Last weekly reflection from me. I cannot believe we are coming to a end of this term. It has been such a fun ride and I love how close our cohort has gotten, it makes classes so much more fun.

This week we had another few guests speakers, Tracy and Kaori. Tracy joined us in the classroom while her coworker Kaori joined via zoom. They are part of BCEdAccess for students and it was so interesting to hear what they had to say about it. I love that they brought in their own personal experiences from themselves and their children. It was super interesting to hear the parent side of it and not just from an educators point of view. One thing I remember Kaori saying was that her daughter is in a wheelchair and her class was going on a field trip and the bus could not accommodate her. Thankfully Kaori was able to drive her daughter with her flexible work schedule but if she couldn’t then what would happen. Would he daughter have just been excluded from the filed trip and had to stay at school that day? That is exactly what BCEdAccess is trying to do, is advocate for the students who need access to certain things like disabilities, autism and ADHD. It is so important that all students feel like they belong and have access to and in their education.

One thing that Kaori said as well that loved was giving us resources of people who have helped her and her daughter with advocacy. There are a few social media influencers that they follow that I thought would be cool to share and talk about here. The first one is Kayla Walker (ig: kwalk.eats). She has Rett syndrome and is a huge advocate for the people around her just like Kaori’s daughter. Her Instagram is mostly Her trying new foods and new restaurants showing people that she can be a influencer just like anyone can be. I thought it was really awesome to see her profile and thought her content was awesome. The next influencer she shared with us was a duo called Allaccesslife. They are a verified duo on Instagram of two best friends. Daniel O’Connor and Bradley Heaven likes to share trends in adaptive products and show that they are still living great fulfilling lives even with a disibility. I was so thankful that Kaori was able to share these resources with us and I am so grateful to be able to see that their are people who are advocating for this.

Thank you so much to Kaori and Tracy for coming in today!

See you next week…except I wont because this was the last one:(