The Dignity of Work for One and All - Part 1

I teach young children with severe and multiple disabilities. They are a wonderful group of learners, and I want to provide them with the best educational experience that I possibly can. Our students include children with physical and cognitive impairments, including sensory issues such as blindness. Their many challenges never interfere with their enthusiasm or with their willingness to learn. Ninety-five percent of our students receive free lunch. We would like to initiate a new program called "It's Off To Work We Go!" In this new program, our students will actually run a small business that would be a lending library. Our students would loan out CD's, CD players and books for other classrooms to use. It would be wonderful to have these resources to share as well as help our students develop positive work skills and behaviors. We would bring the CD's and books into other classrooms in the school. The students would work on their communication skills, social skills, motor skills, etc. as they implement this lending library. Both our students and the classes that borrow the materials are winners in this project. We do not have access to a library and these new materials would provide wonderful lessons in English Language Arts and music for many students in our school. We could even see if the children and teachers in general education classes would be interested in participating. How wonderful would that be! It is never too early to teach our children with multiple disabilities skills that enable them to be active participants in their homes, school and community. This lending library would afford them many wonderful learning opportunities as well as provide the resources for others to learn. I am already excited about this new venture. I can see our kid's faces as they go into a classroom and smile a warm greeting. It would be a good way for our kids to serve as ambassadors in the school. Please consider helping fund this new project. I can assure you it will have a meaningful impact on the lives of many wonderful children.