Addison Elementary fifth grader leads a lesson in wheelchair basketball and inclusion
HARTFORD, Wisc. (CBS 58) -- Sometimes the biggest lessons in school don’t come from a textbook. They come from seeing the world through someone else’s eyes – or in this case, wheels.
Inside Addison Elementary, you’ll find fifth graders screaming at full volume. It’s a common occurrence in a P.E class, but this one is different. No one is running laps. Every single student is seated in a wheelchair.
Kendall Kieckhafer
For most of these kids, this is new and uncharted territory. For Kendall Kieckhafer, this is home court.
“Usual day of P.E is we just run around the outside of the gym,” said Kieckhafer.
Kieckhafer was born with spina bifida.
“My spine was crooked, I guess,” said Kieckhafer.
Since then, there have been dozens of surgeries, more than most kids her age will ever have.
“She’s been through a lot. Eye surgeries, leg surgeries, back surgeries, bladder surgeries, but she handles everything like a champion,” said her dad, Adam Kieckhafer.
That’s exactly who’s wheeling herself across the court in purple glasses and a smile. A champion.
“She just has a resilience and a determination that I don’t see in very many kids. And I don’t say that just cause she’s my daughter,” said her mom, Christin Kieckhafer.
When Christin Keickhafer learned about the Wisconsin Adaptive Sports Association (WASA), she asked Addison Elementary if the organization could teach her daughter’s class about wheelchair basketball.
“She has been looking forward to this for I can’t even tell you how long,” said Christin.
Kieckhafer’s classmates are learning that playing basketball in a wheelchair isn’t as easy as they thought. Wheels don’t move the same way your feet do.
“You just have to be able to move in this, without hurting yourself, I guess,” said Kieckhafer.
It takes strength. It takes power.
“A lot of people don’t know the coordination that goes on,” said Adam.
It also takes a great leader.
"I got to show my teammates what to do and stuff and I got to help with them with buckling,” said Kieckhafer. “I felt proud they were cheering for me and that just made me feel happy knowing they were there for me to cheer me on.”
Kendall Kieckhafer
Erica Wilson with WASA says just because life for Kieckhafer may look different, she can still do whatever she puts her mind to.
“You can be an athlete, whether that's competitively, or recreationally. You can go to school, you can have a job, and you can have just as many friends as anybody else can,” said Wilson. “I think if you look at this group as a whole, you wouldn’t have known Kendall is the one with a disability because everyone there was using a wheelchair.”
For the first time in this class, Kieckhafer’s the one guiding the way.
“Just an opportunity for her friends to see kind of the world she lives in,” said Adam.
On this court, it wasn’t just a P.E lesson on adaptive sports.
“She just loves life and she wants to jump in, and she wants to try stuff, and she does it with a smile on her face and I think she’s learning to love the life she has,” said Christin. “You can make the most of the life that you have and it can be fun.”
For this gym full of her classmates, it was a lesson on inclusion. It was about learning that sometimes the way to lift someone up is to sit down and see the world from their perspective.
“I would like to see more people doing this more often in here,” said Kieckhafer.