Saint Peter high school students learn new perspectives from those with disabilities

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - Saint Peter High School students learned about service animals for those with disabilities and heard from medal-winning athletes in the Special Olympics.

This is all in an effort to give students a different look at what having a disability is all about.

Equity Coordinator for Saint Peter Schools John Warren said, “We’re not here to cure them and they’re not here suffering. They are here as just a diverse part of our population and they should be given an opportunity, doors should be opened, and we should see them as we see ourselves.”

Listening in on the presentations was Saint Peter senior Shelby Hall, who took away the message that there is more than what meets the eye.

Hall said, “They have their own story. They’re not just what they look like or how they act. Like, for instance, Kallie. She wasn’t born that way. Like it was a developmental thing, and it happened because she was saved.”

Kallie is a student at Saint Peter Schools. She was born just like any other child. But treatment for a brain tumor caused damage to her pituitary gland, limiting her development.

Hall now understands that Kallie can grasp her surroundings just as well as others.

“You can really see how they actually know what you’re talking about. They’re just like all of us. They just have a little bit of different needs,” Hall explained.

Mr. Warren wanted to open students’ minds to these new perspectives on life. “People from these communities are not just living a life of misery, right? And they are trying to live vibrant, productive, joyful lives,” Warren said.

But at the end of the day, Hall says it’s as simple as, “They have something to bring the world just like everyone else.”

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