FARMINGTON — Within the word, “disabilities,” is another word, “abilities,” as students at Cascade Brook School are learning.

Each third-, fourth- and fifth-grade class is participating in disability awareness training with Heidi Coffin, program leader for the Cromwell Center for Disabilities Awareness in Portland, on either Oct. 28 or Nov. 3.

The Center’s mission is “to change attitudes and build understanding so that people with disabilities can enjoy the same respect, support, and opportunity that we all deserve,” according to their website.

Using interactive activities, Coffin relayed how people with different disabilities are still people with thoughts, feelings and abilities, like everyone else.

Coffin held up photos of successful people with disabilities, such as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, football player Derrick Coleman, “Glee” actress Lauren Potter, singer Beyonce, snowboarder Amy Purdy and musician Justin Timberlake, asking the students if they looked like they have a disability.

Some disabilities are easily seen — but others, like Coleman’s deafness, Beyonce’s depression and Timberlake’s obsessive-compulsive disorder are not, she said.

Coffin urged fifth-grade students in Tina Davis’ class to consider how everyone develops differently.

“Is it okay to laugh at someone who does something differently than you?” she asked. “If a disability does not go away and the person does not choose to have it, is it fair for them to be bullied or teased?”

The nonprofit center offers free training to schools. Last year, it was provided to students in grades 1 through 6 at 61 different schools, Coffin said.

Cascade Brook’s Civil Rights Team requested the presentation too late last year, Martina Arnold, school counselor, said.

But, one member, BriAnnah Imlay, didn’t let it go. She kept telling Arnold that they needed to come. Now a sixth-grader at the middle school, Imlay came back to Cascade Brook to hear the presentation in Tina Davis’ classroom.

It was different than what she expected, but she loved it, Imlay said afterwards. 

Some disabled individuals came to visit last year when a Goodwill neurological center held a presentation. 

“We learned (disabled people) can do anything,” Imlay said of abilities being part of disabilities.

Davis and Arnold are advisers for the Civil Rights Team known as the CBS Tie-Dye Team, an after-school program that meets once a month and during school every Friday.

The group recently did some tie-dyeing for a fall conference because “it shows that we are all unique and different and should be accepted as such,” Davis said.

Physical or mental disabilities are categories covered under the Maine Civil Rights Act, Arnold said. The act covers threats or violence based on bias regarding race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation and disability.

Disability is easy to discuss with these age levels, Davis said. But she also does activities in her classroom because each class has students with special needs.

The approximately 30 students who participate in the Civil Rights Team talk about things they may see or hear at school or on the news. They also talk about the categories of bias and “we try to help them understand,” Davis said. “Students also read books and we try to make it fun.”

More information on the Cromwell Center for Disabilities Awareness is available at the center’s website, www.cromwellcenter.org.

abryant@sunmediagroup.net