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09/03/2020 12:00 AMIt’s hard, all of this isolation brought on by the pandemic. It can leave one feeling out of sorts, especially if you are young.
No playdates or birthday invites, no sleepovers or sports, learning apart from classmates, lunch period without friends. You wouldn’t wish this seclusion on anyone, certainly not on a child. For many children, this is their new normal.
And, yet, for others, isolation was the norm, even before the pandemic.
These are children with disabilities.
You might be surprised that students with disabilities make up 16 percent of Connecticut’s school population. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is news to you because I am a parent of a child with a disability. The kid down that hallway, in that classroom, who eats at that table with those kids, they are and have been the invisible group.
Now that we all know how lousy it feels to be left out, let’s do something about it and become better at inclusion, even if we remain six feet apart.
Laws No Guarantee
There are hard-fought laws intended to protect the civil rights of disabled people. But laws don’t guarantee acceptance. Empathy, making a personal connection, plus education, is what changes perception.
I’d like to help you gain a new perspective by sharing both facts and feelings.
This year is the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. The ADA is considered the emancipation proclamation for people with disabilities. People with disabilities are the largest minority in the United States, yet the significance of the ADA isn’t taught in school. Children who don’t learn about the ADA or are segregated from students with disabilities grow to be adults who are ignorant of the law and the people it serves.
Today, in the year 2020, a decorated war veteran in a wheelchair can become a United States senator. Still, there are buildings built in this century in which U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth can only enter through the back door and, in some cases, not enter at all.
Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins was born with cerebral palsy. While very young, she was denied service at a restaurant because the waitress said, “No one wants to see you eat.” On March 12, 1990, when the passage of the ADA was in doubt, eight-year-old Jennifer joined nearly 500 people with disabilities who got out of their wheelchairs and crawled the 81 steps to the doors of the U.S. Capitol. Within months the ADA became law.
Thirty years after her heroic act, Jennifer and her mother ate their meal outside on a cold winter day because tables were too close together inside the restaurant to maneuver a wheelchair. In the new normal, pandemic-spaced tables will create ADA compliant restaurants—that’s a win-win for everyone.
Everyone’s Loss
Right now, ambitious teenagers are denied access to one of the many trade high schools in Connecticut because the school does not accommodate learning differences. That’s everyone’s loss.
Fear is a powerful barrier to acceptance. Are we afraid of what will happen if we integrate these people into our classrooms, our community, our social circles?
Let me put your mind at ease: Inclusion is good for everyone.
Research shows if you want to raise grades in your school, practice inclusion.
Do you enjoy those curb cuts while pushing your stroller, shopping cart, or luggage? Thank the ADA.
In 1932, The American Foundation for the Blind recorded the first audiobook; today one in five Americans listens to an audiobook.
We owe thanks to the boy who was kept in from recess every day because he was disruptive and scattered. His inability to keep track of things inspired him to invent the paperless airline ticket. David Neelman is also the founder of Jet Blue Airlines, the first airline to have built-in TVs to entertain restless travelers. Today he’s a multimillionaire and a person with ADHD.
Now everyone wants him to sit at their lunch table.
Hubris, hypocrisy, valuing architecture over accessibility—perhaps these are the disabilities that should inspire fear?
Learning Delights?
When my son was entering kindergarten, I met with the special education teacher to discuss his “L.Ds.” I was not familiar with this abbreviation and assumed L.D. stood for learning delights, of which I thought he had many. I was dismayed when told that L.D. refers to learning deficits.
You see, a disability, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
We are all born disabled, unable to feed ourselves, walk, or talk. The majority of us will acquire a disability before we die. The difference between one disability and another is access to the tools and strategies that allow you to live with dignity, a happy and safe life.
Take away your tools, and you too might find yourself disabled.
For example, 65 percent of us would be considered disabled without our glasses.
EpiPens, insulin, and antidepressants allow people to manage health conditions that would otherwise be disabling.
Send a Gen Z kid on a trip with just a map, no phone, or GPS. Now, who feels lost, slow, and at a disadvantage?
Teachable moments, by definition, are borne of an unplanned confluence of events. Today, we find ourselves in one of the most horrific and grandest of teachable moments.
The lesson learned is up to you.
You can choose to keep your life segregated, isolating your heart and mind, or you can let go of your prejudice, be courageous, grow closer, and inclusive, even though we may remain six feet apart.
Here are some ideas for where you can start:
• Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, by Judith Heumann
• All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything, by Annette Bay Pimentel and Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins
• Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, a documentary, Higher Ground Productions, Executive Producers, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama
Lisa Nee of Madison, a writer and president of Allen/Nee Productions, writes an occasional column, Such is Life, for Shore Publishing.