Sometimes when people are exposed to a difficult or unusual situation early in life, they understand it better when they get older.
That sums up the intent of a special program for 3-year-olds in the early childhood classes in the Jersey City public school system.
Some of those 3-year-olds are using space this year in a building that is part of the St. Joseph’s School for the Blind in Jersey City, which enrolls disabled students from throughout New Jersey. Thus, the leaders of both schools thought it a good idea to have the two groups meet.
“Kids are kids – that’s the bottom line.” – Mary Giambona
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“When the kids in our program first saw the students from St. Joseph’s, some got scared; some even cried,” Viole said. “They didn’t understand why the [blind students] were pounding on the floor with a cane, or why some were in a wheelchair.”
Viole said the initial fear has evolved into acceptance.
Now, teenage students from the School for the Blind read to the early childhood preschoolers. Both groups of children go into each other’s classes and both groups attend general assembly programs together.
Mary Giambona, an instructor in St. Joseph’s School for the Blind pre-school program, said she is impressed by how the kids from both groups are able to adapt to one another. Yet she is not surprised.
“Kids are kids – that’s the bottom line,” Giambona said.
Learning from another
How have students with differences found common ground in a year spent under the same roof?
A typical example was last week, when some students were in the same play area outside.
Ariadna Romero and Sofia Soueidan from the Jersey City preschool program played with Amadis Samayoa from the St. Joseph’s preschool program, running through the grass toward the slides, holding each other’s hands. And Giancarlo Saitta helped to guide Diego Arcila, a visually impaired student, around the playground.
But to get to this point took some doing.
Erin Knauss, an early childhood instructor in the Jersey City public schools, said Gerald Miller, a mobility instructor from St. Joseph’s, visited the six classrooms where the Jersey City preschool students are located during the school year. Knauss said Miller in those visits would show the students the equipment that their St. Joseph’s counterparts would use to move around. Also, kids would be blindfolded to understand better how those without sight function in the everyday world.
Andrea Caroselli, another early childhood instructor, recalled what happened when Miller left a cane and a blindfold in her classroom.
“The kids started role-playing, with one kid pretending to be blind and the others helping the kid by describing the things,” Caroselli said. “I was amazed and very proud of them.”
Joseph Guglimetta, principal of the Concordia Learning Center at St. Joseph’s, said the visually impaired and disabled students and their instructors have “enjoyed” the opportunity to interact with the new students in the school, seeing how both develop compassion and understanding from one another.
He noted, for example, 17-year-old Indigo Estevez, who reads to the Jersey City preschool students once a week.
Estevez said she likes to read to the students.
“It feels great reading to them, it is a lot of fun,” Estevez said.