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By Douglas McCulloch
Hometown Weekly Staff
On March 2, students at Thurston Middle learned how a word some students use hurts those with disabilities.
Lily O'Brien, an eighth grade French teacher at Thurston, designed a banner to display in the school cafeteria during lunch times, and encouraged students to sign a pledge to stop using the word “retard” and “retarded,” which O’Brien noted are offensive and degrading to people with disabilities.
She organized the banner display and pledge signing as a part of the National Spread the Word to End the Word Day, which was created by the Special Olympics in 2009 with the goals of raising awareness of how hurtful the word is, and to remove the word from mainstream use.
The program is supported by the Best Buddies and over 200 other civil rights and disability awareness organizations, according to the campaign’s official website.
In addition to the banner, O’Brien also worked with eighth grade English teachers at Thurston to incorporate the word’s meaning and history into the week’s lesson plans. By the end of the day, O'Brien said she had collected over 250 signatures, which were on display along with the poster.
“It was very inspiring to see so many students race up to the banner to sign it,” O'Brien said.
O'Brien noted the event helped teach students a valuable lesson about the power of words.
"Some students did not understand how the word was offensive, and some did not understand the definition of the word, so it was a good opportunity to educate them on the importance of words,” O'Brien explained.
O’Brien explained that she was inspired to help raise awareness of the issue of the word when she heard a student use it in school. When she talked with the student about their use of the word, she realized the student did not realize it is offensive to people with disabilities.
“I wanted to do something to educate all students at Thurston on how this word could offend not only people with disabilities, but their friends and families as well,” O’Brien said.
