Challenging a Disabling Society

Got this article written by one of our colleagues in Baguio City. A strong advocate of Inclusive Education. This article was also featured in Sunstar local paper. Read on and be challenged. ;)

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

Albert Einstein.

Challenging a Disabling Society

Naas Demyttenaere

The Saint Louis University Institute for Inclusive Education is sometimes understood as a kind of charitable institution catering to persons with disabilities. The Institute however is NOT a “charitable institution”. Its mission is to effectively create a better society for all by increasing the capacity of “schools” and “teachers” to deal with differences. Since children with disabilities are often the first victims of the school’s or teacher’s failure to deal with differences, the disability issue is the prime focus of the Institute.

Why has our society grown “incompetent” to deal with persons with disabilities and helpless to respond adequately to the real demands differences make upon society?

The basic difficulty is the understanding of disability.

One thing that we all have in common is that we are all different. It is exactly our different physical characteristics that shape us into the unique human beings we are. A physical “impairment” is nothing more than a normal, human characteristic, a difference that creates limitations like all physical characteristics do (when you are a male you cannot bear children etc…). But this impairment, although it might be a physical inconvenience or nuisance, does not create disability by itself.

The problem is the disabling way society thinks of persons with impairments and interacts with them. Many consider people with disabilities as “special” “abnormal”, as individuals who need to be “fixed” implying: “you are inferior”, “you are not OK.” The damage this does to the hearts and minds of persons with disabilities and their parents is what makes our society a disabling society.

“Persons with disabilities” are simply normal, ordinary people. But physical differences seem to give society a license to discriminate. Denying or limiting the opportunities of persons to take part in the life of the community because of a physical difference generates disability and disables.

Why does society discriminate?

From a very young age all of us (including the person with disabilities) were taught the mistaken concept that disability means inferiority. This is why the average person believes that persons with disabilities are incompetent, helpless, unable to care for themselves and are deserving pity and charity. The school system has corroborated these prejudices by keeping persons with disabilities out of school or at best in a “special” environment People are enthralled when persons with disabilities succeed because that is not supposed to happen. It are these negative perceptions that have been the force keeping “persons with disabilities” down, denying them their rightful place in society.

Decisions about education, employment, benefits, and other opportunities in society are made on basis of this kind of negative views, shattering people’s dream for independence, freedom and self-reliance and thus preventing them to lead meaningful lives. If we want our children with disabilities to be included in our communities and lead ordinary and fulfilling lives: it’s not the persons with disabilities who need to be changed but the attitudes and perspectives of society that need to change. The society has to be inclusive. Inclusion has to happen at home, in the school, in the community!

We cannot change the characteristics of people but we can work however to create a society where people can live together with their differences. It is therefore our urgent task to direct and focus people’s minds towards understanding disability; and to do so with enough passion to realize inclusion in our society.