ELORA – St. Mary Catholic School in Elora celebrated World Down Syndrome Day this week with their school community.
Each year, for the past eight or so years, staff and students at St. Mary begin celebrating World Down Syndrome Day a week early, though March 21 marks the official day. As part of the celebration, the school delivers small plain socks drawn on paper for everyone in the school to decorate.
“We didn’t always do the pair of socks at the beginning, but I just started doing it about two or three years ago,” said Vicky Jensen-Beirnes, educational assistant at St. Mary.
“I thought it’s more fun, then everybody can win a pair of crazy socks.
“We have lots of different coloured socks and reminders that [Down syndrome] day is coming up around the school for the students to see,” she added.
The socks are then collected once the students have decorated them. From there, teachers draw a sock from each bag – each class has their own – and the person drawn wins a pair of decorated socks to wear on the special day.
The school also held a virtual presentation the morning of March 21, at which students learned more about World Down Syndrome Day.
“It makes whoever happens to be here feel special,” Jensen-Beirnes said.
“This way people know that ‘hey, they’re wonderful people, they just look a little different, they may sound a little different, but they’re the same.’
“And that’s good for the other kids to know that too.”
Jensen-Beirnes has been leading the initiative for the last five years.
At first, she said she didn’t know what to do to educate the students on World Down Syndrome Day.
That’s when she went to the Canadian Down Syndrome Society’s website to learn more about how to teach inclusion in the school and came across the sock initiative.
“[From] there I got a lot of curriculum and that helped me learn, like the socks was one way of showing that we can include them,” she said.
Through the initiative, Jensen-Beirnes said each year she hopes everyone will learn about Down syndrome and not look at people with Down syndrome differently.
“Especially in Elora we really don’t have a lot of diversity here,” she explained. “We have a little bit now but being out in the country and out here we don’t have a lot of that.
“So it’s good to incorporate it and learn about it and talk about it.”
To learn more about World Down Syndrome Day, visit cdss.ca/awareness/world-down-syndrome-day.
