Special education classroom helps teach life skills

INDEPENDENCE, Missouri - Parents with young kids already know that no one is born knowing how to wash dishes, clean up a mess or make a sandwich.

"Do you want to start the water?" asked teacher Liz Reeder. She’s a special education teacher at William Chrisman High School in Independence and she’s teaching Charles, an intellectually disabled freshman, how to wash dishes.

After coaching him through putting warm water and dish detergent in the sink, she shows him some flatware.

"Is that dirty?” she asked him.

He thought for a second. “Yeah.”

“Okay, drop it in,” she told him.

This is how these special education students learn: by repetition and practice.

They’ll use a new independent living classroom at Chrisman. It’s divided into a kitchen, bedroom, living room and bathroom. These kids will come here as part of their school day to learn how to live on their own.

"This room gives the kids an opportunity to learn life skills," Reeder said. "We can watch them. We can make sure that they are in a safe environment."

Senior Gabriel Gronniger loves this place -- he calls it the 'apartment club'. His mom, Julie Gronniger-Swall, teaches him at home, too. She said this helps build confidence.

"I think it's wonderful,” she said. “It reinforces the things that you're teaching at home, at school."

They'll learn more than just basic household skills. Some of them will eventually live on their own, but others will be at home or in group housing. They'll have to figure out how to get along and make group decisions, such as which video game to play or movie to watch. This is important because they learn differently.

"We can tell them how to make a bed 20 times, but if they don't make that bed 20 times they're not going to learn how to do it," Reeder said.

The idea came from a similar classroom at Raytown High School and others around the country.

It was cheap, too. The furniture was donated and they paid only $150 for paint.