Will County P.E. Takeover Classes Teach Adaptive Sports, Inclusion

HOMER GLEN, IL — For weeks now, Chris Coopman has watched as local elementary school students have participated in physical education classes that include activities that teach kids to see games in a different way than they ever have before.

In P.E. classes at various Will County District 92 schools, students have had their vision altered by ski goggles, participated in volleyball games in which they are not allowed to stand, and played basketball in wheelchairs — all in the name of teaching them to experience life in ways those with physical and developmental disabilities do on a daily basis.

The classes, which are “taken over” by the staff members from Lincolnway Special Recreation Association in New Lenox and the Northern Will County Special Recreation Association in Romeoville, offer students a new perspective, which in turn opens their eyes to the way life is lived by others.

The two not-for-profit organizations also work with local park districts, including in Homer Glen, to run programming for kids who live with disabilities but who can still experience sports in an adaptive form that works around their physical limitations.

For Coopman, a physical education teacher at Oak Prairie Junior High in Homer Glen, the “takeover classes” offer valuable lessons that otherwise may not be learned in traditional gym class settings. While the limitations the students experience are temporary, unlike those residents living with disabilities, Coopman says that watching students engage in meaningful ways has provided a unique educational experience.

“It’s been very interesting,” Coopman told Patch this week. “Seeing what it’s like at the lower (grade) levels where you can change those kids’ attitudes at a younger age has been amazing.

“Here you’re motivating them and they’re talking it up, and it’s just tons of fun. … We’re having a good time, and we’re going to continue having a good time.”

Both the New Lenox and Romeoville-based organizations have been around for more than 15 years and use programming to introduce adaptive sports to local students. The P.E. takeover classes run through the high school level and Keith Wallace, the executive director of the Lincoln Way Special Recreation Association, said the school programming helps not only informs students of seeing these sports differently but also allows fun to enter the learning process as well.

Wallace said what starts with an explanation of adaptive sports turns into kids experiencing the games themselves and, perhaps, providing able-bodied students with the chance to engage more with kids who live with disabilities. According to Wallace, 1 in 10 families will either have children with disabilities or come into regular contact with them, which makes the programming the two Will County organizations provide even more vital.

“What we’re trying to show people is that sports exist for everybody. Everybody can play, they can get involved,” Wallace told Patch on Friday. “It levels the playing field.”

While students may be initially apprehensive about taking part in the takeover classes, Wallace says they quickly adapt to games like “goal ball,” in which students wearing ski goggles must stop a ball from getting past them just by the sound of the ball. He says before long, students call the classes the best P.E. class the best they have ever taken, which begins an important word-of-mouth process that spreads the organization’s mission.

Since introducing the PE takeover classes at the elementary school levels in recent weeks, the two Will County special recreation organizations will run classes at local middle schools next week before the Lincolnway association’s Hawks wheelchair basketball team plays in a charity game against District 92 staff members on Tuesday night.

The game, which will be held at 6 p.m. at Oak Prairie Junior High, benefits the special recreation association’s mission of helping those with physical and developmental disabilities. There is no admission fee for the game, but donations will be accepted at the door and there will be other fundraising opportunities throughout the evening, organizers said.

But much of the enthusiasm for the effort to provide more awareness and education for the work the two Will County organizations do in the community has come at the student level from kids who have participated in the PE take-over classes, Coopman told Patch this week.

Coopman was introduced to the Lincoln Way program through a summer camp that his son, who is autistic, attended. Coopman got a first-hand look at the work the organization was doing and heard that it offered chances to teach school-aged kids in physical education classes. That led Coopman to take the idea of District 92 administrators, who have received the programming with open arms in recent weeks.

Now, he hopes Tuesday night’s wheelchair basketball game which will include District 92 administrators, school board members, para-pro employees, teachers, and other staff members will help to provide funding to the two Will County organizations that are providing these important community services.

Some of the wheelchair basketball games have raised upwards of $10,000 for the not-for-profits, using donations, silent auctions, games and other contests to add to the amount of money that will go to benefit the local special recreation associations.

Coopman isn’t expecting a competitive game against the Hawks’ wheelchair basketball team, predicting that the District 92 team will get “the cream cheese beat out of” the squad that he says has not and will not practice before Tuesday’s game. But the good that will come out of both the charity game and P.E. takeover classes at District 92 schools will also provide some good for everyone involved, he said.

And for Wallace, educating and informing is what programs like the ones his organization offers are all about. What begins with kids talking about a P.E. class took at school shifts to parents seeing the programming for themselves at charity games like the one Tuesday in Homer Glen which then allows the message of the two not-for-profit groups to be shared well beyond community boundaries.

“That’s the reason we do (the classes and charity games) — it’s a one-off conversation,” Wallace said. “It goes from somebody (with disabilities) not doing anything to becoming part of a community they didn’t know exists.”

He added: “It’s all about letting people know that this community is there …there’s a whole world of people out there that participate in sports, and it’s exciting.”