Students in the College Introduction to Sociology class took a field trip to the Association for Habilitation and Residential Care (AHRC) Nassau on Friday, Nov. 21. Students from Koren Pena’s class and guidance counselor Johnathan Spector to help make autumn thanksgiving crafts.
The AHRC Nassau was founded 70 years ago because it was seen that opportunities for people with developmental diseases was limited. People with developmental disabilities faced extremely limited opportunities. In July of 1949, however, Ann Greenberg, a young mother, refused to accept those conditions for her son, and she placed an advertisement in a local newspaper calling on other parents of children with special needs to come together and start a nursery school. One of the first respondents, Margaret Reiss, who was a parent of a child with an intellectual disability, became one of the nine original members of AHRC New York City. AHRC later expanded into two more chapters for Nassau County and Suffolk County.
Towards the end of the bus ride to AHRC, Spector told students that he used to work at AHRC while he was in graduate school. Pena and Spector have been taking students to visit AHRC for over 20 years. Pena explained, “I knew that I was looking to give my students a unique experience of meeting new populations of kids, and [Mr. Spector] had previously worked at the AHRC.”
The AHRC location students visited was in Brookville. After getting off the bus, students were greeted by staff and shown to the gymnasium. They were asked to stand by a table that had different activities for the kids to do. Some of the activities included playing with Play-Doh, coloring, playing BINGO, and playing with a sensory bin that was filled with rice and fake leaves.
This particular location of AHRC offers education for people ranging from ages 3 to 21, with accommodations for a wide-range of disabilities. While students of AHRC were at their station, LHS students were offered a valuable learning experience to ask every caretaker how to communicate best with that individual person. This trip was especially valuable for students who are interested in pursuing careers in education, physical therapy, or occupational therapy. Junior Grace Clausen, who is interested in going into the education field, said, “I think this trip was so valuable because it taught me to be patient and learn to understand kids who are a little bit different. This is good for the education field because there will be kids with disabilities and different needs in every grade and in any school, so it’s important to accommodate and adapt to these situations now before going to the teaching field.”
At the end of the day, students learned a lot from their trip to AHRC. Pena expressed, “I think experiential learning is the best type of learning. Getting out of the building and having these types of interactions is so important. It gives our students an opportunity to be exposed to different students and helps reduce stereotypes and strengthens empathy and kindness.”
