Best Buddies
    Started in 1989 as an international organization by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Best Buddies aims to enhance the lives of students with disabilities by providing one-on-one friendships with other students. Best Buddies special education advisor Eugenie Winslow started Lowell’s branch in 2003.
    Fifty-five students, both in general and special education are involved in the group, as either a peer buddy or an associate buddy. Peer buddies are matched one-on-one with students in special education, while associate buddies drop by classes and spend time with students without being individually matched. "You build a friendship with the students,” junior club member Robert Lee said. “They're very welcoming and appreciative of new members."  

Important Friendships
    Participants find Best Buddies to be a rewarding challenge. "When first joining, I thought that it would be easy to befriend (special education students), but it really takes effort, commitment and patience," senior and former officer Allyssa Montemayor said. "Sometimes they don't react to you. But we all have feelings and need understanding to not let stereotypes affect us.” 
    Senior Griffin Tyree, one of four vice presidents, agreed that dispelling stereotypes is an important aspect of the club. “Lowell is a very statistic and success-oriented school, and it would be easy for students with mental disabilities to fall through the cracks,” Tyree said. “This is why this club is so beneficial for the student community. It really broadens students’ horizons and makes them more attentive and aware of other people, even though they might not be as academically tuned or successful. I think that’s something students need to learn to be responsible people in the world.”
    The club helps general education and special education students find “common ground” that enables “very stable, fun and enriching friendships,” he continued.
     Junior Scott Lee, like many other members, said that he has developed strong bonds with his buddy. "My buddy and I walk around the track or play basketball,” Lee said. “One buddy taught me how to skateboard, but I was really bad at it."
    Skateboarding is not the only activity buddies participate in; the program also provides events such as movies, bowling and other outings.        
    Senior club president Charlene Saddul was motivated to join Best Buddies after her younger sister was diagnosed with autism when she was two. She had previous experience working with special education students because she volunteered in her sister’s classroom when she was in middle school.
     "I like that general education students and special education students can interact," Saddul said. "It shows that everyone's equal. We don't really distinguish or separate one from the other." Saddul has enjoyed working with special education students, both in middle school and here at Lowell. "It was always fun, and the students are optimistic and energetic,” she said. “It feels really rewarding."

A different kind of club
    Other members joined Best Buddies without having a personal connection. "There are a lot of frivolous clubs at Lowell,” Scott Lee said. “I wanted to do something meaningful. The main thing Best Buddies is trying to teach us is to be their friends and not feel pity for them."          Ashley Perryman, the program manager for Best Buddies at several school sites, said that she enjoys seeing students empower each other in the club. They “all step out of their comfort zones when they begin," she said. "The biggest challenge initially is that the general education students don't know how to interact with the special education students.” Perryman explained that many students initially use baby-talk and that because of their misconceptions contact is awkward at first. “But they adjust, and that’s what we’re after,” she added.
    Saddul agreed that interactions were initially a challenge. “When I first started TA-ing for special education, I remember that there were a lot of social barriers,” she said. “I had trouble communicating with them, because I would say something, and they would basically ignore it. Sometimes I would ask one of the buddies how she was doing, and she’d look at me for a moment, and then look at the floor while she shook her hands in the air. After constantly coming and visiting her class, she started saying words — bits and phrases — and she would actually respond to me. But, it took a lot of warming up and dedication for her to be comfortable with me.”
    Montemayor had similar experiences. "What made it sometimes difficult to befriend severely autistic youth was the mindset that separated us,” she said. “They sometimes run away from you in the middle of speaking from distraction. Rather than have selective attention (the ability to focus), their attention span doesn't last very long.”
    Like other members, Saddul learned to adapt to and befriend different personalities. “The first time I met one of the special education students, who tends to be in his own little world where he acts out scenes from The Three Stooges and Back to the Future, I had no idea how to become part of his world or to reach him,” she said. “Eventually, after saying hi to him and visiting his classroom, I gradually became in it. I would act scenes with him and learned how to communicate with him on his terms.”
    Having such interactions makes Best Buddies a worthwhile club to many members. "We draw, sing and dance, which seems to be effortless, but it really contributes to their social development," Montemayor said. "The program itself is really fun for teachers and the students, who can make friends and have fun."
    Best Buddies faculty advisor and teacher Matthew Lavoie praised the program for bringing students together in a unique way. "Special education students’ friendships are (usually with) people who have to be in their lives, like parents and teachers,” he said. “Best Buddies expands that: it becomes a pathway for students in general education to be in the special education world, rather than the usual opposite of special education students in a general education environment."
    General education students feel that they have gained more than new friendships. "I gained a sense of maturity,” Montemayor said. “It's understandable at first to feel afraid or threatened by someone in special education. But you learn to embrace people for their differences. Just look at it as another part of their personality.”
    Best Buddies members meet at 3:30 p.m. on Fridays, as well as Mod 18 on Tuesdays, in Room 145.

An alumni’s experience
    The Best Buddies program is not the only way for students to get involved with the special education program. Some students have also worked as teaching assistants, including class of ’05 alumni Madison Junker. “I saw a posting in the bulletin saying that they were looking for a TA of sorts, and I wrote in to see if I might start,” Junker wrote in an e-mail. “My aunt has Downs Syndrome, so I had grown up around various disabilities, but had never really known how to act ...  I thought this might be the opportunity.”
    After her volunteer work at Lowell, Junker decided to pursue a degree in special education, which has led her to various internships, including one at Oakes Children’s Center in San Francisco, which is “a school for extremely emotionally disturbed and emotionally delayed children ages five to 16.” The internship was “an amazing experience.” Junker’s latest project was a summer internship in Australia, where she worked in a classroom for students who needed an alternative to mainstream education.
    “I can’t begin to describe how much I have learned through my volunteer work, from my supervisors and from the students themselves,” Junker wrote. “I literally would walk out of the room every morning at Lowell and know that this was the happiest I would be all day. I gained so much from the experience, more than I realized and more than probably the teachers there realized. What do I like about it? Learning about people, talking to them, listening to and watching them.”
    Junker explained that the way she feels when working with students is what drives her.  “Maybe I’m actually very selfish in doing something that makes me so happy,” she wrote.
Working with special education students demands more than just passion for the field, however. Teachers and assistants must be individuals who believe “in other people and their ability to succeed, no matter what faces them,” she wrote. “Maybe that’s not realistic, maybe it is, but I think that is an important quality, really for anyone. Patience is also important, from taking the time to develop trust between student and teacher, to realizing that not everything comes equally easily to everyone and a different explanation of a concept might need to be found.”
    Students interested in TA positions should see Winslow in Room 145.