Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
At Five Star Bank,
community is at the
heart of what we do.
Every day we strive to have
thoughtful solutions for
our customers and help
our communities prosper.
Honest dialogue about the issues
affecting the region is vitally
important to that prosperity.
We are proud to be a part
of the conversation
and hope you'll join in.
♪♪
>>Few things can wound
a child more than
being bullied.
The scars that children
carry from being
ostracized or ridiculed
can last a lifetime.
Children with disabilities
can suffer even more greatly
because of their inability
to blend into the crowd or
to defend themselves.
For parents hoping that
the classroom will
be a safe place,
the hurt can be
equally devastating.
A local nonprofit called
A Touch of Understanding
uses education and experience
in the classroom to teach
our children to be
a bit kinder and more
understanding to those
who seem different but
are just like the rest
of us in all ways that count.
Joining us are the founder
of A Touch of Understanding,
Leslie Dedora and
Board Member and Volunteer,
Darlene O'Brien.
Leslie, what is bullying?
>>I think bullying is taking
advantage of someone else
in anyway and it could
be children doing
or adults doing it.
When someone is at a
disadvantage and isn't able
to protect themselves or
defend themselves in any way,
I think that would be a
definition of bullying.
>>Darlene, when bullying
takes place, it's a problem
for whoever is
suffering from that.
Tell us about the
unique experience of
disabled children
experiencing bullying?
>>Bullying to begin with
is a devastating process
as you said a moment ago
in the introduction.
It leaves scars far
past what we see
on the surface and it lasts
for years and years.
Kids with disabilities
who are in school,
they experience a level of
isolation from the start
because they already know
that they're different.
If you start at the first
day of school, every child
is looking around wondering,
"is anybody looking at me,
is anybody going to
pay attention to me?
Are they going to
make fun of me?"
It's a human condition.
But if you come into a
classroom and you have
blindness or deafness or
cerebral palsy or using a
wheelchair or leg braces...
or you have autism or any
other kind of disability,
you automatically are just
by definition you're already
separate from the rest
of the kids because you
look different or
you sound different or
you behave differently.
When you add that to the
regular every day tension
that could be in a classroom
or on a playground,
it tends to draw the kids
apart on a day-to-day basis.
In the classroom, the
teacher is going to teach
all the kids as best as
he or she can on an
equal basis but the social
aspect that comes in,
that's a whole other story,
it's just not addressed.
>>Leslie, I want to
ask you about that,
are children just cruel?
>>Oh I don't think children
are cruel at all,
I think actually
children are kind and very
very wise but if they don't
have the information,
they can behave out of fear
and fear makes all of us
defend ourselves.
And if they're afraid
of a child-
>>Why would they be
afraid of a child that
looks different?
>>You know,
that's interesting,
we were actually called
to a school because there
was a sixth grade boy with
autism and he spent all his
recesses spinning around,
it's called 'stimming,'
it kind of calms someone,
it calmed him.
Many people with autism do
things like that,
that's why you may see
repeated flapping
of the hands,
that type of thing.
Well he was spinning
around every recess,
all by himself.
He was teased so badly by a
group of boys that the
principle was forced to
move the child with autism
to a different school.
>>Wow.
>>We were called to that
school and we were able to
group that group of boys who
did the bullying in one
group as they moved around
and so when I had them,
just the four of them, I said,
"why do you think someone
would tease someone
with a disability?"
And you know how usually
bullies have kind of
a ring leader?
>>Yeah.
>>The ring leader's hand
just shot up and he said,
"We tease him because we're
afraid and when we tease him
we feel bigger and stronger."
>>Really?
>>And he looks weaker,
but we're still afraid.
They didn't have the
information to understand
why was he behaving
differently than
everyone else.
When we gave that to him
and they understood that
he's got all sorts of
things coming in at him.
Sensory overload, he's just
trying to calm himself down,
they understood that but
it wasn't in time.
>>Darlene, when you're that
child, the one that is
exhibiting that behavior for
just the reason that's part
of your existence in order
for you to feel right,
what does that isolation
feel like to that child?
>>It's...
sometimes it's terror.
>>Terror?
>>There are a lot of
children with disabilities
who don't want to go to
school and they beg their
parents not to make them
go to school.
>>Really?
>>Yes.
What Leslie said is- it's so
significant because we,
as human beings,
we do tend to avoid that
which we don't understand.
I'm completely blind I lost
my sight fifteen years ago
and so I have the experience
of living life as a
sighted person.
I went six years trying
to save my sight so I
was visually impaired,
I was in that in-between
world and now I see
nothing at all.
And I noticed a difference
as an adult of how I was
interacted with- by people,
by people in my family...
>>Can you describe it?
>>Yes, there's a...
if we don't understand
blindness, if somebody's
standing there with a
guide dog or a white cane,
a person might- you cannot
make eye contact.
You might see me in a
grocery store and make eye
contact and you're standing
in line and you might smile
or wave but if I don't make
eye contact with you because
I can't see you,
it automatically kind of
puts us at a disadvantage
in our interaction so,
people don't understand how
do I approach this person.
Do I approach this person?
Do you shake the hand of
somebody whose blind?
Do you walk up to a kid
whose walking around the
playground with a white cane,
are they going to understand
when I talk to them?
There's just so
many unknowns.
>>Well that's very true.
>>That you tend to avoid
what you don't understand.
>>It's very true because,
Darlene, the question is is
that, assume that you have
no malicious intent but
someone doesn't know how to
even interact with you
because they're afraid that
they might upset you
or offend you...
>>Yes, and I think for
A Touch of Understanding,
when we go into the schools,
it's a two part program.
We actually bring in people
with disabilities to be the
speakers so I started with
the organization in 2000 so
I would share my experiences
and my life with the
kids about blindness,
to give them a better
understanding and they
can ask me anything.
There's no question
off the table.
So we may have somebody with
Parkinson's, somebody with
cerebral palsy, somebody who
has deafness and we share
our lives with them so that
wall that comes up between
people with and without
disabilities, it's gone,
because I may come into the
classroom as they look at me
like, "oh, that lady, she's
blind, she can't see."
But by the time we finish
talking, I'm Darlene,
and oh yeah, Darlene can't
see but that's a secondary
characteristic now
as opposed to the thing
that separated us.
>>That's amazing.
Leslie, how did you come
upon this mission
of yours to do this?
>>Well that's, it's kind of
like a jigsaw puzzle of
pieces that came together.
I had the good fortune of
having a very loving aunt
who had developmental
disabilities and I remember
mistreating her when I was
younger because I didn't
understand her challenges.
>>You mistreated her?
>>I did, inadvertently.
I was confused because in my
eyes, she looked like the
adults but she behaved more
like the children and
I was confused.
And when I was about five
years old, my mother told me
a bit about her challenges
and told me that she
deserved the same respect
that I was giving everyone
else and I was uncomfortable
so when she told me the
challenges and I began to
understand, my aunt and I
became incredibly close
and remained so for the
rest of her life.
So that was a foundation for
me to when I went to school
and there were other
children with disabilities,
it didn't frighten me.
So I became friends with a
number of my classmates with
disabilities and that was
pretty comfortable in
elementary school but when
we hit junior high school,
middle school,
they were teased and
tormented terribly.
>>What happens then?
>>You know, I think the
hormones kick in and kids
are feeling uncertain about
themselves.
Particularly at that time
and so they're looking to do
exactly what I told her
those boys did.
If I put someone else down,
I look stronger,
I look more competent.
>>It's insecurity.
It comes down to insecurity.
>>Exactly.
And that's that age group
that really struggles with
that because they're finding
their own identity
at that time.
So when my own sons, who are
now 34 and 37, were in
elementary school, I saw
that they were really
mainstreaming kids with
disabilities into the
classroom which I thought
was fantastic but I assumed
that there would...
>>Is it fantastic?
>>It depends.
It can be,
it certainly can be.
But I feel that the children
who are in the regular
education classes deserve to
understand the challenges
and certainly the child
coming with the challenges
deserves to have as much
understanding as he or she
when they entered
the classroom.
And so, I was told and
observed many many incidents
of teasing and it wasn't
malicious, it was simply
ignorance and children
deserve to be ignorant,
they're just
learning everything.
>>Or the lack of
understanding why the child
was using a chair, why the
child was behaving the way
he or she was behaving.
>>And particularly invisible
disabilities.
I remember working with a
second grade class, we were
talking about telling time
and had about four kids
sitting in front of me and I
asked this one and that one
and everything went fine
until I got to the last one
and when I began to ask
that boy questions,
the rest of the children
chimed in in unison,
"don't ask him, he's stupid."
>>What is an invisible
disability?
>>Anything that someone
can struggle with that
you can't see.
So what we deal with most in
the classrooms now are
learning disabilities in
autism and so a child can
look as though they have no
additional challenges
compared to the rest of the
kids and then all of a
sudden have, what they call,
a meltdown because there's
something going on
within their head,
maybe the lights
are too bright,
maybe the air conditioner
sound is bothering them.
It could be anything and
they can't handle that in
addition to everything
else that's going on.
>>It could be how their
clothing feels on
their body that day.
It could feel like sand
paper it's like if you ever
had a sunburn and you had to
put your shirt on, and it's
just very uncomfortable, you
can't wait to get your shirt
off, that is a sensory issue
with a lot of
kids with autism.
The kids that are on the
autism spectrum often have
that characteristic where
they put their clothes on
and it bothers them so they
just like in their clothes
and they're uncomfortable or
picking up a pencil could be
like holding something so
rough and so pointed in
their hands that they just
can't hold it.
But if another child sitting
next to you doesn't
understand why the child is
doing that but once they
come to understand it,
it's not unusual anymore.
>>Right, so take us Darlene
through the training that
when you come into a school,
what happens?
>>Well we have a two part
program, we have a speaker's
portion, which I mentioned
a moment ago where the
speakers go into a classroom
or a library and we have
half the kids in with us and
so typically how it work is
we do one grade level.
It's not an assembly like a
lot of programs are in the
school where you go in and
you're in the auditorium or
the multi-purpose room and
all the kids in the
school are there.
It's not like that at all,
it's much more intimate.
We'll go in and do the
fourth grade in the school.
And so we'll take the fourth
graders, say there are 100
between all the classes and
we'll divide them in half,
50 and 50, as an example,
50 of the kids are with the
speakers, 50 of the kids are
with Leslie and the
other volunteers with
A Touch of Understanding
in the multipurpose room
and those kids are
divided up into
smaller groups and as the
speakers are sharing our
lives and our experiences
about our disabilities
with the kids,
and they're able
to ask us questions,
the other group at the same
time is going through
the same stations.
One station, it has white
canes, it's the vision
station so the kids actually
learn what is Braille.
They get to write their name
in Braille and actually
understand why a child in
fourth grade used brail.
They understand it and when
they closed their eyes and
the teacher asked them to
open up their history book,
it's just a flat smooth
page, it means nothing to a
child who can't see.
But, if they learn an
alphabet where the dots were
raised off the page, and
that becomes an A and a B,
the kids will go, oh!
And it makes total sense.
>>And by the end, this is a
day that you spend?
>>We spend typically
three hours, it's about an
hour and a half and
then we do this.
After the hour and a half is
up then we switch.
>>Okay, and at the end of
these three hours, what do
these kids come out with?
>>They come out with what I
think is the essence of
bullying is to pick on
or to isolate or to...
to go after somebody you
don't understand what
they're doing and why
they're doing it.
We take that out of
the equation.
So we help the children to
understand what is blindness
and why would somebody
behave like that
with blindness.
>>Right, Leslie, it's
interesting because
according to the statistics
that typically when a
bullying situation happens
in a school, the
intervention that happens
the most often is another
child stepping up to end
that particular incident and
so it sounds like that what
you're doing is maybe tool
sharing or tool creating?
>>We're empowering the kids
to know how to- it's not
like we're just removing
the bullying.
We're giving them the tools
to befriend, to understand,
to stand up for, and so it's
not uncommon for kids after
going through our program to
say to perhaps a new child
whose come into the school,
who hasn't gone
through our program,
we don't do that here.
And it's much more powerful
when the kids say we don't
do that here because when
it's the adults saying,
we don't do that here,
the adults aren't
always there,
the adults aren't always in
the restroom, the adults
aren't in the far sides of
the playground, the adults
aren't in the school buses
or at the bus stops.
>>Tell us what that training
has meant to the children
who are disabled who are
in these classrooms?
>> I can give an example
about the little
third grader.
>>Please.
>>We came to a school on a
Friday and this was the-
I believe it was a second
grade class actually.
And there was a little girl
who had braces on her legs
and she had cerebral palsy
and she could not support
her own weight and
she used a walker.
When we came to the school,
this little girl was doing
fine in the classroom but
socially, she didn't really
have the friends, she didn't
have the sleepovers.
A lot of kids with
disabilities are not invited
to the afterschool
activities with the other
kids, they're just left out.
>>Oh that's tough.
>>Many kids can reach high
school and never had a
sleepover before because
they never been invited.
Or a birthday party.
They're not invited to
the birthday parties.
>>Never?
And I just think that
a lot of people just
don't think about that.
>>Exactly, they don't think
about it and the kids
aren't, that's not cruelty,
that's just a lack of
understanding and awareness
that that child, yes she's
doing it differently but
she's just the same,
she would love to come
to a sleepover with the
rest of the girls.
So when we came to the
school, the tetherball at
that school was a big deal.
So you actually had your
beginner, your immediate,
and your advanced
tetherball circles.
Well, this little girl had
never played tetherball
because of her disability
and how serious the
kids took it, she never
stood in line for that.
When we came to the school
and the kids went around the
stations, she actually spoke
up and shared with the
kids her disability.
She lifted up her pant leg
and showed them the scars on
her legs from her surgeries
and spoke like a doctor
about the procedure
she had had.
>>Really?
>>And the kids were asking
her all these questions and
it was just a safe wonderful
forum that she got to
interact and the kids were
awed by her experiences.
Well, the following Monday,
we got a report from one of
the teachers who was on
yard-duty that day that she
saw a miracle happen, that
the following Monday, the
kids came back to school and
low and behold, at recess,
there was this little second
grade girl who had never
played tetherball before,
she was in line for
tetherball and she worked
her way up through the line
with her walker, and when it
got to her turn, Scott, she
pushed her walker aside and
she had to get down on her
knees, because she couldn't
support her own weight,
and because her teammate,
her opponent had gone through
A Touch of Understanding the
previous Friday, he got down
on his knees and that's how
he played the game with her.
And nobody in line went,
"hey that's not
tetherball rules!"
Everybody- because they
understood her better
and her situation,
they just accepted it
and so she played.
And every time she played
thereafter, once she had an
opponent, they got down on
their knees and nobody
thought anything of it.
>>That is so cool.
>>It changed everything!
>>When you do this work and
you're able to empower these
kids, Leslie, what about the
parents because I would
think that as much as the
children need those tools,
I have to believe that many
parents need those tools
as well because they
don't understand.
>>I think of the parents
almost in two groups.
I think of the parents of
the children with
disabilities and how
desperately they want their
child to be accepted.
>>Sure.
>>And then I think of the
parents of the typically
developing children who
naturally might respond to
a situation by saying,
"just don't even react,
just stay away,"
particularly are
going to have to go
back to autism.
If there's a child with
autism and their behavior is
unpredictable, sometimes
frightening, but no one
really knows that that's the
reason for the behavior.
You know, if my child comes
home from school and says,
"so-and-so is in line and
they just started hitting me
and I don't even know why,"
it's a natural reaction for
me to say, "you know,
just stay away from him."
But then we have children
being isolated because
the parents don't know
why the behavior is
so the the more we can
educate the parents of
typically developing
children and support the
parents of children with
disabilities, the stronger
our community will be.
And that's one reason we
developed the Youth FORCE
and the FORCE stands for
Friends Offering Respect
Creating Empowerment
and it's an inclusive
group of children and
young people with and
without disabilities.
They get together every
month for social,
leadership, and community
service opportunities and
for many of the children,
their parents have told them
this is the only place
they have friends.
>>Really?
>>This is the only place
they're accepted that they
can get together with this
group and not wonder if
someone will hurt their
child, tease their child,
that it's a totally safe
environment and from that
then we have a mom's chat
group because they get
together outside the
youth force.
As a matter of fact, one 11
year old boy had his first
birthday party that included
friends because it was the
first time the mom felt
comfortable asking kids over
and she said, not only did
the boys have a great time,
but the mothers were able to
sit together and visit
totally relaxed that if
their child had a meltdown,
or got an anger issue or
anything like that, they
didn't have to explain it.
The other mothers knew.
>>Now, how many schools and
children are you touching
per year, are you both
touching per year right now.
>>For the school workshops,
last year, 6,196 students
went through from
August to last May.
>>These numbers are
very exciting.
>>Those are very
large numbers.
And is that all within
this region, Darlene?
>>It is for the most part
within the greater
Sacramento region.
We've gone as far as
South Lake Tahoe,
we've gone to Mill Valley,
the word is out there for
A Touch of Understanding
and if you can think
back if you were a kid,
and you know, even if
the child didn't have a
disability, there were kids
in your class, no matter
what grade you were in,
they got picked on.
It's a devastating thing to
have your child come home in
tears begging not to go back
to school because of the
environment at school.
So parents find out about
what we can do and how we
change the total atmosphere
on the school campus, let
alone in a classroom and
they're calling us saying,
please come here.
We've now done over
61,000 children.
>>61,000?
>>61,000 children have
been affected by
A Touch of Understanding.
And many of these kids went
through in second and third
and fourth grade and now
they're through college and
we've had these young adults
call us and say, "I did A
Touch of Understanding when
I was in third grade, you
changed my life, I'm in
Special Education now,"
or...
>>As an instructor?
>>Absolutely.
>>It just steered the course
of their life because it
opened something up in
their soul, they're like,
"oh, I get this!"
And it changes everything.
>>Some have said that it's
not something that they did,
it's something they
carry with them.
>>Really?
>>They look at everybody
differently after that and I
think that is what's so
unique about what we do at
A Touch of Understanding.
It's not going in and saying
to the kids, "bullying is
wrong, don't pick on
anybody, it's not the right
thing for you to do,"
we actually get to the heart
of why there's bullying in the
first place and it's because
we look at someone whose
different from us, we don't
understand what they're
doing or why they're doing
it so we isolate them or we
call them names or worse,
or worse things happen.
We had a little boy who had
his walker taken from him
off the playground,
taken by some other boys
and he was left on his knees
on the playground until
his sister had to go get
it back from them.
We've had a boy whose a high
school student, we came in
and he actually went through
the program when he was a
youngster and now he's
in high school and
he called and asked
A Touch of Understanding
to come speak to his
school and so he got up in
front of those sophomores,
can you imagine?
Being a sophomore and
getting up and telling your
story in front of your peers?
>>Wow.
That's bravery.
>>He actually broke down in
front of them and started to
tear up and he told them
that he was going
to kill himself.
And A Touch of Understanding
came in and changed
everything at his school
because once we came
through, after we left, he
was not invisible anymore or
he was not bullied anymore.
He wasn't hit on the head
anymore because kids used to
walk by and smack him on the
head and things like that and
it stopped because kids go,
"oh, so that's what's
going on with you."
And then,
friendships started.
And so it was unique
experience and it happens
time and time again and
finally one of the girls
in the audience says,
"Who was it?
We'll stop them for you!"
I mean they wanted to, like
you said, the children who
stand up for other children,
that's when it stops, that
is what we do in the schools
we empower those other kids
to go, "wait a minute,
this isn't right."
>>And we're going to have
to leave it there.
What an amazing story.
Best of luck to you both.
>>Thanks Scott.
>>Well that's our show.
Thanks to our guests and
thanks to you for watching
Studio Sacramento.
I'm Scott Syphax,
see you next time
right here on KVIE.
♪♪
>>At Five Star Bank,
community is at the
heart of what we do.
Every day we strive to
have thoughtful solutions
for our customers and
help our communities prosper.
Honest dialogue about the
issues affecting the region
is vitally important
to that prosperity.
We are proud to be
a part of the conversation
and hope you'll join in.
>>All episodes of
Studio Sacramento,
along with other KVIE programs,
are available to watch online at
kvie.org/video