As a Disability Acceptance Month activity, students in TK, kindergarten, and fourth grade learned about Down syndrome Monday. Librarian Mari Pongkhamsing, whose son, Ollie, was born with the condition, showed them two short videos she’d made, one about Down syndrome and one about Ollie. And then they met Ollie!
Ollie is a Meher School graduate and student at Stanley Middle School in Lafayette.
Because he talked about his interests in the video, the students told Ollie about theirs, and together they found that they had many in common—Pokémon, video games, bumper cars, Superman. He’s on a soccer team and won a medal on his swim team. “Science is amazing,” he says. He likes to travel. He’s been to Laos and wants to visit Japan next year.
One student asked Ollie how many chromosomes he has because he learned in one of the videos that Down syndrome is characterized by an extra copy of a certain chromosome, for a total of 47 rather than the usual 46. (He has 47.)
Ollie also answered questions from fourth graders about the classes offered at Stanley. A the end of the presentation, he gave each student a sticker “just for fun and to make a happy connection,” his mom says.
In Mari’s video, Ollie’s cousin Mila, a high school senior, says, “He’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to our family. He only has kindness in him, and nothing else.” His grandmother says, “Ollie is very popular at school. He really loves people.”