“Let Your Light Shine”

Today we had the privilege of visiting a school called Northern Lights.  This is a school for students with either mental or physical disabilities.  Their mission is posted on the wall and it is “to produce quality and equitable education service to all educable physically and specific learning disabled learners”.  The school serves learners grade R (kindergarten) thru high school.  The classrooms are bright and colorful.  They have a large field where students play tag and soccer during their recess.  As at all the schools we have visited, the people are gracious and the students are excited. According to the people we talked with although these particular students are being served, there are many more who are not. While there is a policy (The Disability Rights Treaty) in place, students are still being left behind or not able to attend a school.  There is a waiting list, lack of funding and inadequate training for teachers to help these students.  Northern Lights seems to be a model school with passionate teachers, but the students are still separated from their non disabled peers.  Some travel hours every day in order to attend instead of being able to go to the closest school.  Despite this, you can see on their faces, they love being in school and learning. In a second grade classroom, they sang their school song which was inspiring to all who listened – “I am a special child and I will let my light shine”.