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vimeo.com/.../436580300

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    So,
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    My name is Michelle .....
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    I am a social psychologist and
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    teach at .......... College
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    in psychology and biomedical
    humanities program
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    and I just wrote a book on Abilism
    the causes and consequences
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    of disability prejudice.
    My first memory
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    and I'll just back up and say in 1990,
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    when the ADA passed
    I was in graduate school,
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    in Kansas, and disability prejudice,
    the ADA or anything
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    related to disability issues
    were completely off my radar,
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    and I worked at a place
    where one of the pioneers
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    of disability studies worked,
    Beatrice Wright,
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    and I had yet to have a class with her.
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    It really wasn't until 1995,
    which was five years later,
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    when my daughter was born,
    Sierra, with spina bifoda,
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    that I became aware
    of disability and found the work
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    of Carol Gill and Simi Litton
    and began to educate myself
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    on disability studies and its scope,
    and the first memory I have of
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    confronting inaccessible spaces
    was a few years later, when we enrolled
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    my daughter Sierra in a preschool,
    at a Catholic preschool,
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    right down the road; and it just didn't
    even dawn on me that we would have to
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    work so hard for her to be accommodated
    as a preschooler,
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    and it was really a function of
    the fact that the building was older,
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    there were steps, and they really didn't
    know, nor did they need to legally know,
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    about reasonable accommodations
    and civil rights of their students,
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    because they were a private facility and
    weren't subject to the ADA's rules.
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    So it became clear to me that we needed
    to find a new preschool, and luckily
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    we found another private place -
    it wasn't a public school -
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    but it was a music school settlement
    and they had resources
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    and they were already operating
    under a sort of set of presumptions
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    about the value of diversity
    and diverse perspectives,
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    and we didn't really have to ask for much,
    because they bent over backwards
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    to include my daughter
    in a typical classroom, with her peers,
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    her preschool peers, music classes,
    there were so many eclectic--
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    movement classes, and they even
    purchased equipment
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    for their exercise room and movement room
    that would be useful to her among others,
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    and she has since grown up to become this teacher
    and has applied to work there
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    as a preschool teacher, so I think
    it would be really amazing
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    if she came full circle, but I guess
    to answer the broader question
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    about being frustrated and aware of
    inaccessibility and lack of inclusion,
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    we were in a district that, when she then
    was about to move to preschool,
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    I knew that she probably wouldn't be
    able to go to a private school,
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    not only because of the financial cost
    but also because they would not have to
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    think about best practices
    and the law when it came to
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    accommodating their
    students with disabilities,
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    and so I knew we would be
    looking at the public school,
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    and the public school in our neigbourhood
    was not accessible.
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    We went to visit it,
    the playground had a little house
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    that she wouldn't have been
    able to get into,
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    and it was really disheartening
    and so it came at a time
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    when we were already
    looking for other opportunities,
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    and my husband got an opportunity
    to move us as a family
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    to the West Coast
    of Portland of Oregon,
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    so the way I-- so the way we had to
    navigate her early educational experiences
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    was to only look at spaces and schools
    that were in districts that were new,
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    so that had buildings
    and had training in terms of
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    accommodating their diverse students
    and their disabled students,
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    because just having the brief experiences
    that I did with the preschool
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    and IEP meetings that were going to
    require me to fight at every juncture
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    for her basic rights
    to show what she knows
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    and participate and recognize herself
    as a valuable contributor
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    to the school community.
    We're not going to be forthcoming
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    without a fight,
    and so we narrowed our search
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    to a district,
    and thank God we had the opportunity
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    and the resources to do this,
    that was pretty known for their
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    inclusivity.
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    We did that also when we came back
    to the Cleveland, Ohio area.
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    We were able to avoid all districts
    that weren't at the cutting edge
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    of full inclusion and proof of excellence
    and had newer buildings
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    that could accommodate those
    with disabilities,
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    but I guess that that was my earliest
    memory of how, 'Oh, we have a road
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    ahead of us and we have to take it upon
    ourselves to either continue to fight
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    battles that had already been won,
    legislatively, or, finds spaces, places
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    and organizations that were ahead
    of the curve
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    in terms of implementing, monitoring and
    just execute the basic civil rights
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    of their various constituents
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    The impact that all of that has had on me
    is to just be able to communicate
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    with other parents and students
    with disabilities
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    about not only knowing their rights but
    knowing how to get those rights
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    how to advocate for ensuring that those
    rights are addressed, are met.
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    I think the ADA has made
    a huge difference
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    and the 'ah ha' moment was even when I was
    collating information for this book
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    on disability prejudice, I realised that
    when I was a kid,
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    when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s,
    people with disabilities weren't able to
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    do any of the things that we took for
    granted as kids- go to the movies
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    go to restaurants, go to visit a friend,
    at a friend's house, or invite
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    others to your birthday parties.
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    Since the ADA passed in 1990, it wasn't
    an immediate set of changes,
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    as, there has been significant progress
    made, particularly in public spaces
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    and in employment settings, where there
    are even employers
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    who are part of an organization
    of inclusive excellence, who
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    recognize that disabled employees are
    actually more reliable and
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    have less turnover and are worth
    investing in and promoting.
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    But, there are still so many places,
    small businesses, educational institutions
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    that are not carrying out basic gains and
    practices that the ADA has made possible
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    there's just way too much variation,
    and I think part of that
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    is just a lack of education in terms what
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    is reasonable and what is necessary
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    in terms of accommodating your citizenry
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    and lack of resources in some cases but
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    also a lot of misinformation about whether
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    or not it's worth it. The ADA is going to
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    be 30 here in July. We're celebrating all
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    over the country and we are still fighting
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    for businesses to do what they should have
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    done 30 years ago, those that have been
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    around this long. They have not, they have
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    have waited for complaints or they have
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    failed to do but the bare minimum in
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    terms of recruiting the largest minority
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    I work in the education sphere and to me,
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    we could be doing so much more with
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    advertising and recruiting for those kinds
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    of students that we tend to really, at
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    least my institution, do well to retain
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    because we're a small, intimate college
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    Hiram College. For years I've tried to
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    encourage us to consider more universally
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    designed approaches but also approaches
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    that do more when it comes to housing and
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    extracurricular accommodations for
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    students to who use mobility devices. For
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    example, my daughter ended up having to be
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    carried in her chair, to various club
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    meetings while she was on the Hiram
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    College campus. She was told that, in the
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    winter, when the ice storms came, that
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    they couldn't transport her up the long
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    hill, while they were telling
    everyone
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    else to walk like a penguin, and we had
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    vans to do this. We had to file with the
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    Ohio Disability Rights Commission and
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    request that the school think about other
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    ways of accommodating her should there
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    be a storm, an ice storm, and she can't
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    get up to campus.
    And the solution
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    was to have her move to a
    new dorm.
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    You can't
Title:
vimeo.com/.../436580300
Video Language:
English
Team:
ABILITY Magazine
Duration:
28:40

English subtitles

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