January 25, 2007 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Several days a week, Amber Green leads her preschool class in the salute to the flag and helps the youngsters determine what kind of weather they will have during recess. She assists them during show and tell, and teaches them rudimentary Spanish.
However, Ms. Green cannot walk around the classroom, nor can she speak when she reads to her students during story time; she was born with severe cerebral palsy. But support from the Christopher Reeve Foundation’s Quality of Life program enables her to work part time as a teacher’s aide at St. Charles Catholic School, in Spokane, Wash.
She communicates through her Pathfinder, a computer that gives voice to her thoughts through the touch of a keyboard. Peggy McFarland, the teacher who oversees Ms. Green in the classroom, says that some students start off the year hesitant to approach her wheelchair, but they soon come to adore her.
Barbara Green, Amber’s mother, says that while teaching full-time would be an impossibility for her 29-year-old daughter, being paid to teach fulfills her dream of working with children — who learn more than just the Pledge of Allegiance from her. “This is a great opportunity for these preschoolers to see that not everyone talks and walks the same way,” Barbara Green says.
The Quality of Life grants support projects that improve the lives of paralyzed people. Donna Valenti, director of the program at the Reeve foundation, says it was “a favorite of Dana Reeve’s,” the late wife of the actor who established the foundation.
This academic year, the foundation has continued its support of Ms. Green, giving the school a grant of $4,656 to cover her salary. She had been volunteering at the school for more than seven years before receiving her first paycheck last February. Ms. McFarland says that the parochial school couldn’t afford to pay Ms. Green before the foundation took notice, but that the teacher’s aide gives the children an invaluable education: “We’re blessed to have her here and she’s blessed to have us.”
