Why don't they learn about ableism in schools?

PoppyMorgan

Hello! I'm Poppy Morgan! I have a question; Why don't kids learn about ableism in schools?

Stellar

For the same reason ableism exists. Disabled peoples' lives are seen as lesser, and that includes disabled children.

PoppyMorgan

But in my opinion it only makes sense to, that way maybe ableist attitudes will change in society. Like if schools taught kids about ableism it wouldn't happen as much. I

Ironside1990

Ableism is something that is a product of a person's environment. You aren't born ableist. It's a learned behaviour that is caused by media and friends and family.

It can take many different forms as well. There's a lot more to ableism than just calling someone a cripple because they're in a wheelchair. Ableism can be denying a disabled person access to services and not making reasonable adjustments to comply with anti disability discrimination laws, denying disabled chances of opportunities as PWOD.

Lessons of ableism are often lumped in with bullying. I think it deserves a standalone lesson, as it is very complex.

Jimm_Scope

Hello @PoppyMorgan, welcome to the community 😊 I think this is a really interesting subject you have brought up. I actually had a recent chat with a friend of mine who is a teacher and we actually discussed discrimination a little. It came up because they had a PSHE lesson with their form group about discrimination and ableism was actually one of the forms brought up. It was only an hour however to cover all forms of discrimination, so while ableism was brought up, the students informed about it and talked with about it, it was only for 5-10 minutes.

I do think it's probably something that could have a little more time spent on it. Nearly everyone knows of a disabled person, even if they don't know that person is disabled because there can still be a stigma around discussing it.

I will ask them more about it, I imagine it might of some interest to the community!

PoppyMorgan

That would be great. Maybe this is just a me thing, but some years ago I was bullied in school due to by cerebral palsy; Stares, being called names, slurs and mimicking, you name it. And for about two years I was silent, I think that if ableism was spoken about amongst young people more then maybe I wouldn't have to have gone through what I did. I feel like in schools ableism isn't spoken about enough. That needs to change. School need to give it more time. I feel like if they did I would have spoken out about it.

Amaya_Ringo

In my experience the vast majority of ableism is just ignorance. Most people (I hope) are not nasty or hatefilled people, but they legitimately don't understand different lived experiences.

There's an assumption that empathy is inborn but really it's a skill that's learned and requires engagement and training throughout everyone's life.

I worked in a further education college for a while supporting disabled students and it was an integrated campus, although there were some classes that were higher supported than others. And because the kids were so used to being around a range of disabilities every day, there were rarely if ever ableist incidents. You would see kids doing simple things like moving out of the way for wheelchairs, not blocking halls…not taking the lift ahead of students who needed it, understanding that people communicated in different ways.

Some of the staff were not like that - the admin staff were always making my physically disabled students late by hogging the lift ahead of class start times. But the kids absorbed it in a much more positive, pragmatic way - and I think that normalising the fact disability exists is the solution.

As a society we still give power to bully behaviour and popular crowd cliques. It's all over our media as well as in books kids read and there isn't enough support at schools due to a lack of funding. So long as that happens, ableism will still exist. Kids just don't get to learn any better.

Kaliwax

Ableism in my experience is also down to ignorance, but then there is a small element of people who are down right nasty and horrible, see it on twitter for example. Thats where most of that category hang out.

When I was at School, we never really covered this sort of thing really, we should have really, I never got bullied because of my disability, but to make people aware of disabilities from a young age, could help a few people in my opinion.

Jimm_Scope

@Amaya_Ringo I agree and think ignorance is the main driver of most prejudices and discrimination. It is either ignorant and fearful of what they are ignorant about or ignorant about and dismissive of the struggles of others.

I do think ableism has been tackled and progress has been made against it in the past 20 or so years. In my experience at least people are certainly more likely to open up if they have a disability or are more likely to talk about their mental health. However, there is still so much that can be done and so much to do.