My Students
"Society would accept my experience as "disability culture" which would in turn be accepted as part of "human diversity". There would be respectful curiosity about what I have learned from my differences that I could teach society. In such a world, no one would mind being called disabled. Being unable to do something the way most people do it would not be seen as something bad that needed curing. It would be seen as just a difference." – Carol Gill describing her ideal world 3
The majority of my students are affected by the stigma of needing extra help and being separated from their peers who are often seen by my students as superior. My students only see me for one period, and yet many still feel ashamed that they are separated from the general education population on the basis of their differences. There are other special education classes at my school in which students are separated from the general education population anywhere from 50% of their day to the entirety of it. This construct affects school culture in many ways, but most visibly it attaches a sense of inferiority to special education students in the eyes of the other students in the school. This sequestration establishes, in the brains of the general education population, the precedent that students with disabilities should be treated differently. This is a dangerous precedent as it sets the stage for all subsequent stages of life in which the general education population will have to interact with people with disabilities.
Disability is a social justice issue and much of the humanities curriculum at my school is centered on exploring social justice for a variety of marginalized populations. Within the constructs of society as we know it (much like the construct of our educational system), people with disabilities often lack access or are unable to engage in activities people without disabilities take for granted. Rather than pushing for change in our societal constructs, many people have assumed that members of the disabled community do not want to, or are unable to work or engage in society. This is certainly the case not only with my students, but with all special education students at my school. Much of the non-disabled population holds the belief that people with disabilities should not engage in society like the rest of the population, often being perceived as inferior or less able. This thinking systematically renders students with disabilities invisible and keeps them that way, as the general education students doing the rendering are never taught differently.
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