by Dennis Harter
dennish@isb.ac.th
Our ISB community respects and celebrates diversity. A big part of creating that community of celebrating diversity is first to build empathy and understanding. At our Diversity Assembly earlier this week, our Best Buddies Club students described their campaign to “#EndtheR word”. Casual and social use of the word “retarded” by young people is typically uninformed and insensitive to those who think and process differently and their family members. Our students shared stories of their experiences with this.
The Best Buddies are encouraging students to take the pledge to stop using “the R-word” and selling 60 baht bracelets to help spread the message. Also, today, March 31st, students were encouraged to wear blue to school in recognition of Autism Awareness Day (April 2nd).
Starting in 2017-18, ISB will open it’s first Intensive Needs Classroom, which will serve students with intellectual and developmental differences that prevent them to accessing our academic curriculum. Our own Lori Boll will be running this class, which will start with young elementary aged students. The Best Buddies club is helping our community better understand differences like autism, so that we can be the most welcoming and understanding community we can be.
For parents interested in learning more about autism, Lori will be presenting on the topic on Monday, April 3, 7:45 to 8:45 AM in MPB 3 in a session called, Autism – Ask and Tell. We hope you can join the session, if you are interested in learning more.