I have to be honest; I only learned about ableism and internal ableism not too long ago during a Zoom meeting. As someone with a disability who claims to be a mentor for people with disabilities, why didn’t I know what internalism and ableism are? I should be embarrassed. I had to go back and look up ableism and internal ableism to understand what they entirely meant. As I was reading about them, glimpses of times in my life when I felt I was a burden to people or groups came rushing back. Knowing there were terms to describe what I was going through at those times put a whole new meaning to those experiences in my life.
Let’s first break down ableism and what it means, as I had experienced and felt when it came to ableism.
Ableism is discrimination against a person with a disability. Knowing what ableism is now, I can genuinely say ableism has affected me from an early age. Ableism is what made me stand out throughout my childhood.
I was born in the late ’70s and grew up in the ’80s and ‘90s while experiencing ableism. Although I have cerebral palsy, my family has always integrated me with non-disabled children. I attended school in my hometown. Growing up during this time, the ADA Act of 1973 stated that everyone with a disability had the right to be in public places and the right to an education just like others. You might imagine that having this law would make life easier. While the law was written to give people like me and others with disabilities all these rights, it was not easy to get people to change their outlook on those with disabilities and follow through on the law.
Growing up in a small farming town in the 1980s and ’90s was challenging. As the saying goes, it felt like my family and I were rocking the boat.
I started school at an early age. Teachers were unsure how to teach someone like me; they would say I was unteachable and I was just taking the place of another child who could be there. In music class, they wouldn’t let me use a recorder, and I drooled too much to try it, or they didn’t want me in the lunch room because I would sometimes chew with my mouth open.
The other kids did not give me trouble, but the educators showed me ableism when they were the ones who should have been educating me and the others around me. The educators should have been helping, teaching me about life, and helping me overcome my challenges, but in the end, they added more challenges to a young child’s life. My school district eventually became more integrated, bringing more severely disabled students back into our hometown school community.
I was almost denied the education that I deserved from the start. The school had to make classes to accommodate me and others needing the same or similar accommodations. It can be hard to change an educated mind if they have worked under a specific premise for years. When given a student who needed all these varied accommodations and help to understand what I was going through, it was difficult for the educators to meet my specific needs. Looking back on those times and being the person I am today, I can better understand how difficult it might have been for some educators to change their teaching style to accommodate me. I am not saying what they did was right because it wasn’t, but I can understand how hard it might be for someone with a particular philosophy or style to change their style to meet an INDIVIDUAL student’s needs.
There was yet another hurdle when the ADA Act of 1990 came around. The ADA Act of 1990 states that public and federal buildings should accommodate all people, no matter race or disability. That means many things: all buildings should be made to accommodate those who need their physical needs met; all parking lots should have enough accessible parking, curb-cut offs, doors, halls, and restrooms to accommodate physical limitations. The results from my family taking on these physical barriers for me are evident today. People are unaware of this initial struggle and may take today’s accommodations for granted. Yet, my family and I pioneered changing our small town in the USA.
While trying to complete this assignment, I contacted one of my first teachers with me from day one of my public school experience. I want to share her experience as a teacher at that particular time in my life. She provided insight from an educator’s perspective. “As a teacher, we had to assure other teaching professionals of what we could do. To encourage them to continue to challenge you while meeting your specific needs. It took a long time for building improvements to take place to allow you to be more independent throughout the physical school building. As a result, you sometimes required one-on-one paraprofessional support, not due to YOUR physical limitations but due to your physical environments and the existing physical barriers within the school setting”.
I didn’t realize at the time that I may have felt like the odd one out, but I was not only giving myself the right to access public buildings but paving the way for those who followed after me as well. If I were to attend my hometown high school at present, there would be so much more they could offer me to support my ‘ABILITIES’:more integrated classrooms, opportunities for community involvement (Best Buddies, Unified Sports, etc.), and a transition program for 18 to 21-year-olds. I was lucky to have a supportive family and the strength to challenge myself by taking courses at a local community college and continuing my educational experiences online, creating a personal connection to others with CP. I demonstrated what adults with CP were capable of when given a chance. Also, creating dialogue and essential discussions around issues other adults with CP could relate to. At the same time, opening the eyes of the non-disabled to understand better what adults with CP were capable of. I created awareness, compassion, and empathy for those discriminated against due to ‘ABLEISM.’
OUR BEAUTIFUL CHALLENGES 