Joining the club peer to peer is truly a life changing experience that not many students undergo. When thinking about the special education program as a whole there are so many things to it. Every single one of the students in this program struggles in their own personal way which is something you might not notice from an outside perspective.

Before joining peer to peer club, or the unified basketball team, buying into the stereotype that these students are all similar people with the same struggles is easy to do, but that could not be more wrong. Every single one of these students are so unique and express themselves in so many different funny, energetic, or sincere ways just by being themselves. Without being a part of peer to peer, coming from an outside viewpoint, you may have a different perspective as someone in the club.

Peer to peer club is all about inclusion. When working with one another in the club, we never disclude people. We look at it as a bunch of friends doing fun activities together and helping each other out when needed.

Peer to peer helps the students that are not in the special education program, to educate themselves; through this you can learn so much by just being in the classroom with all the students. It changes perspectives of any outside stereotypes and helps you grow as a person to handle certain emotional challenges.

As said before, every student is different. You will notice that some of the students are visual learners and sometimes it is better to give options on a decision they have to make, but you most likely wouldn’t have known that before joining. With that, they all struggle in their own way like everyone does but it is just more heightened. Joining peer to peer is really about making strong bonds with each other and it is a really amazing experience to even just make more friends.

You can always count on the students in the special education program to do things like just saying hi to you in the hallway or telling you about their favorite things. The learning possibilities are endless for joining peer to peer but it can change how you view the special education program, and bring more light to your days without even realizing it.

For the students in the special education program, they love getting new members because it basically means that you just made more friends.

Peers can be really great role models to the students and look up to them for advice or suggestions when struggling, and vice versa. With what our program at South provides us with, the whole peer to peer club gets so many fun opportunities that not many students at South will experience.

You can see from students wearing their peer to peer shirts in the hall to the genuine friendships that are formed, this club helps all the students involved to make our school and community more connected as a whole while changing perspectives of all involved.