PLEASE PRINT

Every morning, in first grade, the teacher would print our names on the chalkboard and we were all supposed to print our name underneath.  My classmates were able to print their names almost perfectly. I couldn't.  My attempts to print my name looked like chicken scratches.    I knew what the teacher wanted, but my brain could not get my hand to cooperate. It was humiliating to have to try, and fail, every day while the other children were successful/

My teacher didn't realize how hard I was trying to print my name like everyone else.  She did nothing to encourage me.  I think that was disgusted by the fact that I couldn't print my name

This morning ritual went on for months. Finally, I did it.  I printed my name on a workbook.  The teacher saw what I had done. There were no words of praise to acknowledge what a struggle learning to print my name had been for me.  Her response was,  "Well, was that so hard?"   Clearly, she was clueless.

In second grade I learned to use an electric typewriter.  I didn't have to worry if I could write or not. I could express myself and complete my classwork like everyone else. 

I was chosen to have my picture in the School and Home Newspaper. using my electric typewriter.  This was quite an honor for a seven-year-old. The photographer and the physical therapist came to my classroom.   I was supposed to type as if no one was watching me.  The photographer snapped the picture.  my physical therapist got angry because I'd hit the wrong key. (This woman wore her hair in a bun all year, but she took her hair down once a year to be a witch in my school's Halloween parade. I'm not kidding. All she needed was a broom. The day the photo was taken, the witch appeared a little early.)  Why couldn't she have been happy that my picture would be published and that I'd be representing the school?

I know the teachers in the sixties did the best they could, but, I still wonder where the compassion and understanding was.  It took me a little longer than my classmates to learn to print my name but I did it.  That should have been what mattered,





   

INCLUSION IS A BEAUTIFUL THING

Sadly, there are still people in the world, who think that disabled children should not be mainstreamed.  They think that having disabled children in a class, with their able-bodied peers, is a distraction.  Teaching a disabled child takes too much of a teacher's time.   

Those against mainstreaming argue that the time should be spent teaching an able-bodied child. 

What about the positive things a child with a disability can add to a classroom? Children learn compassion, acceptance, and the importance of helping one another when a child with a disability attends class with them.  If children have a disabled child in a class with them, they will grow up with the awareness that a person with a disability is just like they are. 

l loved being a Brownie/Girl Scout.   The experience was one of the happiest times of my childhood.  The Brownie troop leader was a member of my church.  The week before I attended my first meeting, the troop leader talked to the girls about me.  I don't know what she told them,  all I know is they accepted me and always found a way for me to be a part of whatever they were doing.  The girls didn't see my disability.  They just accepted me as their friend. 

I'm sure you have heard about the high school student, with Down's Syndrome, who was voted homecoming queen by her classmates this year.    The fact that able-bodied students elected a young woman with a disability to be homecoming queen is awesome!  The students voted for her not because she was disabled, but because of the kind of person she is. The students saw a person first, not her disability.  I hope we see more acts like this in the future. 

 I attended a public school for the physically disabled for thirteen years.  I would have given anything had mainstreaming been an option back then.  Had I been mainstreamed,  I would have developed better social skills.  My grade school education was adequate,  My high school education left me unprepared for college.  

After my freshman year, the high school teacher left.  The teacher who taught Spanish, and Shakespeare and for whom writing a term paper was a requirement to graduate,  was replaced by teachers who only taught the basics. They did nothing to prepare anyone for college.  I understand why.  When you have students at all different levels of intellectual ability together, it would be difficult to meet all of their needs effectively.  I missed out on a lot, not only socially, but academically as well. The only positive thing about my high school years was that, in my senior year, I was able to take two courses at a community college in college preparation that fall.

I often wonder what my educational experience would have been like if I had been allowed to be mainstreamed.  Would being mainstreamed have made me a different person?  I'll never know how it might have benefitted me.

For anyone who thinks a child with a disability is a distraction in the classroom and should not be mainstreamed, remember the qualities I spoke about earlier.  Aren't those qualities we want all children to have?  If you think about what an able-bodied child can learn from a disabled child they are not a distraction in the classroom at all.  They will only enhance another child's educational experience.