Possibilities in a birdhouse
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald A group of eighth-graders from McFarland Middle School in Othello paint bird houses on Thursday.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Ines Ramos (right) sits with Zair Cambron Thursday morning as Cambron paints a birdhouse. The two McFarland Middle School eighth-graders worked on the house, which will be a present for Cambron’s family.
OTHELLO — Ines Ramos sits patiently in the cafeteria of McFarland Middle School as Zair Cambron thinks about what he wants to do.
“You want more colors?” she asks Cambron, and he nods.
“Yes!” he says.
“What colors do you need?” Ramos asked.
“Every color!” Cambron responded.
He grabs for a paintbrush, slathering some more purple and green atop the simple wooden birdhouse Ramos and Cambron — both eighth-graders — have been painting Thursday morning. It’s already a panoply of green, blue and purple, with spots of yellow, a celebration of color both cheerful and subdued.
“I’m having fun,” said Ramos as Cambron applied a bright blue thumb print to the birdhouse.
The students in Ramos’ AVID class — Advancement Via Individual Determination — are spending the morning helping a group of Life Skills students paint these birdhouses so they can give them as presents this Christmas.
“I always believed in kids working with special needs kids,” said Randy Miller, a science teacher at McFarland who also teaches one AVID class. “My stepmom was a special education teacher, so I grew up with this.”
Miller, who has taught for 25 years in Eastern Washington, already retired once from teaching high school science and coaching high school wrestling and football. He looks like a coach, and with a sigh says he expects he will be asked to coach again.
But right now, he’s focused on his AVID students, and the things they need to learn this morning helping the Life Skills students.
“This class, these are the first generation of kids in their families expected to go to college,” Miller said. “I just think that besides grades, this is a good opportunity to give them some advanced skills that will advantage them.”
Those skills involve kindness, patience, helping others — something all of these students seem exceptionally good at as they help others paint these birdhouses.
The birdhouses themselves were built by Zack Shade, an eighth-grader who said “he kinda threw them together” over the course of a couple of days based on a 4-H project.
“I thought it would be a cool idea, to throw them together and use them as Christmas presents,” Shade said.
Shade and his father Jim made eight birdhouses — one for each of the life skills students to give to their families as a present.
For Miller, this isn’t just about his students learning skills as well. It’s a chance for the life skills students to get out of their classroom and interact with the world, and learn to be part of the community as well.
“They need to learn how to be prosperous in our community as well,” he said. “Getting them to talk to people, connect to the students. If they can interact, then anything is possible.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.