On equity

How good intentions can affect people with a disability

I’m going to start and finish this piece by reinforcing that the Disability Act was and is a good thing. One of the fundamental changes that it made to education is that it took important decisions and preconceptions about what students with a disability could and could not do out of the hands of teachers and schools. Instead, everyone gets a go at a fairly conventional and standardised education.

The image above is such a handy go-to for illustrating what schools set out to achieve. I think about it often. But I also wonder what the end goal or the ‘game’ is supposed to illustrate. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it’s actually just another example of schools, parents and communities trying to achieve equality of opportunity rather than equality of self-actualisation or even just enjoyment of a relatively full life. What if people don’t want or need to be at that game? How much of this ‘game’ actually stands for Western capitalist notions of success and fulfilment?

I’ve been accused of overthinking and I suppose you wouldn’t be enjoying my newsletter if you weren’t somewhat interested in hearing what I ‘overthink’ about various issues in education. I’ve had a fairly long and varied history of working with people with a disability and it has had a profound effect on my thinking about self-actualisation so yes, I do return to these questions often. I’ve seen what their post-school lives can be like at their most fulfilled, and I’m starting to wonder if schooling and our perceptions of equity and equality can actually get in the way of that.

I’ve worked in support units in public schools; as an aide in mainstream; special schools where students are grouped according to physical needs, such is the severity of their disabilities; and then I’ve worked in residential homes and respite care for adults and children with moderate to profound disabilities. I’m going to share two hypothetical stories (a generalised one that I have seen played out in real life many times) and one real account from my work history to illustrate the questions I still have about the goal of education for people with a disability.

On equality

Josh and his brother Jack both go to the same expensive boarding school in a leafy suburb of Sydney. Jack has no learning disabilities while Josh is on the autism spectrum with significant communication issues. He can write simple sentences, speaks in a formulaic way, and has little understanding of abstract ideas. He is integrated into mainstream classes and works mainly from differentiated worksheets, assisted by an aide. His social life is fairly token, given he has little in common with other students his age. His parents not only wanted the ‘best’ for him, but wanted him to have an educational experience that was ‘equal’ to his brother, Jack. At the end of six years, Josh is unable to travel independently or shop for basic goods. The school celebrates his integration and achievement.

On equity

Meanwhile down the road, the boys’ cousin Eamonn, who has Down Syndrome, attends the local public secondary school, where a support unit teaches students basic literacy and numeracy, at a level below their stage on paper, but a true and dedicated Life Skills program. For their electives, the class is integrated into the broader school community. The class leaves the school each week to practise their living skills in the community, catching buses, buying grocery items for their parents, sometimes even going bowling. The school has no pool facilities but this goes unnoticed by Eamonn, who has a supportive peer group and is developing the kinds of skills he needs to live independently.

On self-actualisation

I worked briefly in a residential house for people with a disability and supported a group of significantly and profoundly disabled adult women. Most of the work I had done in the industry up until that point was in respite and I hadn’t seen much of day to day life for my clients. One of the residents was about 30 years old and her disabilities meant she needed support with every one of her physical needs. She occasionally interacted with staff but for the most part was non-responsive to social interactions.

Over time I noticed that she spent most of her time watching cartoons like The Wiggles. I was training to be a teacher at the time, so of course I worried that she was being infantilised. I thought she should be living a more fulfilled life, with greater opportunity than watching children’s TV for the better part of her time at home. I worked up the courage to challenge this with my house manager, who calmly and politely explained to me that our client visibly enjoyed the bright colours and music.

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At the time, I felt a bit ashamed of the way I had pushed my own ideas of ‘success’ onto my client. It made me re-evaluate my values and my privileged conceptions of the ‘proper’ road to self-actualisation. Again, the Disability Act is nothing but a good thing. But despite handy graphics like the one below, we seem to have a very limited picture of what we consider to be success, without really taking into account what might be useful and meaningful to the individual.

I still stand by the idea that it shouldn’t be up to individual teachers and schools to decide what access students have to opportunities in education. And I also know that parents face huge and challenging decisions when it comes to finding the right fit for their child, made even more complex by physical disabilities. But I do challenge teachers and communities to judge less and acknowledge that ‘success’ is a concept that is relative - something we take for granted as adults but seem very quick to project onto the lives of our children and students.