I interrupt my series on teaching with passion with an important
reflection. I
was in this South Georgia sweating and whiffing by my flower garden when my
cell phone
rang. It did not take long before I was listening with intense ears to an
harangue,
gentle in tone but not in meaning, from a professor at a university that was
ironically a
pioneer in special education. She called to tell me that she was "deeply
disturbed" by
the likes of you" and took issue with a Random Thought I had written about
eleven years
ago supporting accommodation for special needs students or what she called
"learning and
physically disabled students." She found my number! Called me!! On my cell
phone!!! At
my house!!!! Talking about pushing your own buttons! Anyway, she rejected my
position
insisting that it wasn't that she didn't think such students should be
educated, but it
should not be done on her watch. After all, she said, "they're letting anyone
in....with
all I have to do, I don't have the extra time to devote to such a person....I
don't have
tenure yet....It's an inconvenience......not at ease....not inclined to offer
assistance....giving accommodation an expense we can't afford to
spend....giving special
attention to such a person an unreasonable disservice to others in the class
whom I can
better serve....they won't have a happy educational experience....special
consideration
skews the validity of the transcript?" And, so on she went.
She assured me with a patronizing "I didn't mean anything by it" tone
that there
is nothing "threatening" or "demeaning" in her view, and it is nothing
"personal." Isn't
it? As the father of a son with ADHD, I took her words very personally. I had
heard all
this before during the years of my son's struggle in schools from teachers and
administrators while they were hacking off his pleading hands, cutting out his
legs from
under him at his supplicating knees, sucking the self-esteem out of him,
diminishing his
sense of humanity, and throwing him on the trash heap. Because of that,
respectful as I
was to this professor, I was not about to be coldly intellectual about it all,
was not
about to be clinically objective, and was not about to be distant with a
spectator
mentality or a passer-by un-involvement or a disengaged onlooker consciousness.
This professor's medieval views and mine are a collision of conflicting
paradigms.
Now, I do not believe she is an icy monster though I'm not sure about her
sincere caring,
her assurances not withstanding. Throughout her entire side of our
conversation, however,
she displayed a warped kind of benevolence and charitable mentality that
categorized such
students as pitifully "unfortunate" or sad "standouts like sore thumbs," or
admirably
"amazing," but not particularly as just another student. To her that
accommodation
document seem to indicate that the student was another specie of human being,
maybe an
inferior specie. Anyway, waving aside everything I said, she believes that
giving such
students access to the classroom is setting them up for a fall by offering
false hopes and
expectations. She seems to assume that their "disabilities" somehow get in the
way of
their intellect and that they can't have a life well-learned. Because this
view is
apparently dominant in her thinking, it has become for her an undeniable
self-evident
truth. After all, the "disturbing" part takes place in her head, not in the
classroom.
What sets these students apart is her perception. The classroom, as life, is
the way we
see it and the way we perceive it and experience it. We read into others what
we want or
expect to find, and whatever we expect to find, will be there. At that moment,
we
ourselves have a learning disability and are unable to move beyond our own
stereotypes and
prejudices.
The flaw in her attitude is the unexamined, shallow assumption that
"disabled
students" cannot be enabled to become able, that such students who need
accommodation
inherently have less prospects of achievement and less possibilities of
attaining a
"successful and happy educational experience," that the disabled students'
"irrational"
and "unreasonable" preference for an education at a "regular university" must
yield to
society's "rational" economic limits, that caring and attention are
quantitatively fixed,
that the added attention given them subtracts from attention given to others,
and that
they somehow have lost their inner sacredness and nobility. This all too common
prejudice
taken to its logical conclusion leads to the kicking in a tragic of rejection
of their
humanity, of disconnection, of lack of community, of dismissal, and of
selectively weeding
out such "distractions." It leads to an infection of what I call a "Dick
Wittington
Syndrome." That is, bag and throw these intrusive students afflicted with LD
and other
disabilities off a bridge like the unwanted runts of a litter. The cure for
this syndrome
is to accept the truth that we are all challenged in one way or another and
that the
classroom, like the faculty and staff and administration, is filled with flawed
human
beings. We just need to have room for all the different challenges and flaws.
As I listened, I thought of grabbing my Shakespeare and reading to her
Shylock's
soliloquy. I thought of past disability discrimination and the once accepted
illusion
that we have the choice to educate or not to educate, and that we prefer the
latter. So I
ask quietly but forcefully: how dare any one of us? How dare we undervalue
such persons?
How dare we define what is "better" for such students by what is better and
easier for us?
How dare we create an inequitable caste system among students? How dare some
of us have
so little respect for such persons? How dare we see the entrance into college
of such
students as avoidable mistakes? How dare any one of us even engage in a
discussion of
whether another person's education should happen? How dare any one of us
should think
such an issue is debatable? How dare any one of us decide that certain people
"don't
belong" among us or who are among those we define as among "they're letting
anyone in" are
non-persons with no right to reach for their as yet unseen potential solely on
market
considerations or personal convenience? How dare any one of us draw the line
between
those who are "entitled" to our attention and those who are not? How dare any
one of us
count any one among the uncounted and unnoticed? How dare any one of us get
annoyed or
feel inconvenienced at the prospect of having to put in time and effort for all
people to
experience the fullness and the fulfillment of life? How dare we find its in
our heart
to deny any person, categorically, our empathy, affection, faith, compassion,
and our
love? How dare any of us presume to define the capability of becoming for
anyone else, to
set the value of an as yet "unprepared" person lower than our high and mighty
degreed and
published personna, or to conclude that such a person lacks the potential for
happiness
and dignity because some of us are so arrogant, close minded, self-righteous,
and
self-centered that we cannot imagine how it could?
After all, what is the role of an educator but service and assistance?
Too many
of us selectively and conditionally assist others with our support,
encouragement,
empathy, faith, kindness, and love so that they can fully affect their choices.
Why can't
we do that unconditionally for each and every one? Why can't we deny that a
"problem of
disability" exists? Why can't we pick up the gauntlet of challenge? Each of
us requires
different modes of assistance. In that sense, every transcript is tainted.
Shall we
underestimate a person's capacity, ability, talent, and potential based on an
accommodation letter? Shall we stare at such people with annoyance, pity,
condescension,
and hostility? Shall we weed out for convenience and comfort sake rather than
cultivate?
Shall we educationally euthanize them, or at best hide them away in darkened
institutions?
Shall we decide who shall go to the educational left and who to the educational
right?
The whole of academia has a stake in making sure each of us is not tainted by
prejudices,
myths, discomfort, and supposed inconvenience, emblematic of broader, deeper
attitudes
toward disability that sometimes slide from fear to disgust and from disgust to
hatred.
I didn't expect to straighten out this academic's head and heart
however I
politely and respectfully tried. She would hear none of it. She, and others
like her,
think they know everything there is to know just by looking at someone's
accommodation
request. That's how stereotypes work. It deludes people into thinking they
know the world
of others. They don't ask who these people are and act as if they will always
remain the
same. It ignores the fact that each of us have a combination of gifts,
strengths,
weaknesses, and flaws so peculiar that they can't be measured on the same
scale. She and
others like her don't know that they're confused; they're ignorant to the fact
that the
presence of a special need, disability, or challenge does not predict quality
of any
aspect of life. She doesn't know how to look at such people beyond an
accommodation
agreement, a wheel chair, a hearing aid, a talking book, signing, or a reader
other than
as if they were curious or pitiful animals in a zoo. She is unaware she is
marginalizing
such people and rendering them invisible with selfish and self-serving
prejudice and
ignorance, and even oppression. She doesn't realize she has to be remolded
with the
constant pounding of a caring heart, with the shaping of respect, and with the
working in
of faith, hope, and love. She should learn what to make of such students. She
should
stop gawking and wincing, and learn to see. What is equally sad is that within
educated
people such as she resides an emptiness; they will not know what both the
fullness and the
fulfillment of life mean unless the consciousness of the kindred spirit that
lies latent
in their own very selves comes to life within them.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of
History http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__/\ \/\
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