Service Dog Helps Paralyzed Teacher In The Classroom

Darin Peets' companion dog, Robis, carries a bottle of glue to students as Peets teaches kindergarten at Del Dayo school in Sacramento, Calf. (RANDALL BENTON / MCT / September 2, 2008)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Darin Peets' service dog, Robis, can pick up his keys for him. He can turn out the lights and he can pull Peets' wheelchair across the playground at Del Dayo Elementary School.

But what can he do for the kindergartners in Peets' class at the Carmichael, Calif., school?

"Can he bring me the glue?" asked 6-year-old Adam Gerdel.

Following a few commands from Peets, Robis delivered a plastic bottle of white glue to the table where Adam sits.

"It's a little slimy," said Peets. "But Robis did it."

Peets, 47, is a new kindergarten teacher at Del Dayo Elementary school. He's also a quadriplegic.

He uses lessons learned during his three decades of limited physical mobility to teach his young charges to try hard. And then ask for help.

"Kindergartners want you to cut and paste for them," said Peets. "I can't do it for them. But I will be there for them, encouraging them to try. They are learning quickly to try first."

In his early teaching career, he also taught fifth-graders. For those kids, his disability taught a tolerance lesson.

"They see that Mr. Peets is an OK guy and he's in a chair so maybe others who are different are OK," he said. "They learned that just because somebody is different it doesn't mean you avoid them. Maybe you will learn something if you befriend them."

All of his students, he said, learn the power of persistence. Peets writes on a white board with the motion of his arm and shoulder, a marker lodged between his fingers.

"I tell them I had to find out what worked for me," he said. "It's not perfect. But I tell them, now I can teach writing to them. So they must keep trying to find out what works for them."

Peets became paralyzed on July 2, 1978, when he was 17 years old.

On a family outing to a Stanislaus County, Calif., reservoir, he dove from a tree into shallow water. The varsity football player and student body president-elect broke his neck.

Face down in a watery, surreal stillness, he could see his hand floating at his side. But he could not move it. He could not feel it.

His mother ran into the water, turning over her athletic son and saving him from drowning.

A glass-half-full type of guy, he considers himself lucky. It could have been worse, Peets said.

He holds a teaching degree from Sacramento State and drives himself to work.

Kindergarten teachers are relied upon not only to teach the alphabet but to act out scenes in picture books or help kids up when they scuff a knee.

Peets can't do that sort of thing, but he has help from Mary Kehoe, an instructional aide. And Robis, a 3-year-old Labrador retriever, pitches in.

Peets has worked for more than two decades in the San Juan Unified School District. He taught fourth and fifth grade at Cottage Elementary and fifth grade and kindergarten at Gold River Elementary.

For the past several years, he worked in technology services for the district. He returned to the classroom this year because he missed the interaction with other teachers and the children.

"These kids are a lot of fun," he said of kindergartners. "Kindergartners see the world in a different way. They are little sponges, soaking up everything. To watch them grow so quickly is amazing. Teach them something and they apply it the next day."

The other day he taught some students how to politely ask to enter into a game with others. Some know manners when they come to kindergarten, and other don't.

The next day, manners were in vogue.

Del Dayo Principal Thomas Harp said Peets has a reputation as a fine classroom teacher with compassion and rigorous, well-developed lessons.

"And added to that, he brings a different perspective to our kids who struggle because of his day-to-day physical struggle," said Harp.

Chad Coy's 5-year-old daughter Falicity is in Peets' class.

"It's great to have someone to help her understand the needs of someone in a wheelchair," Coy said. "He's achieved everything he has tried in his life. He's definitely a positive role model."

Falicity said Mr. Peets teaches her lots of stuff. She thinks he's cool.

Asked if there is anything different about Mr. Peets, she gets a quizzical look on her face and says no.

Peets, who is married and has two children, paraphrases a line from the movie "The Shawshank Redemption" to explain his path in life after his accident: "Get busy living or get busy dying."

He thinks that is true in many parts of life: "You either do the best you can with what you have or get busy dying and say woe is me," he said.