O'Hearn Changing the World One Child at a Time

The Boston Herald 

You can't tell from the outside what's going on inside Dorchester's Patrick O'Hearn school. The building is old - brick, cement, cracks on the playground - old, worn and plain. But there's nothing old or plain about the learning happening there.

Located on an uninspiring stretch of Dorchester Avenue, this school is an inspiration. It serves just 227 children from pre-kindergarten to Grade 5. But 33 percent of these kids are learning disabled. Some are in wheelchairs. Some are blind. Some have Down syndrome. Some have autism. Some have trouble walking or talking and listening. All have trouble learning.

And yet they are learning in regular classrooms right alongside their peers. They read. They do math. They write. They participate in everything that's happening. And most of all they blend in. You look in a classroom and you don't notice the wheelchairs first. You see the children.

Bill Henderson is the school's principal. He's legally blind now. But he wasn't always. When he was 20 and an earthquake struck Peru, he joined the relief effort. For six months he helped rebuild what had been destroyed.

He's doing the same thing today. Rebuilding attitudes and abilities. Changing the world one child at a time.

He calls his award-winning school a collaboration where everyone is involved - students, parents, teachers, aides. ``Learning together. Learning from each other.'' Here it's not a just a slogan in a pamphlet.

Henderson tells about how one of his youngest students asked Santa for a wheelchair for Christmas, not because she needed one but because her friend has one. Inclusion, he says, mixing kids with and without disabilities ``will change the culture.’'

“It's critical to push all kids. We take every child where they are and challenge them.'' His push is firm but gentle, too. A poster in his office says it best: ``Childhood should be a journey not a race.’'

The pipes froze in Room 4 the day I visited. So Room 4 met in the cafeteria. In all the rooms there was the soft buzz of learning - murmurs, chairs scraping, children reading softly to themselves or writing or doing math. There are no rows of neat desks with a teacher standing at the head of the class. Teachers and aides mingle with the kids, working in clusters. Or on the floor. Or at a computer. In Grade 2, there were old signs on the walls. Be kind. Be nice. Be caring. Honest. Helpful. Gentle. Polite. 

Some old rules still apply.

A boy held a door for me. No one was around. I said ``Thank you.'' He said, ``You're welcome.''

Some of the children have physical and occupational therapy during school. When a therapist arrived and a child left with her, the other children hardly looked up.

In Room 6 were the youngest children. There was a sandbox, Mr. Potato Heads, Legos, puzzles, a boy wearing a helmet, two girls playing dolls. Numbers on the walls. Books. And a painted sky with clouds.

It felt safe in this school. In the auditorium the first graders were singing; their voices, thin and sweet, drifted into the hall. Henderson says, ``We live in a multi-abled world.'' He believes we each have different abilities. And when you teach to the child, all children can learn.