By: Sofia Turek

If you’re a disabled 8th grader coming to Conard, READ THIS.

 

Don’t take Wellness 9’s PE, period.

 

If you can’t do speedball or fitness training, your best bet is to join “Cooperative” as a freshman and rotate with Health.

 

Why?

 

Back in Bristow, my old teachers, Mr Jones and Mrs. Smith, carefully adapted my PE curriculum. Although there have been some issues (fortunately, most of them were with subs), I participated fully. 

 

But that’s not the case for High School.

 

They have speedball (a game where you have to throw or kick the ball far, quickly), fitness training (with equipment people with wheelchairs couldn’t access), Badminton (sometimes SINGLES), and Volley (can’t reach the net with an elevating wheelchair). How can these activities be adapted, other than something not fun for a high-schooler?

 

So I complained every day I had the class and wrote an email to the teacher. Right after, I thought about joining Cooperative (joining the class doesn’t imply you’re in special education) next school year and was recommended for it. Since health is not the issue, I’ll have a rotation on health.

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To wait until that moment, I wanted to stand in the stander instead of PE. It was more boring than I expected, since I’m doing nothing but homework and still complaining about doing nothing.

 

So, even if Wellness 9 is a requirement for everyone, I, as a disabled student, don’t recommend other disabled students take the PE portion (if the student has to be excused from PE all the time); the PE portion is more involved.

 

Like if the disabled student is playing badminton singles, of course the disabled student will lose just because it’s an "unfair game". An unfair game is a game where an able student is competing with a disabled student; in such a game, the disabled student has a disadvantage.
Even if a classmate taught me a badminton pass method, I would still lose because, even though I adapted the pass, it was less accurate than that of another student.

Normal pass:
 

My adaptation:
I put the birdie on before I shoot (I can’t time the normal pass). I make sure that the birdie doesn’t fall from the racket by rotating the racket towards my belly.

As a wheelchair user, there is only one adaptation I have for the fitness training Wednesdays: I do weights, but most of the weights are like 10 pounds.