didn’t do it twice we did it three times
all different events all different days
and nothing held her back the same thing
occurred when I walked into school one
morning and she had a bag It was as big
as her and I said what are you doing and
she pulls out this big pink dress and
she shows me her prom dress and I start
thinking when I went and I bought my
prom dress the first thing I did was
pull it out put it on and take a picture
to show my friends and what was she
doing she pulled it out showed me
because she was showing her friends it
just reinstated in my mind that there is
no difference if a person has a
disability or not it’s not something to
be afraid of they are normal kids we are
normal kids similarly I met a boy he was
the same thing he was incredible I
worked with him first at bocce the same
place I had worked with her he was on my
team but he was six three and I was
highly intimidated he’s standing next to
me saying nothing so I walk next to him
and I just start giving him some basic
directions of what to do and how to win
the game so he steps in and he throws it
exactly like I had said everything went
as planned and he won us multiple games
but the best part about the fact of that
was that every time we won he was the
first to cheer us on and every time we
lost he was the first to cheer us on to
go farther no matter what he was pushing
to go farther and it should that sadness
isn’t the way to get through life you
bring it up happy and anyone can bring
someone up to be happy we also went and
played basketball down at Pitt he came
up next to me because he knew that I
would work with him I went next to him I
showed him where to stand and he was
scoring three-pointers
I couldn’t score a three-pointer and
many people can’t but he was standing
next to me and he did it he won us games
there but the first person again to
cheer us on when we wanted or lost was
him he kept us going he was the way to
get us to keep going and a few weeks
later he walked into our choir class a
class of 100 kids it’s an intimidating
room to be a part of you walk in and you
see him sitting in a piano he’s sitting
there ready to play you a song and he
does he plays the star-spangled banner
like there was no problems it was
perfect and little you find out later is
that he is blown through every beginners
book every book pass that and that is
where he’s at now he has made it so far
just with such small determination that
pushes him more and more every day and
it just shows that you can use
determination to do anything in life and
again it’s not the disability that comes
at you when you first meet someone it’s
their amazing personality and
determination and focus that keeps you
going these kids are incredible and
again I’m not saying that right now you
should go and jump full fledged into
this I was where you are today few years
ago I couldn’t have talked to someone
with a disability because I was unsure
of their capability there is no holding
back you learn something new every day
and sometimes the best lessons you learn
in life or because of them you sit in
school days for eight periods a day and
you read and you do math and you learn
all of this but there is no class to
teach you that everyone is equal in what
they can do again this quote if your
actions inspire others to dream more
learn more do more and become
you are a leader anything can be so big
to create someone’s happiness because
everyone deserves happiness I walk past
the same classroom every morning and I
see the same boy sitting there and he
says to me good morning and I walk past
and I tell him good morning back and
he’ll tell me the weather for the day
what day of the week it is and one hit
is his birthday and today is his
birthday we are sitting there and his
simple good morning to me makes me smile
for the rest of my day
it makes him have a great day something
so simple like that can change someone’s
life because you never know what people
are doing or going through people can be
changed by a simple good morning or
hello kids like us especially in this
high school are so incredibly lucky we
have a huge high school and a huge
Special Olympics and partners P and
music program we are so incredibly lucky
because we have so many opportunities
and you see all these kids have taken
those opportunities and done something
to step it up and join a part of even if
it was a simple good morning or
something as big as running a event at
our Summer Olympics this is about 200
kids and this is from to two of our
events we’ve had but when you put the
two hundred kids in retrospect to our
entire school it’s nothing it’s
somewhere to start because we are trying
to create a world of color and
imagination but it’s not close enough
this is 200 out of our 1400 kids someday
we can make this 1400 kids all United
and colorful and I know that not
everyone will be able to do that but
hopefully we can reverse this so that
it’s only 200 people that aren’t
involved in some way we can break the
barrier between a disability and an
ability because we can expect the
unexpected thank you you