Students and staff at Deer Park’s Robert Frost Middle School participated in the school’s seventh annual BandAid Project on April 13, moderated by Stephanie O’Connell and Kathy Ugalde. Sponsored by the World of Difference and Student Ambassadors clubs, BandAid is one of the primary activities that Robert Frost conducts each year as part of the No Place for Hate initiative.
The 2022 BandAid theme was neurodiversity, celebrating the idea that it is normal and acceptable for people to have brains that function differently from one another. Rather than assuming there is something wrong or problematic when someone doesn’t think, learn or behave similarly to others, neurodiversity embraces all differences.
This year’s BandAid Project was a full-day activity consisting of three main parts. The first involved student volunteers who promised not to speak and wore adhesive bandages on their mouths throughout the day. Students had to communicate with their teachers and each other only via nonverbal means of communication, an experience intended to bring attention to the difficulties people with disabilities face each day. Wearing the bandage also gave students the experience of “standing out” among their peers.
The second part of the event welcomed students and staff to visit Robert Frost’s Neurodiversity Sensory Stations during their lunch periods. The eight stations – including optical illusions and touch, smell and taste experiences – were designed to encourage conversation and highlight the concept that everyone perceives the world around them in a different way.
The final part of the BandAid program was an afterschool discussion on neurodiversity and ableism, which is discrimination or prejudice against individuals with disabilities. Student volunteers James Degrange, Rebeckah Garrow and Mikey Vertullo shared their knowledge about being a part of the neurodiverse community, discussing both the challenges and highlights of their own experiences.
“Throughout the day, our students and staff demonstrated how crucial it is that we accept and support those who experience the world differently from ourselves,” O'Connell said.
Date Added: 5/11/2022