< Return to Video

vimeo.com/.../436580300

  • Not Synced
    So, my name is
  • Not Synced
    Michelle Nario Redmond.
  • Not Synced
    I am a social psychologist
  • Not Synced
    and I teach at (Hiram?) College.
  • Not Synced
    in the psychology
    and biomedical humanities program,
  • Not Synced
    and I just wrote a book on ableism,
    the causes and consequences
  • Not Synced
    of disability prejudice.
    My first memory,
  • Not Synced
    and I'll just back up and say 1990,
  • Not Synced
    when the ADA passed
    I was in graduate school,
  • Not Synced
    in Kansas, and disability prejudice,
    the ADA or anything
  • Not Synced
    related to disability issues
    was completely off my radar,
  • Not Synced
    and I worked at a place
    where one of the pioneers
  • Not Synced
    of disability studies worked,
    Beatrice Wright,
  • Not Synced
    and I had yet to have a class with her.
  • Not Synced
    It really wasn't until 1995,
    which was five years later,
  • Not Synced
    when my daughter was born,
    Sierra was spina bifoda,
  • Not Synced
    that I became aware
    of disability and found the work
  • Not Synced
    of Carol Gill and (Simi Litton?)
    and began to educate myself
  • Not Synced
    on disability studies and its scope,
    and the first memory I have of
  • Not Synced
    confronting inaccessible spaces
    was a few years later, when we enrolled
  • Not Synced
    my daughter Sierra in a preschool,
    at a Catholic preschool,
  • Not Synced
    right down the road; and it just didn't
    even dawn on me that we would have to
  • Not Synced
    work so hard for her to be accommodated
    as a preschooler,
  • Not Synced
    and it was really a function of
    the fact that the building was older,
  • Not Synced
    there were steps, and they really didn't
    know, nor did they need to legally know,
  • Not Synced
    about reasonable accommodations
    and civil rights of their students,
  • Not Synced
    because they were a private facility and
    weren't subject to the ADA's rules.
  • Not Synced
    So it became clear to me that we needed
    to find a new preschool, and luckily
  • Not Synced
    we found another private place -
    it wasn't a public school -
  • Not Synced
    but it was a music school settlement
    and they had resources
  • Not Synced
    and they were already operating
    under a sort of set of presumptions
  • Not Synced
    about the value of diversity
    and diverse perspectives,
  • Not Synced
    and we didn't really have to ask for much,
    because they bent over backwards
  • Not Synced
    to include my daughter
    in a typical classroom, with her peers,
  • Not Synced
    her preschool peers, music classes,
    there were so many eclectic--
  • Not Synced
    movement classes, and they even
    purchased equipment
  • Not Synced
    for their exercise room and movement room
    that would be useful to her among others,
  • Not Synced
    and she has since grown up to become this teacher
    and has applied to work there
  • Not Synced
    as a preschool teacher, so I think
    it would be really amazing
  • Not Synced
    if she came full circle, but I guess
    to answer the broader question
  • Not Synced
    about being frustrated and aware of
    inaccessibility and lack of inclusion,
  • Not Synced
    we were in a district that, when she then
    was about to move to preschool,
  • Not Synced
    I knew that she probably wouldn't be
    able to go to a private school,
  • Not Synced
    not only because of the financial cost
    but also because they would not have to
  • Not Synced
    think about best practices
    and the law when it came to
  • Not Synced
    accommodating their
    students with disabilities,
  • Not Synced
    and so I knew we would be
    looking at the public school,
  • Not Synced
    and the public school in our neigbourhood
    was not accessible.
  • Not Synced
    We went to visit it,
    the playground had a little house
  • Not Synced
    that she wouldn't have been
    able to get into,
  • Not Synced
    and it was really disheartening
    and so it came at a time
  • Not Synced
    when we were already
    looking for other opportunities,
  • Not Synced
    and my husband got an opportunity
    to move us as a family
  • Not Synced
    to the West Coast
    in Portland of Oregon,
  • Not Synced
    so the way I-- so the way we had to
    navigate her early educational experiences
  • Not Synced
    was to only look at spaces and schools
    that were in districts that were new,
  • Not Synced
    so that had buildings
    and had training in terms of
  • Not Synced
    accommodating their diverse students
    and their disabled students,
  • Not Synced
    because just having the brief experiences
    that I did with the preschool
  • Not Synced
    and IEP meetings that were going to
    require me to fight at every juncture
  • Not Synced
    for her basic rights
    to show what she knows
  • Not Synced
    and participate and recognise herself
    as a valuable contributor
  • Not Synced
    to the school community.
    We're not going to be forthcoming
  • Not Synced
    without a fight,
    and so we narrowed our search
  • Not Synced
    to a district,
    and thank God we had the opportunity
  • Not Synced
    and the resources to do this,
    that was pretty known for their
  • Not Synced
    inclusivity.
  • Not Synced
    We did that also when we came back
    to the Cleveland, Ohio area.
  • Not Synced
    We were able to avoid all districts
    that weren't at the cutting edge
  • Not Synced
    of full inclusion and proof of excellence
    and had newer buildings
  • Not Synced
    that could accommodate those
    with disabilities,
  • Not Synced
    but I guess that that was my earliest
    memory of how, 'Oh, we have a road
  • Not Synced
    ahead of us and we have to take it upon
    ourselves to either continue to fight
  • Not Synced
    battles that had already been won,
    legislatively, or, finds spaces, places
  • Not Synced
    and organisations that were ahead
    of the curve
  • Not Synced
    in terms of implementing, monitoring and
    just execute the basic civil rights
  • Not Synced
    of their various constituents'
  • Not Synced
    The impact that all of that has had on me
    is to just be able to communicate
  • Not Synced
    with other parents and students
    with disabilities
  • Not Synced
    about not only knowing their rights but
    knowing how to get those rights
  • Not Synced
    how to advocate for ensuring that those
    rights are addressed, are met.
  • Not Synced
    I think the ATA has made
    a huge difference
  • Not Synced
    and the 'ah ha' moment was even when I was
    collating information for this book
  • Not Synced
    on disability prejudice, I realised that
    when I was a kid,
  • Not Synced
    when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s,
    people with disabilities weren't able to
  • Not Synced
    do any of the things that we took for
    granted as kids- go to the movies
  • Not Synced
    go to restaurants, go to visit a friend,
    at a friend's house, or invite
  • Not Synced
    others to your birthday parties.
  • Not Synced
    Since the ATA passed in 1990, it wasn't
    an immediate set of changes,
  • Not Synced
    as, there has been significant progress
    made, particularly in public spaces
  • Not Synced
    and in employment settings, where there
    are even employers
  • Not Synced
    who are part of an organisation
    of inclusive excellence, who
  • Not Synced
    recognise that disabled employees are
    actually more reliable and
  • Not Synced
    have less turnover and are worth
    investing in and promoting.
  • Not Synced
    But, there are still so many places,
    small businesses, educational institutions
  • Not Synced
    that are not carrying out basic games and
    practices that the ADA has made possible
  • Not Synced
    there's just way too much variation,
    and I think part of that
Title:
vimeo.com/.../436580300
Video Language:
English
Team:
ABILITY Magazine
Duration:
28:40

English subtitles

Revisions Compare revisions