It’s Purple Day: Integrate Epilepsy Awareness Activities at School

Purple Day started when Cassidy Megan, a lovely kid from Nova Scotia, Canada, came up with the idea of wearing something purple to educate people about epilepsy.

Suffering from her own seizures, she wanted to tell the others that they’re not alone. In 2008, the Epilepsy Association of Nova Scotia supported her idea and it led to an event celebrated every March 26th of the year.

Epilepsy Awareness Activities

As a teacher, there are a few things you can do to support the cause. Here are some ideas you can integrate into one of your classes (or can be adapted for other groups and communities).

Invite a Neurologist for a Talk

You can always share what you know about the disorder. However, if you want someone who understands the complications of a human brain, inviting a neurologist can make for an exciting day. The brain is fascinating organ with lots of mysteries and quirks that can be revealed. Your speaker can clarify the nature of epilepsy, its causes and preventive measures. They can correct any myths or misunderstandings that your students may have and reassure them that epilepsy is not something to be scared of.

Create a Project About Epilepsy

Ask your students to conduct a thorough research about seizures and with their creativity, let them come up with an activity or a project about it. It can be a colorful bulletin board for the entire school to help them understand the disorder. And what it’s really like for a student who has epilepsy.

It can also be a short educational video or presentation that can be uploaded for accessible viewing. How about playing an all-about-epilepsy game that they themselves have conceptualized? That would be fun!

Encourage Them to Wear Purple

Wearing a purple shirt is a more direct way of supporting the Purple Day awareness cause. If your students have to put on their prescribed uniform, there will always be alternative options. You can make use of wristbands, ribbons, bookmarks, socks, cards, wrappers, banners, etc.

You can suggest to give purple flowers to other people, send purple cards to friends or have a purple paper folding activity.

Learn to Handle Epileptic Seizures Calmly

If you have students who are diagnosed with epilepsy, never treat them in a different way. They are not mentally challenged, ‘cursed’ nor violent people. In fact, many successful professionals and famous people have suffered with epilepsy. The famous Vincent van Gogh, Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci were among them.

Talk to the student’s parents, to better understand their health condition and equip yourself with basic first aid skills to help the child during seizures. Learn and share this process along with your class. Don’t make it all about the student – they probably don’t want all that attention – make it about first aid and what to do when things happen. You know you’ve cracked it when students are calm and supportive not fearful during any medical incident.

Supporting Purple Day through these insightful activities will definitely increase your students’ level of awareness. Consequently, they will be able to empathize with people with epilepsy, which was always Cassidy’s ultimate goal.