First Day of Class

The Ohio State University started the winter quarter today and I met my first two classes of the new semester.  My afternoon class is called "Introduction to Disability Studies" and today as I met with my approximately forty plus students for the first time I had one of those rare and beautiful epiphanies that sometimes come to each of us if we're lucky and we live long enough.  There I was, a fifty  one year old writer and English professor talking to students about the nearly incredible and almost improbable course of events that has moved disability out of the shadows and into the mainstream of our culture during the last fifty years.  I told my students how, when I was a child, my parents were instructed that I shouldn't go to a public school but instead should attend a residential school for blind children.  I told my students how my mother resisted this idea.  We talked together about the extraordinary transformation that has occurred in American society where people with disabilities are concerned.  We talked about the crucial role of the African-American civil rights movement and the critical importance of the "Brown vs. School Board" Supreme Court decision.  We discussed how cultures can change and how the ethos of a people can grow.

That's when it came over me: I realized that I have had the fortune to live in a time when my nation was ready to grow.  To be born in an era of cultural growth is a complex and undeniable kind of good fortune.  I came of age in the era before the Americans with Disabilities Act.  I endured college teachers who told me that if I had problems reading then I shouldn't be in their classes.  I slogged my way through public education without the benefits of assistive technology or even something like kindness from certain teachers and administrators.  Then it really hit me: I am lucky to be teaching at one of America's great public universities and yes, I am talking about the disability experience as a fully celebrated part of the university's curriculum.  I have been working in this area at Ohio State for over six years now.  I have had the good fortune to work alongside faculty and administrators who genuinely understand how important the study of disability "is" as we think about the life of our nation.  But it hit me today.  Our American experiment is far from completion; our schools and social services are still all too often underfunded and certainly inequality in the twin worlds of employment and education is still a complex social problem.  As Jonathan Kozol reminds us, there is still apartheid in our public schools. People with disabilities remain unemployed at higher rates than the rest of the public.

But disability is part of the intellectual examination of our nation's history at a considerable number of our nation's leading universities.  I wish my mother had lived to see this.

God Bless You, Mom, wherever you are!

S.K.

Comments

[Blue]

Oh, exciting, that first day of class! I've never been a full-fledged teacher (facilitated some diversity training, is all), but I surely miss being a college student. And I have had some of these same revelations about how far we've come and how far we have to go.

I'm hoping you can share more about this class and the students' receptiveness to disability studies as the semester goes on. Are there any/many disabled students? Have they self-identified? Do professors get lists of who is disabled in their classes? Is this an elective that fulfills a diversity requirement? Oh, I have so many questions....

Glad the first day went so well and was so inspiring.

[Georgia Whitney]

Steve, I've told your story to dozens of people over the past 2-1/2 years and when I get to the part about your being mainstreamed in 1961 their mouths fall open. "How'd he do it?" they all want to know. I say that for starters, you're brilliant, and that your mother advocated for you like crazy. But it still blows my mind.

Can't wait to hear more about your class. Keep us posted (ha ha ha...)

Georgia

[Sue Zivi]

Today's post brought back memories of one of my father's sisters, my aunt. She would be in her late nineties if she were alive today. Aunt Becky was severly mentally disabled and was kept at home until my grandmother died and she
happily lived in a residential facilty where for the first time she was with others, formed friendships and participated in activities.

This is in contrast to the integrative class scheduling, support groups, arrangement for aides, agency services and adaptive technologies that I coordinated as Director of Guidance at a public high school for many years. As you say - not perfect but oh, so different!

One area that frustrated me was my charge to coordinate the assessment of the learning that occurred for all students on a yearly basis. The state, NJ, came up with large print booklets, foreign language and other recorded questions, extended time and other adaptions. But these methods still not, to my mind, fairly or adequately
assess the learning that occurred. I'd be interested in your assessment methods at the college level.

Reading about a new semester starting makes me
nostalgic.

Sue Z

[ohdave]

I'm so glad I found your site! I am a book loving blogger as well and as it appears you've found out I blog on one book per week, on Sundays. This Sunday I am doing Carter's new book on Israel.

I would like to take you up on your book offer as well... send me an email and I will reply with my address.

I also do a weekly round up of Ohio blogs at my site... I will try to include you next time.