Transcriber: yoojae lee Reviewer: David DeRuwe
I’m in a wheelchair, in case you didn’t notice.
I have a very visible, very obvious disability,
but that is not the case for most disabilities.
When I started college, I was completely able-bodied.
My first encounter with another student with a disability,
as far as I knew, was my freshman year,
and this other student received extra time on tests
as an academic accommodation.
I couldn’t tell what his disability was.
I didn’t understand why he was getting extra time on tests.
I thought this was really unfair. He got extra time on tests
I could certainly use extra time on tests. Why? Why?
And I think this came from looking back at grade school.
I don’t think I knew anyone else with a disability.
I didn’t know anyone else receiving academic accommodations.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics,
14 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade have a disability.
That’s one out of every seven students require academic accommodations.
I knew more than seven students, so statistically, yes.
Yes, I did know other people. I was just not aware of that.
Fast forward a couple years,
and I'm the one now who needs academic accommodations.
I need extra time on tests.
I need some assistance with notes,
whether it be from teachers or other students.
And other students would say the exact same thing to me
that I had said just years before, that I’m so lucky,
“I can’t believe you get this.”
Well, I didn't feel lucky.
You know, I would much rather not need academic accommodations.
It wasn't a matter of wanting them,
but I needed academic accommodations in order to be successful at school.
So going back into grade school,
I can look at those other students.
According to a study I read by Newman and colleagues in 2011,
out of 14 percent of students who are identified with a disability,
37 percent of those students don’t identify themselves
as having a disability eight years after high school.
Now, when I'm saying identify,
I’m talking about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
In order to receive academic accommodations,
there needs to be a medical professional,
there needs to be teachers, school administrators, the parents,
the students themselves.
All of these people need to agree on what academic accommodations
are necessary in order for the student to be successful in school.
With all of these individuals, I find it very, very hard to believe
that these students are somehow being misidentified.
And yet, according to the CDC,
adults between the ages of 18 and 44, 25 percent of them have a disability.
That's one out of four adults have a disability.
Now, these seem to be contradicting statistics to me,
and I think some of that might come between that concept
that I was mentioning between want and need.
So some of these students might not want to be viewed as having a disability,
but maybe they need academic accommodations.
So go back into college now with me,
and once I’m finally comfortable with my own disability, I’m OK with it,
I thought I could be one of those people to help other students with disabilities
and make it a more inclusive environment on a college campus.
So I joined a group of other faculty members,
the goal of which was increasing inclusion on a college campus.
So my idea, and this is going back
into the civil rights calls for disability rights,
and the call was: “Nothing about me without me.”
Pretty straightforward, I think,
is don’t make decisions about students with students
or individuals with disabilities without input from individuals with disabilities.
Seemed pretty straightforward and made sense to me.
So I joined this group and I’m listening to them
and I’m listening to them,
and I’m listening,
and finally, I just had to ask, “What about students with disabilities?”
And they told me, “Yeah, they’re an important group too,
but that’s not really who we’re talking about with this group.”
Why is inclusion somehow an exclusive idea?
(Applause)
Why are individuals with disabilities
not included in the idea or discussions of inclusion?
So looking back into grade school again,
I think I can see this in grade school as well.
And it starts way back there as well.
So there are these things called inclusion classes.
I’m not saying that these are a bad thing, so don’t get me wrong,
but stick with me for a sec.
So inclusion classes are bringing students
from special education into general education courses.
This has been scientifically studied.
It's been shown to be very beneficial for individuals with disabilities.
So that's not what my argument is,
but what I’m saying is what is it telling the students with disabilities
when they hear, “Oh, this is the class for you, go be over here.”
Or what is it telling other students when they hear,
“Oh, you don’t need to be in this class,
you don’t have disabilities or academic struggles, you don’t need this one.
These are for the other people.”
I think that idea is kind of brought forth and brought forward as they grow up.
And so what I’m really talking about
is normalizing the idea and concept of disability in society,
and I really think that this needs to occur in grade school.
And so there are three groups of people that I’ve talked about here:
One is the group of individuals with disabilities.
Students with disabilities need to see
that they can have a disability and be successful.
Second, students without disabilities need to see
that an individual can be successful and have a disability.
I don’t know where it comes from,
but disability is, in itself, nothing to be ashamed of.
And third, the third group is school stakeholders,
school stakeholders: I’m meaning teachers, I’m meaning administrators,
and I'm talking about, yes, even parents as well.
All of these individuals need to see that some of their actions
and perhaps inactions, actually can be harmful to individuals with disabilities.
Now, all of this, again, is in the context of school.
School is a place for learning,
so I think the biggest thing that can be done is to learn about it.
Ignorance, I think, is the biggest contributor to this idea
of a divide between individuals with and individuals without disabilities.
And so ... learn about it.
For me, I am now a high school teacher.
I’m right in there, and I am contributing to disability awareness
kind of by default, but I’m doing it intentionally as well.
And so I guess my question for all of you then is: “What are you going to do?”
Thank you.
(Applause)