1. Stephanie Aceves
4203.04 Learners w/ Exceptionalities
January 20, 2016
©2016, Stephanie Aceves
Attachment A
Disability Awareness
Sunday
Location: Church
(Holy Cross)
Monday
Location: Aqua-tots swim school
(Work)
Tuesday
Location: Aqua-tots swim school
(Work)
At church I was sitting with my family
and we have a person in our community
that cannot control what they do or say
because of his disability. He is
wheelchair bound and is a great person.
But to people who are visiting they find
him distracting and too loud to be in
mass. We had fellowship Sunday this
Sunday and I was able to talk to some
visiting people and ask them question
about that they thought about mass and
they all said along the same lines that
there was a guy yelling and speaking
loudly and that they found it distracting
and could not say much about the
readings or the spread of the word. But
when talking to people who come
regularly to mass they could give me
more details about the homily and the
reading and when I was to ask about the
excess noise they said that he was either
singing or trying to relate and
understand what was going on at that
time. They did not seem bothered by it.
I work at a swim school and I have at
least three students that have
disability’s and I find that it is a blast
when I get the chance to work with
those students. I will admit that it is
hard at first to get them to do what you
are saying. As well as takes time out side
the workplace to get prepared for that
class to make sure that you can relate to
the student and the student
understands what you are expecting of
them. After talking with some of the
other teacher I see that it takes a lot of
patients can will power to get through
to those students. Most of the teachers
that I talked to said that they were
frustrated and angry that they student
would not listen to what they were
saying.
Today I was confronted by one of the
mothers who was deaf and autistic. The
mother was pleased with how her
student was listening to me because
with the other instructors he has had all
he would do was play and not listen. She
asked me how I did it. I simply told her
that I had done some out side work to
make sure that I could communicate
with her son and that what needed to
be don could because there were no
barriers that were happening in the
teaching. I told her that I have watched
some YouTube channel’s so that I could
get the basic sing language words so
that I could talk to him and let him know
what I expected of him. She was
impressed and said thank you and told
me that her main concern was that he
was not going to have the safety skills he
needed to protect him self in the water.

2. Stephanie Aceves
4203.04 Learners w/ Exceptionalities
January 20, 2016
©2016, Stephanie Aceves
Wednesday
Location: Aqua-tots swim school
(Work)
Thursday
Location: School (TWU)
Friday
Location: Aqua-tots swim school
(Work)
Working the front desk at my job I had a
mother that was interested in swim
lessons and wanted to know if we
offered them to students with
disability’s for a blind student. I told her
that we did have a disability program
called S.N.A.P that assisted students
with disabilities but I would have to
have my manager call her back about
getting a time and day scheduled with in
that program because we do not have
that many students in that program at
this time. She seemed sad and worried
all at the same time and I felt bad but I
did not want to promise her something
that we might not be able to offer her
student.
I failed at this assignment and did not
find an article or have interaction with
anyone that was disabled today. I was in
class from 8am – 8 pm and did not do It
after class.
Today was not technically at work but it
happened in the parking lot at my work
location. There was a mother of two
that was getting out of her car and she
was on crutches. She had a new born
baby and a three-year-old who was
coming in for swimming. I do not know if
this will count as disabled but I found
myself helping the family take down the
children and the bags so that the
mother had less to carry on her and
struggle with while getting in the door of
our facility. This mother was grateful
and seemed to be appreciative in the
since that I was willing to help her. But
as a person that has taken care of three
people who have has knee surgery’s I
know how hard it is on the body to be
taking care of two kids and all the bags
that go with swim classes.
I will say that over the past week I have become more aware of my surroundings and what is going on than ever before and this
surprised me to see how many people will pass judgment or just walk past a person who needs help. At work I see teacher/
instructors get mad or irritated with student because of “behavioral” things that happen in class when in reality they feed off of
what is around them and if you aren’t careful someone could get hurt. In the workplace I keep telling my coworkers that students
feed off of the energy we bring to the class and that is what they have for the rest of the class the more positive and proactive you
are as an instructor and teacher the better the class will be in the end.