Yesterday I watched the Disaboom Presidential debate
simulcast and I was deeply impressed by something Rebecca Hare said about the
concept of “hyper-mainstreaming” in schools.
Now don’t go getting up on your high horse just yet, I’m not against
mainstreaming I was mainstreamed my
entire academic, public school life and I believe my classmates and I both
gained immense amounts from my inclusion.
However, as beneficial as this experience was I feel I lost
something vital because of it. I never
had other disabled friends (except from summer camp; those two weeks of freedom
and independence I valued highly. I
learned that you could be disabled and a normal teenage girl at the same time).
In school however, I was never normal or treated normally. Granted I was smart, and had more than my
share of friends but no one really understood what it was like to be me.
What it was like to have someone else tell you and put you
to bed when you were 17. What it was
like not to be able to go to the bathroom on your own. No one could give me advice about attending
college or what the first time I “did it” was going to be like because no one
else I knew had had those experiences.
So I clung to and learned from the girls I went to camp with. They were older than me and some had gone to
college. They came back to work at camp
full of stories of staying out all night and having someone put them to bed
when they said. This knowledge was
extremely vital to my development as a person.
I think I would have had a much better school experience if
I would have had someone to mentor me and help me gain the skills I would need
to become a successful adult wheelchair user and personal assistance services
user. But no one thought I would need that
within my small Pennsylvania
town. They all thought that if I had enough books and academic knowledge, the
rest would just fall into place.
Kids in Special Ed were educated about their disability
needs, I was not. The first time I was
ever introduced to running my own PCA program was when my parents dropped me
off at college. This is not an
appropriate solution by anyone’s standards.
I am not saying to re-segregate everyone with a disability
in a school system.
So please don’t
write me and say I said that.
If you do
I may be mean and ask you if you read the post in its entirety. There are,
however, certain things all people with disabilities need to know regardless of
their academic ability and being in regular academic classes does not diminish
the need for this knowledge.
As we
struggle, which we rightly should, for students with disabilities to be
included in standard academic programs we must not forget that they also need a
sense of community, history, and to acquire the skills which will promote their
own survival as disabled people (such as how to qualify for Social Security
Income and how to get PCA services).
Mainstreaming these kids won’t take away their need to learn
these skills, which their parents are often unequipped to teach them. I know mine were. In fact, excluding them
from the boarder disability community only damages them and makes them
bitter. You shouldn’t need to find
community, support, and mentoring at 18. You should
find it when you are 6, even if you are in a “normal” classroom.
