Published: April 09, 2009 11:01 pm         

Special education students help stop racism with a show of hands

In an answer to Enid YWCA’s 2009 Stop Racism and Prejudice Youth Challenge, three area special education classes have gone above and beyond, all the while involving the whole community.

Students of Gretchen Cole-Lade, Enid High School; Jaci Tolbert, Monroe Elementary School; and Shannon Goodwin, Waukomis Elementary School, have called Garfield County to raise a “Show of Hands Against Racism and Prejudice.”

The three classes have been cutting out paper hands since January and have distributed the hands to any classroom or day care in the county that wanted them. The hands then were decorated with colorful designs and positive words and returned to the classrooms of Cole-Lade, Tolbert and Goodwin.

“We cut them out as we got the orders,” said Cole-Lade. “(Then) they sent them back and we put them all together ... and shook them up so hands from different students got back to them.”

Once different hands were distributed back to the participating classrooms and day cares they were used to create visual displays.

Cole-Lade said this is the second year for her students to collaborate with Monroe and Waukomis special education classes and do the project. Last year the classes cut out 1,900 hands.

This year the students cut out 21,467 hands.

“It’s blowing our minds,” Cole-Lade said.

The hands will be displayed at all participating locations until April 17.

As another part of the project, a special speaker, Carl Wilkens, will visit Enid High School and Waukomis Public Schools and then give a special presentation to the public at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Northwestern Oklahoma State University-Enid, 2929 E. Randolph. The presentation will be free, and anyone is welcome to attend.

Wilkens is former head of Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda. In 1994, he was the only American who stayed in Rwanda after the genocide began and is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of children.

Cole-Lade first heard Wilkens speak when she and Goodwin attended a teacher’s conference at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

“Carl’s message that really hit Shannon and I was, ‘Genocide stems from thinking that says,’ ‘My world would be better with out you in it,’’’said Cole-Lade.

Cole-Lade said she believes that statement could apply to racism and to many different prejudices, which is why Wilkens is an appropriate speaker for the project.

Even when racism and prejudice does not end in something as atrocious as genocide, it still can be painful in many ways, Cole-Lade said.

“We live in a world where words hurt,” Cole-Lade said. “You can’t look at 21,000 hands in Garfield County and not say, ‘This is a message that people need to hear.’”

The Show of Hands project is just one of the YWCA Stop Racism and Prejudice Youth Challenge projects in the area, said Dena Patterson, YWCA children’s services director. Each competing team member will receive a T-shirt, and the winning team will receive a special prize to be announced.

Funding for the supplies, prizes, activities and events for this challenge have come from YWCA, United Way of Enid and Northwest Oklahoma, Enid High School PTSA and other private donors.