How do you prepare for life outside of school? FHS offers a class called Life Skills, which helps students with disabilities learn how to do regular tasks such as counting money and walking across the street. It allows them to being independent in everyday tasks. Cooking, for example, is an activity that some people struggle with while others succeed. This class helps teach kids the basics of cooking, which will help them feel independent in the long run.
“Life skills is a class that we have here at Freedom that focuses solely on helping our lower-functioning students learn about the everyday things that we take advantage of. We are capable of going home and making a snack and they’re not. I am here to teach them how to safely use kitchen equipment to make a snack and get around the community, public transportation and how to read signs, the everyday basics tasks that we take for granted,” Life Skills teacher Jessika Fontaine said.
This also allows the students to get interested in a subject that will help them get a job. With the help from Fontaine, these students will get the help that they need for their future.
These students also grade themselves at the end of the day for the progress that they have made in their work or their behavior. This allows the students to reflect on actions that they have done. At the end of the week, these assessments are tallied together and sent to the parents of these students.
This program also allows these students to go into the community and help, giving them the experience to do tasks in the world. Seeing how the world will be like so they are prepared for when they graduate and have to get a job.
“We actually go out into the community to gain hands-on skills. A lot of the students are not good academically, so they need the hands-on skills in which they learn best. That will help them in the future to get a job, so they can earn their own money and support themselves,” Fontaine said.
This kind of work with the students gets them to feel independent and have the knowledge and experience necessary for life after graduation. The students have a variety of disabilities, and there is always an assignment that fits their interests and their abilities.
Life Skills is a class that provides the lower-functioning students with a chance to feel independent, which is an opportunity they may not be able to have otherwise with their disability.This class gives these students the ability to do everyday tasks that we do not think about, allowing the students to be their own person and live the life that they want to live.