Monday, October 4, 1998
True flavors of life taste same for everyone
BY DEBORAH KENDRICK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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The program
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The Everybody Counts program was introduced to schools in the Cincinnati area in 1981 by Nancy Kayes, former Enquirer Woman of the Year and mother of 15 children, 11 of whom have disabilities.
The program provides a complete curriculum and supporting materials for parent volunteers to teach elementary students something of the experience of various disabilities. Each grade is assigned a specific disability.
Today, the program is used in more than 200 schools in Greater Cincinnati and some 500 schools in 15 other states. Although Mrs. Kayes is no longer providing direct training for the program, curriculum guides and materials can be purchased from the Enrichment Tree, 931-4029.
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One of my favorite exercises in Everybody Counts, a program for teaching school-age children about disabilities, is the cookie segment in the lesson about blindness and visual impairment.
With blindfolds in place to shield their eyes, children are given a cookie sealed in plastic wrap. After pouring themselves a drink (learning, it is hoped, that without seeing the cup or pitcher, one can still pour Kool-Aid without spilling), kids are directed to unwrap the cookie and enjoy their snacks.
The message is simple: It tastes just as good as it does when you're not wearing a blindfold.
Delicious cookies
It's a beautiful and profound lesson - and can teach far more about disability than any loftier set of social or psychological principles.
The cookie tastes the same, children learn, whether you can see it or not, whether you can walk or not - whether you can hold it or not.
I was thinking about this recently when talking to a friend about the experiences in life that most evoke joy and pain.
If you only had six months to live, goes the familiar contemplation, where would you put your energy? What would you grab by the handful before your time was up?
For most of us, answers would include time with family members and friends, sharing good food and wine, reading, singing, cooking or making love.
With or without disability, these ''cookies'' taste the same. Life's pleasures - sunlight and music, friendship and love - are not measured out to the elite members of the human race who have perfect bodies and an absence of limitations.
Whether you can hear a newborn baby's cry or not, the joy of holding yours is universal. Whether you see the expression in the eyes or not, the loveliness of spending time with a cherished person is profound.
Whether you can get out of your chair to dance or not, the celebration of life found in music is magnificent.
The cookie tastes the same.
And, although the Everybody Counts program doesn't take it to the other extreme for 6-year-olds, the lemon tastes the same, too.
People with disabilities experience the same joys - and the same sorrows - as their non-disabled peers.
Shared humanity
The pain of loss is not one from which people with disabilities can be shielded. The death of a child, the pain of divorce, the sting of rejection - all of these are experiences shared by virtue of our humanity.
To wonder about another's experience is part of what it means to share our humanity, and most of us welcome the wondering. We humans like talking about ourselves, and if part of who we are incorporates a limitation in seeing or hearing or walking or breathing, chances are we're happy when the chance comes along to boast about how we've met those particular challenges.
But the core experience - the joy, the sorrow, the Kool-Aid and the cookie - will taste the same. Remembering that can be a major milestone on the road to real inclusion.
Deborah Kendrick, a Cincinnati free-lance writer, is a nationally recognized advocate for people with disabilities. Write: Deborah Kendrick, Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; e-mail: 71340.473@compuserve.com.
KENDRICK ARCHIVE
