Eliminating Ableism in Education

     

    Thomas Hehir argues that there is a large problem of ableism in schools and that we must take steps to creating an inclusive and supportive environment for students with disabilities.

    The first point I would like to address is the ableist assumptions section. Hehir begins to tell the story of Joe Ford and how his mother had to process his disabilities and getting him the support he needed. There is a quote that says "she would have to fight constantly for her child to have the most basic of rights." Unfortunately this quote is very accurate from everything that I have seen thus far in my life. I am currently enrolled in a special education class and I had to interview a mother of a child with a disability and she spoke of the same experience. How if she did not educate herself on the rights she had as a parent and the rights that her child had she would not have been able to help her child nearly as well. It seems that Joe's mom, Penny, was able to find support from someone to help her but not everyone knows a person who is knowledgeable enough to support you in this way. This is one of the biggest things that needs to be changed in our special education process. I feel that we spend so much time focusing on what the child's diagnosis is that we forget to inform the parents of what this means for their child's education and often we do not explain all of their rights. Many times parents do not even understand the jargon used in IEPs. This may be such a small quote to zero in on but it is something that needs to be paid much better attention to in the special education process at schools.

    Next I would like to address the quote "the belief that disability could be overcome led to the rise of the other dominant image of disability: the inspirational disabled person, or the 'supercrip.' Shapiro arrgues that this image is deeply moving to many disabled people and the press, but is widely regarded as oppressive to most disabled people." This is a concept that I have never thought of, there are many times as a child I remember learning about people who are disabled doing these amazing things and using them as inspiration. It's a strange concept when you really think about it because we are amazed to learn about someone who is disabled doing something successful but the concept is really used to show able bodied individuals that if someone who is disabled can accomplish those things surely you can. It doesn't actually make society more accepting of disabilities because those same days at school that we would learn about an inspirational disabled person, students would still make jokes about "the short bus". If you have not seen the TED talk "I am not your inspiration, thank you very much," I invite you to watch it. The speaker, Stella Young,  does an amazing job of really putting things into perspective. 

    The final point I would like to discuss is the section "The education of the deaf." I was very surprised to see how we had made so much progress in the 1800s and then had worked our way backwards. I had no idea that there was so much history with deaf education in Martha's Vineyard and it was very interesting to read about, however it was disapointing to see how that progress did not last. Growing up in a world where I was always taught the value of ASL or even just manual language in general I almost did not understand why we went backwards and decided that deaf people utilizing manual language was wrong and they should be learning oral language still. But it all goes back to a section from the beginning of thhe reading that says something along the lines of the most of the time, the goal of educating disabled students is to get them to function like non-disabled students. I am glad to see that we have made it very far in our journey with manual language because it is extremely beneficial to deaf students to have a form of communication they are comfortable with using. My mom is a special education teacher of grades K-2 and in her classroom she has a few students who are non-verbal but are able to use some ASL and seem to feel more confident using ASL as compared to point to words and pictures on a paper to show what they are trying to communicate. The point being, that manual language provides a voice for those who may not have one and I think that it should be encouraged in a school setting.