Ability Inclusive Mindset

when i was eight years old

i moved to one of those idyllic suburban

streets

with tons of young families that ends in

a huge cul-de-sac

i spent most of the rest of my childhood

in that cul-de-sac

playing four square and kickball and

rollerblading in circles

most of the kids i grew up with on the

block would say the same thing

but there was one boy a couple years

older than me who was a little different

he talked differently and behaved

differently

and he didn’t spend much time outside

with the rest of us

i remember asking an adult on the block

one day why the boy was going inside

after school

instead of staying out to play

i don’t remember exactly what the adult

said but i do remember the look on their

face

it was like i have no idea how to answer

this question and i really wish you

hadn’t asked

i distinctly remember being told that

the boy had

problems and that i should stay away

from him

and that was the extent of my education

on disability growing up

no one ever talked to me about it in

school not once

ever so everything i learned about

disability i learned by inference

for example i inferred from the adult

grimace and from the fact that no one

talked about disability that

it was something shameful and i didn’t

have students with disabilities in my

classes

at least not that i was aware of so i

inferred they didn’t belong there

i didn’t have children with disabilities

on my sports teams or

in my theater productions or in my dance

classes so

i inferred they couldn’t participate

and from what i saw when children with

disabilities needed help

that help was provided by adults so i

inferred they couldn’t really be friends

with other children

in short i inferred from my life

experience that children with

disabilities were very different from me

that they weren’t really a part of my

community and frankly i grew up hardly

caring about disability at all

to the extent i gave it any thought i

thought disability was sad

definitely a problem even a little scary

and disability mattered even less to me

as a young adult

is a political science and international

studies major at one of the most

progressive colleges in the country i

took courses in human rights and

humanitarianism

political philosophy identity studies

and i cannot for the life of me recall

ever learning about disability within

any of them

i had one college classmate with a

visible physical disability

and i specifically recall thinking to

myself what an anomaly she was

so smart for a disabled person

and then i went on to law school where i

learned all kinds of obscure laws that

frankly don’t matter at

all in everyday life but i never learned

about the

civil rights legislation at the core of

the disability rights movement

i’m not sure i could have if i’d wanted

to

disability was off my radar

and i fear it may have been forever if

my daughter nora hadn’t come into my

life

when nora was nine months old it became

clear she had significant physical and

intellectual disabilities

i mourned i mourned because i believed

her disabilities meant her quality of

life couldn’t be as good as mine

that everything would be somehow worse

and harder for her

i mourned because i feared what others

would think of her

i’m mourned because i thought that like

the little boy on my block

she was destined to grow up an outsider

if i’m being honest i’m mourned mostly

for myself

believing that a child with disabilities

like nora’s

couldn’t bring me the joy i’d hoped to

experience in parenthood

fortunately it didn’t take long for nora

to teach me that everything i’d inferred

about disability was wrong

and that i was losing precious time

mourning the loss of the child i thought

i wanted

instead of reveling in the wonders of

the one i was lucky enough to have

let me catch you up nora is neither sad

nor a problem and she certainly isn’t

scary

she’s a little girl she is capable of

learning and a friendship and of

recreating though she’ll do all those

things differently than i do

which is challenging and can be

frustrating for both of us

but really it’s fine and it can often be

joyful and really exciting

nora is loved and she feels love

she melts my heart she infuriates me

she makes me laugh just like her little

sister she runs me

through the full spectrum of emotions on

a daily basis

she’s a person she matters exactly like

all people matter

she demands and deserves to be seen and

included and supported and accommodated

so that she can live her best life

how could i have missed that

how many people had my ableism hurt

how many people had i pitied who i

should have gotten to know

how many people had i judged as less

than without knowing a single thing

about them

other than that they had a disability

how many people had i uh walked past or

worse

turned away from how many friends had i

missed out on

and as these questions swirled inside of

me i realized i had a lot to learn

years and years and years of catching up

to do on what this disability thing is

all about

and i also realized that if my

daughter’s peers were going to know the

things i was learning

someone was going to have to teach them

and fast

or else they’d be left to draw the same

wrong inferences

i drew growing up and that would be

terrible for nora

and it would be terrible for her peers

too

so together with my cousin who at the

time was a fifth grade teacher

i founded an organization to do exactly

that

to provide mindset training curriculum

and coaching to teachers

so that they can teach their students

about disability as diversity

and so that they can facilitate

meaningful equitable

inclusion in their schools the

organization is called the nora project

named for my daughter who is now six

years old

at the outset of my nora project journey

i was disappointed to find that despite

a great deal of legal progress

many things haven’t changed since my

years as a student decades ago

for example it remains the norm to

segregate students with intellectual

disabilities and autism

into separate special education programs

and those programs sometimes exist

in different hallways or even different

buildings than the rest of the education

in the community

children with complex medical and

accessibility needs are often forced to

attend schools

miles from their neighbors because their

local public schools

simply aren’t equipped to include them

today 30 years after the passage of the

ada

most public schools in the united states

still are not

fully accessible and

even in those cases where students with

and without disabilities are taught in

the same

physical space they’re opportunities to

really get to know one another

to forge the kinds of friendships that

make lasting impacts

those opportunities are scarce

and while inclusive public education

certainly isn’t right for every child

regardless of whether they have a

disability

we can do better it’s time for schools

to start building more accessible

empathetic inclusive cultures

here’s how in three manageable

steps first demystify

disability teach about disability as you

would any form of human diversity

don’t ascribe a positive or negative

value to disability

teach simply that it exists always has

always will that most people will

experience disability in their lives

because disability is part of the human

experience

teach about assistive technology and

medical equipment and how it works to

empower

adaptation teach about accessibility and

universal design

in how everyone benefits when everyone

can participate

teach about the rights and

accomplishments of people with

disabilities

read their books study their art

talk about the discrimination they face

and why it’s wrong

help students understand why language

matters what words are appropriate

how to be allies take away the stigma by

giving students a language for

disability

by naming identifying and standing

against

ableism and by creating a dignified

place for disability studies

in every child’s education

number two teach friendship skills

anti-bullying programming has become

very popular in american education

and it should be this programming serves

an important purpose but

let’s be clear not being a bully

is not the same as being a good friend

and how to be a good friend

is not obvious particularly to somebody

who seems very different from you

fortunately there are foundational

friendship skills that can be taught

and practiced and honed over time and

they can be applied to all your

relationships

these skills include understanding the

needs of others and anticipating and

adapting for those needs

they include empathy imagining how other

people feel

in pro-social behaviors like taking

those feelings into account

on the playground or when you’re making

your birthday party invitation list or

even when you’re deciding how to phrase

a question

studies show that students who are

explicitly taught these skills

are not only better friends but better

employees

better teammates better partners and

happier adults overall

friendship skills are critical to living

in community

whether to teach them shouldn’t be

aspirational schools should approach

them with the same rigor

they apply to their math and literacy

curriculums

finally number three my favorite

bring kids together and let them really

get to know one another

proximity is only a starting place for

changing minds about difference

the work that’s required to forge real

bonds and deconstruct prejudice is far

more complex

a great place to start is curriculum

like ours that bring students together

to solve a problem

tell a story or make an impact

we cannot continue to abide systems that

keep students with disabilities

physically or culturally segregated from

their non-disabled peers

and expect for them to feel like or

become

a part of us we have to transform those

old spaces and practices into new ones

where students are expected to

collaborate to include

and to believe and behave like everyone

belongs

at the nora project we call the values

embedded within this

the system of of activities we call this

the ability inclusive mindset aim for

short

and we strive through our programming to

help teachers and ultimately their

students think

differently about disability to consider

the disabled perspective by talking to

the folks in their communities who live

it firsthand

and to adopt accessible and inclusive

practices

to aim higher we’re only a few years in

but the data suggests we’re on to

something

in nora project schools community

culture shifts and students see

themselves as teammates

responsible for one another’s success

this makes classroom management easier

because students co-regulate meaning

they help each other

which requires less adult intervention

in the classroom

and teachers report a marked reduction

in bullying and anti-social behaviors

and minds are changing about disability

too

at the end of the 2018-2019 school year

three times as many students without

disabilities believed they had things in

common with their peers with

disabilities by the end of the school

year

and best of all 97 percent of students

who identify as disabled

reported that the nora project made them

feel proud of who they

are let me tell you what i’ve learned

from nora

and the nora project and becoming a

student of disability

smart disabled people like my college

classmate are not an anomaly

i’m mortified that i even thought that

at this point i’m so deep into aspiring

allyship i cannot for the life of me

understand

how the non-disabled majority isn’t

listening on a large scale

to what the disability community has

been telling us for decades

i’m going to summarize it here but i

encourage you to listen to the leaders

of the movement

and hear what they have to say

themselves many of them have ted talks

of their own that have supported me and

my work

but right now when i’m listening to the

community

this is what i hear them saying we are

people

full complex people we have

rights legal rights and innate human

rights

stop treating our access like an

afterthought

our dignity is an object of your

benevolence

your kindness toward us as charity

listen to us learn about us

include us allow us to live the lives we

want and are entitled to live

can’t we do that i’m not trying to say

this is easy clearly there’s a whole lot

of reimagining to do

but we are primed for reimagining right

now

the pandemic has changed the way we work

the way we connect with those we love

it’s laid bare massive systemic

oppression and is kindled within us

a desire to build more just more

equitable systems

it’s made clear that our decisions

impact others

that our personal well-being is tied to

the well-being of

all of our neighbors in all of their

diversity

and as part of this awakening it’s time

to unlearn

the oppressive cultural narratives we

learned by inference

and to do that we have to center the

voices that for too long have been on

the margins

just imagine if disability studies

empathy education and real equitable

inclusion were ubiquitous in american

education

i think the paradigm could shift the

time has come

for nora and everyone else

thank you