The gym at Kent Elementary echoed with the voices of Kindergarten students on Tuesday (Feb. 13): laughing, talking and making their way through a makeshift obstacle course.
It was very much like an ordinary gym class, except one thing was different: every student is going through the obstacle course is in a wheelchair.
“They’re pretty hard to get, because all the schools in Chilliwack and Abbotsford are using them,” Grade 6 teacher Donna Gallamore said about the wheelchairs, which school gets to use for two weeks each year.
“I think it’s really good for the other children to see what it’s like to be in a wheelchair, and to be there,” Gallamore explained.
“It’s fun, but you can’t move. You can’t get out of it. You’re there for a long time, and how confining it is.”
She first brought the wheelchair sports program to Kent Elementary seven years ago, working with the BC Wheelchair Basketball Society’s Let’s Play initiative to get the equipment to the school.
The goal of Let’s Play is to give students an opportunity to learn physical literacy skills, while providing children with physical disabilities access to sport equipment they can use. And that’s what’s happened at Kent Elementary.
Each grade gets an opportunity to try out different wheelchair sports during the two weeks they are available at the school. For Gallamore’s Grade 6 class, that means some games of wheelchair basketball. For the Kindergarten students, that means tag or a small skills course.
The Grade 6 students are also responsible for teaching the other grades about wheelchair sports: setting up different games to play and taking a leadership role in the classes.
Sometimes, the wheelchairs come to the school during big events — like the school’s mock Olympics last year, which saw several athletes compete in wheelchair sports and had the school’s students who use wheelchairs come into the spotlight as well.
Although the wheelchair sport program is fun — the kids in the school gymnasium could attest to that — it’s bigger goal is to bring awareness to students who don’t use a wheelchair every day.
“I think it’s a really good thing for the kids to learn the disabilities of others,” Gallamore said,”and how challenging it is for them.”
grace.kennedy@ahobserver.com
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