4 Once students have completed their five-minute silent write, ask them to move into their pre-assigned discussion circles.

Transcription

1 ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE BIG IDEA Students will gain an appreciation of Rick s belief that anything is possible and that obstacles can be overcome. CURRICULUM LINKS Language Arts and Personal Planning Grades 4-8 LEARNING OBJECTIVE Students will make personal connections and provide personal reactions to Rick s devastating injury in written and oral form to demonstrate their understanding of reading materials and their ability to use language, to interact and collaborate with others. MATERIALS - pen and paper LESSON LENGTH Approximately 80 minutes PART A: OPENING MOTIVATOR 1 Read the following information orally to the class As a teenager, Rick loved to fish. He and two of his best friends decided to get away for a weekend fishing trip outside of his home town, Williams Lake, British Columbia. Unfortunately, the trip home on June 27, 1973, was not going to be what he and his friends expected. 2 Read Appendix One (excerpt from Rick Hansen Man In Motion p.10-14) aloud to the class. 3 After the reading direct students to complete a five-minute silent write. TEACHING TIP: If students have difficulty generating ideas, consider placing the following questions on the board to help get your students creative juices flowing: - What emotions did they feel when listening to the reading? - What are their personal reactions to the events around Rick s injury? - Do they have any personal connections to the events that unfolded (i.e. Have they been in a car crash, witnessed one, or know someone who uses a wheelchair due to an injury? - What were Rick s feelings and emotions? - How do they think they would have reacted? Panic, fear? TEACHING TIP: ESL and Learning Resource students could create an illustrated web of any thoughts, images, or ideas that stand out for them. Their illustrations could then be used to help them independently complete the silent write activity. 4 Once students have completed their five-minute silent write, ask them to move into their pre-assigned discussion circles. 5.1

2 TEACHING TIP: Remind students to bring their silent write to their discussion circles. It may also be helpful to assign a discussion facilitator. This student s role is to ensure that students have equal opportunity to contribute their ideas during the circle. 5 During discussions, ask students to share their thoughts and feelings from their silent write. If students have difficulty generating discussion, provide them with the following guiding questions on the board: Possible Questions: - Should Rick and his friends have jumped in to the back of that truck? Why or why not? - What could they have done differently to avoid Rick s injury? - What obstacles do you face during your daily life? How do you overcome them? - Do you have a life dream? - Rick has made a difference in this world. How do you plan to make a difference? PART B: LESSON CONCLUSION: A LETTER TO RICK HANSEN Read the following to your students: Rick doesn t believe in what ifs. Instead, he believes in dreams and overcoming obstacles. He didn t let his circumstance stop him from dreaming and accomplishing great things. The end of the Tour was just the beginning - the road to a cure. Write a personal letter to Rick Hansen responding to the following questions: 1 What do you admire about Rick s accomplishments? 2 What do you think about his belief that the wheelchair will be something you ll see in a museum? 3 Rick has made a difference. Tell Rick what you plan to do to make a difference in the lives of others. 5.2

3 READING EXCERPT FROM (PAGES 10-14) And then it was time to head home. We had our week or the best part of it. Don and I wanted to stay in Bella Coola and fish some more, but Randy had had enough. And you know how it is when you re kids. You get an idea, you want to do it now. He not only wanted to leave, he wanted to leave then, which happened to be around midnight. We tried to talk him out of it, but he got pigheaded (he s a lot like me) and it was his truck, or at least his dad s. So here we went in the pitch black, climbing out of Bella Coola canyon, foot cliffs on either side, narrow road full of switchbacks and a sheer drop to nowhere if you got careless. We got careless. We were all dead tired. Randy started to nod off at the wheel once and almost killed us right there. The truck nosed out toward the drop, and he jerked awake just in time to wrench it back. Suddenly, I wasn t sleepy anymore. I figured it would be a great idea to stay awake and to keep him awake. But Don fell asleep, then I fell asleep, and I guess Randy must have looked over at us because he fell asleep. And we went over the side of the mountain at the only spot in the canyon with a ledge just below the road. I ve thought about that a lot. We don t land on the ledge, we re history right there. And it wasn t all that wide a ledge. A few feet to either side and they scrape whatever is left of us off the bottom of the valley. Do you think somebody was trying to tell us something? Like, for instance, Get some sleep you idiots. This is your last warning!? But we were alive. Sleepy, ticked off, but alive, and it was all part of the adventure even being stuck on the ledge with no way to get the truck back up onto the road. Cars went by all the time and some of them stopped, but never one big enough to haul a truck off a ledge. We dug and shoveled and cursed and got nowhere. And then fate or whatever offered me another choice. A friend of mine named Duncan Boyd drove up in a camper with his dad. They d been fishing in Bella Coola and offered to give us a ride. But there wasn t enough room for all three of us. I could have gone with them. Lord knows it was tempting at that time of the morning. But what kind of a guy would leave his friends at a time like that? No, I decided to stay to with Randy and Don. Wrong again. 5.3

4 Finally a dump truck came along, the guy hauled us out, and we drove to Kleena Kleene, which was combination post office, general store, gas station and farm, all run by Randy s dad. And there Don and I got really stupid. Randy suggested we stay there a day or two because his dad would be going into Williams Lake then and we could go the whole 150 miles home with him. It made sense, but he d been kind of grumpy and we d been scrapping a little - not physically, just snapping and nattering the way friends do, especially when you ve been together without a break for a long time. Forget it. We d hitchhike the rest of the way. Well, at least come up to the house and get some sleep first, he said. But not us. We d stay right there on the porch of the general store where we could see the cars coming. It made no sense. It was still early, but hot and dusty. We d been up all night. We were absolutely bushed, so tired we could barely stand, and we could have been stretched out in bed. But where were we? Sitting on a porch waiting for cars and falling asleep anyway. I don t know how many cars went by that we didn t even notice. One man stopped and offered us a ride as far as Riske Creek, but that would have left us 35 or 40 miles out of Williams Lake. So we said no. We probably slept through a bunch of others, because to this day I remember snapping awake, looking down the road, and feeling s strange eerie, sensation sweep over me when I saw that cloud of dust coming toward us about a mile away. All right, it sounds weird, but it looked, well, ominous. But that was silly. We d missed enough rides already. I shook Don awake. Aw, let it go, he protested. I m tired. I shook him again, we stumbled out to the road and a truck roared right by us. Well, to heck with it. I still felt kind of creepy about it, anyway. There d be other rides. We could wait. We d just turned around to head back to the porch when we heard the brakes squeal. The driver caught sight of us in the rearview mirror. It was the hippie and his girl, the ones we d helped to change their tire. That s the only reason he stopped, he said. He didn t normally pick up hitchhikers. But he d recognized us, and after all, we d helped him change that tire. 5.4

5 So we had our ride. Damn it, we had our ride. The guy cracked a couple of beer. He wasn t drunk or anything. It was hot and he d been pushing it, so he had a couple. And then darned if we didn t get another flat. We fixed that a took off again, the guy and his girl in the cab, Don and I in the back of the pickup, perched on top of a pile of stuff so high we were closer to the top of the truck sides than we were to the floor. I think the guy was moving or something. We were both dozing, but taking turns holding the fish we d caught. On the gravel road it was so bumpy it was hold them or lose them. The one with the fish would sit on the floor of the truck, or as close as he could get to it, while the other one stretched out on this big steel tool box and tried to sleep. It was my turn on the tool box. I gave the fish to Don and wriggled around on my back, looking for the most comfortable position. And finally, I dozed off. A scream woke me. The girl, I guess. Up in the cab she d have been able to see it happening. We were skidding down the road out of control, swerving from one aside to another while the guy fought the wheel trying to straighten us out. Apparently we d been coming out of a long, gradual corner onto a straight stretch when we hit some washboard road and went into a skid. We were only doing 35 or 40 miles an hour, but being a city driver not used to that sort of thing he may have oversteered trying to get back in control. Whatever he did, it didn t work. Two more skids and we were flipping endover-end, side-over-side, bouncing on an angle toward the right-side ditch. I just had time to look over at Don and think, That is it, I m gone and I was flying out of the truck bed. But not far enough. Not quite. There was a crunch. I distinctly remember hearing a crunch. I guess the tool box went first and I was slammed down on the edge of it. I heard the crunch and blacked out. It was only for a couple of seconds. I woke up and thought, Hey, I m alive! Then I thought, Whoa! Something s wrong here. Because I tried to move and I couldn t. 5.5

6 There were boxes and junk all over me. I was propped up against this tool box and I couldn t move. It didn t hurt. Not then. I guess I was in shock. All I remember clearly is the dust settling around me. But suddenly there was this searing pain pain like I d never felt before. And I d never in my life been so afraid. As Don and I pieced it together later, it was the type of crash just made for one of those TV movies where they go slow motion so you can watch the pieces flying in all directions. The two of us, the tool box and every other piece of stuff the hippie had piled into that truck all went flying at the same time. The box landed first, then me, then all that junk on top of me. Don had flown farther because he d been sitting on the higher side of the truck and got a better trajectory, but he had troubles of his own. He d hit the road rolling and bouncing and here came the truck, rolling and bouncing along after him and gaining every second. Fortunately he rolled into the ditch and scrambled out of it on the other side. The truck hit the ditch, stopped, and gave one final roll before it came crashing down about two feet from his head. Don pulled himself up and wobbled back up the road looking for me. Actually, I was his second choice. As he admitted later, his first worry was whether his guitar had survived. He could hear me yelling his name, but he couldn t see me. I was buried under all that junk. Finally I worked a hand through the pile and waved. He rushed over and threw the stuff around until I was clear, anxious as a puppy dog, not knowing what to say. I can t move my legs, I told him. Then as the realization hit me, I screamed it again: I can t move my legs! At fifteen I weighed 165 pounds without an ounce of fat on me and my legs had been like iron. Now I poked them, and they were like jelly. Still, it hadn t really sunk in. A little bell in the back of my head was sounding, but I wasn t going to listen to it. Not yet. It was temporary. It had to be. The hippie guy is there, patting me on the head and saying, You ll be all right, son. You ll be fine. Don s telling me not to worry, because he had broken his pelvis in four places a year earlier in a car accident and it felt the same way, and I m yelling, Get our stuff! Get the fishing rods! 5.6

7 Don t let anybody get the fish! And the pain is just washing over me in waves. The rest is a blur. Cars are stopping, people gathering. The fire truck came, the police car came, and about an hour later the ambulance came. One guy who d had first aid checked my back and said it was broken. Somebody offered me a shot of gin. I asked for water, and a little kid ran all the way to and from a farmhouse about half a mile away to get some, and when he tried to give it to me, I screamed, I don t want any water! Get it out of here! I started to swear a lot, telling the hippie that he d screwed me up and what a jerk he was. I d pass out for a while - which I think made everyone just as happy because there were a lot of little kids around - then I d wake up and start in on him again. Everyone wanted to be helpful, but no one knew what to do. What do you say to a kid with a broken back? Not Hey, watch your mouth. There are children here! The ambulance crew tried three or four times to transfer me without doing much but making the pain even worse. Finally, they got a board under me. Then it was into the ambulance and down the mountain at 90 miles an hour to the Cariboo Memorial Hospital at Williams Lake, which I guarantee was not a fun trip. Well, we d wanted to get home in a hurry... It didn t get any better at the hospital. They couldn t give me anything for the pain until they knew for sure what was wrong. So they X-rayed me, then put me on this table, and suddenly we re not talking ordinary broken back. This is severe. The doctor gave it to me straight: It s really serious, he said. I doubt you ll ever walk again. 5.7