Yesterday when my 6 year old (pictured in yellow) and I went to pick up my middle school daughter at her drama practice, we encountered the scene in the photo above. All of the students in the drama club were seated in the front of the auditorium listening to the director, except for my daughter, who happens to be blind and have an orthopedic impairment that makes her a slow walker. My daughter was seated in her wheelchair, which we leave at school so she can use it for the long transitions between some of her classes, at the far back of the auditorium many rows behind her peers.
A day later, she's still talking about her frustration at being placed in the back, away from her peers. But even more so, she's upset that her teachers are not listening to her when she explains to them that she does not want to be forced into her wheelchair. She's afraid to speak up and advocate for herself with her teachers because when she tries, they have shut her down with their own opinions on why they think she's better off in her wheelchair (though she has no issue arguing with mom!).
This, my friends, is Ableism. When an able-bodied person makes decisions for a person with a disability, or tells the person with a disability that they know best without taking into account the life experiences and opinions of the person with the disability, we see Ableism in full force. When people with no physical limitations force a person with a disability to use a certain mobility device (in this case a wheelchair) instead of choosing how they want to get around because it is easier for the people without disabilities and makes more sense to them, this is Ableism. It does not matter if the disabled person is a child or adult - every individual has a right to make decisions about their own body in the same manner as their nondisabled peers.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated experience. My daughter has been dealing with this type of separation from her peers since she was small. We have a photo book from her preschool year - every page shows a group of preschool children working together on a activities, yet my daughter is not included in any of the groups. She is only in one photo in the entire book - a photo of her playing with a ball by herself. She did not choose to play by herself, and the other children did not choose to leave her out. It is the adults in every situation who choose to segregate based on ability and disability. Teachers and parents, we need to do better.
Many of our friends face similar situations. In another county in our state, Amy says that her daughter was "never included" when she attended public school. It got so bad that they decided to homeschool. She talks about how she would observe the children in class and her daughter would be playing in a corner alone while the other children played around a sensory table, or during class photos her daughter would be placed in her wheelchair all the way off to one side so she could barely be seen.
When Dawn's daughter graduated from high school last spring, she was seated off to the side of the auditorium with one other student who also used a mobility device. These two girls were completely segregated from their peers because one used a walker and one used a wheelchair. When her daughter approached the stage to get her diploma, the diploma was handed to a staff member instead of directly to her! Again, Ableism at its finest!
Amanda says her daughter was segregated for a field trip last week. The accessible bus didn’t come to get her until her entire team of classmates had already left. She missed the beginning of the program because of this. Then when she arrived, all of her classmates had already been seated upstairs and she had to sit downstairs with kids she did not know from other schools. This is just wrong, friends.
We see photos far too often of awards assemblies, class plays, or simply class pictures where kids in wheelchairs are seated feet away from their peers or rows below them because adults don't make an inclusion a priority. I'm sure teachers get tired of parents being the squeaky wheel as we constantly speak up to remind them to include our kids, but parents of kids with disabilities are even more tired of having to constantly be on the alert to ensure that our kids are not left out. And the individuals with disabilities are even more tired of always being the ones excluded, left without a voice, or marginalized. Once again, I will say it - We need to do better. This has got to stop.