Twenty Five Words

"If I couldn't talk, I feel that I wouldn't be able to portray how I was and felt as a person and I would feel very restricted." 

"If I could not talk, I would feel trapped in an iron box. Not being able to talk would be like a piece of me just ripped out of me. How would I communicate?"
                       

Fourth graders are listening to Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper, a novel that shares the story of a young girl with cerebral palsy. The main character, Melody, can't speak or walk and has limited access to the use of her upper body. She needs to be fed soft foods, be taken to the bathroom, sometimes drools and sometimes when she is excited she may shriek and kick. Melody is aware of how this is perceived by people but, because she can't talk, she needs to rely on a limited of number of words taped to her wheelchair tray to communicate.

To help students get a sense of what this might be like, we had students create a word list of twenty five words. They were allowed to choose whichever words they thought they might most need for conversation. We then paired students with one student using only the twenty five words to communicate and the other student trying to engage in conversation. You can see in the video below the students frustration on both sides, as well as the speaker trying to find avenues of conversation to match the words.

After the task, students who used the words shared how fast the conversation went and how hard it was to do more than answer the questions. The conversations were timed for four minutes and at no time did students want to quit. We then pondered what it might really be like to be in such a situation, would they continue to engage even though it was difficult? All of the students thought they would.

We discussed our lack of experience with people who have physical challenges. Why don't we see more people like Melody? Some students felt that Melody was a rare case, others felt they probably didn't occupy the same spaces because some aspects of their lives were not open to people with disabilities. We considered if we did know anyone similar to Melody. Some students pointed out that they did know some people who were physically challenged and considered them friends:

"Yes, from AFS Camp. I have a picture of him and all of my friends." 

"I don't have a disabled close friend because I think that disabled children don't get a lot of invitations...I think that that's wrong. But I have met a nice disabled child and we aren't close but he's nice. "

The discussion about the words we chose and the importance of communication and connection was an important one, which helped broaden our understanding and our perspective of others.