I suspect that most people would consider me to be a bit
of a poster girl for disabled people being educated in mainstream schools. They
might think that it must have been a positive, enjoyable time, or why else would
I have chosen to spend an extra twenty-five years there? I am intensely
grateful for my schooling, believe passionately that disabled children should
never have to compromise on the quality of their education and can, without
hesitation, say that I love teaching, but my experience also tells me that
things could, undoubtedly, be improved.
I reckon that most disabled adults, if disabled as
children, will have a list of bad education-related stories (many of which the
‘system’ would say should ‘never happen’). Mine include (in no particular
order) careless teacher comments: ‘I have a bad leg too and I can carry a desk
down some stairs, why can’t you?’, ‘You can’t be a journalist; how would you
push your way to the front of a crowd?’, poor decisions: having to spend
primary playtimes on my own in a classroom and secondary PE lessons writing
essays in the changing room because of ‘health and safety’ and the downright
dangerous: being expected to negotiate the school site in ice and snow and finishing
my finals covered in grazes and bruises from falls because the time spent
sitting, temporarily, stole my coordination and balance.
I’d like to think that things are very different in 2019
and it does seem that, in theory at least, more support exists. I was educated
in an era before teaching assistants, individual educational plans, extra time
in exams or differentiated learning, but I don’t feel confident that these
things work as they should, they are definitely increasingly poorly-funded and
they don’t get to the real crux of the issue, which is that the lives of
disabled people are so poorly understood by society.
When a non-disabled person thinks about ‘reasonable
adjustments’ it is usually equipment that comes to mind, maybe, at a pinch,
changes to the built environment and, of course, these are important. They
often arrive in school in a flurry of excitement ‘Well done us, we’ve installed
the lift, painted lines on the edges of steps, got your special seat/laptop/software’.
What often isn’t considered is how essential it is that they are always working
and available for the individual to access, that it is as easy as possible for
them to do so and that they should have been consulted at every stage of the
planning process because how somebody feels about their adjustments is every
bit as important as the things themselves. There is also hardly any time given
to understanding how life as a disabled person differs from that of a
non-disabled one. For a start, if there were, rewards for 100% attendance and
complicated rules about toilet use would vanish overnight. I happen to think
that they aren’t good for anyone but they disproportionately impact negatively
on disabled pupils.
If you are a non-disabled pupil you can, fairly
confidently, rely on your education to prepare you for adulthood. It may do it
a little clumsily, a week of slightly dull work experience, embarrassing PSHCE
lessons or bits of subjects that you are certain that you will never need in
the future, but it at least tries and does so from a position of knowledge.
Disabled pupils rarely have this luxury.
If I were to list what I think they will need it would go
something like this:
1. Communication
skills (in all their forms) that are as good as they can possibly be (they will
have to constantly explain their situation, justify their needs, fight their
corner. I should, perhaps, also add here that the current English Language GCSE
has sidelined spoken skills)
2. Resilience
so they can cope with being misunderstood, the many barriers there will be, the
inevitable disappointments and the physical changes they may face as time
passes
3. Self-confidence
so that they won’t listen to people who know less than they do about their life
and how they should live it
4. An
understanding that they are a member of a discriminated against minority and
how the law tries to protect them
5. And
they need to learn these things in a place that doesn’t focus on what they
can’t do but which also doesn’t peddle the popular lie that ‘Anything is
possible if you try hard enough’
What I want to say to teachers is that their disabled
pupils need their education even more than their non-disabled ones. Jobs will
be harder to get, homes tougher to find, life will be more expensive. I want
them to understand that, unlike other minorities, disabled children are often
not part of a community that can support them and give them strategies for
negotiating everyday challenges. A mainstream setting will never be the best
choice for every child but, if schools are serious about inclusion, they need
to listen more, be prepared to learn, and do better.
What would you change about the education system to better prepare disabled children for the wider world? As a disabled child, or parent/carer of a disabled child, what are some of your experiences of education?
