Who Knew Illinois had an Instructional Mandate
On Disability History and Awareness?
By the end of �our conversation
At least…
This Afternoon – our 50 min…
Introductions
Mary
All of Us
About This Presenter - Mary
Positioning Myself – a white cisgender woman not living with a disability
Without imagination, you live in a small room with the windows closed. Imagination opens the windows and shows us landscapes, horizons that we would not otherwise perceive…
I want education to empower people to see possibility.
---Maxine Greene (2011)
Others in our group
Your work – setting, role, years experience in IL
About the Mandate
Disability and History Awareness Campaign
… the fine print
“A school district shall provide instruction on disability history, people with disabilities, and the disability rights movement. Instruction may be included in those courses that the school district chooses. This instruction must be founded on the principle that all students, including students with disabilities, have the right to exercise self-determination. When possible, individuals with disabilities should be incorporated into the development and delivery of this instruction. This instruction may be supplemented by knowledgeable guest speakers from the disability community. A school board may collaborate with community-based organizations, such as centers for independent living, parent training and information centers, and other consumer-driven groups, and disability membership organizations in creating this instruction” (105 ILCS 5/27-23.8).
Quick take on our knowledge �of this mandate
a. Very Imp/ b. Imp/ c. Not Imp/ d. Not at all imp
Illinois Disability History and �Awareness Mandate
Public Act 096-0191, Disability history and awareness campaign. �105 Ill. Comp. Stat. § 5/2-3.148-101 (1/1/2010).
List of Illinois’ Instructional Mandates
Why this study for me…
Ableism
The devaluation of disability.
A societal attitude that uncritically�asserts it is better to:
The belief that able-bodied people are superior.
12
In the eyes of (too) many educators and society, �it is preferable for disabled �students to ONLY do things in same manner as nondisabled kids.
Even Today
There are students and there are disabled students.
The disabled students assume the managed life…
-- Biklen, 2007
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Just yesterday this was�being Native American
They are incapable of civilization and have no motive force for they are without affection and passion.
They are not drawn to one another by love and are thus unfruitful.
They hardly speak at all, never caress one another.
They care about nothing and are lazy.
Immanuel Kant, 1772
Describing North American Indians
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Presume competence.
Reject the idea of difference as deficit.
Ensure that PWD name themselves, the problem.
Think agency rather than independence.
Understand that disability is not what most non-disabled people think it is.
With Respect to Thinking About Disability
Language
The Problem(s)
The problem…
Simi Linton, Disability Activist
Hold your two hands in the air.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b54TOaLgcM
�
The idea of the social construction of disability does not deny human variation. Human beings differ in many ways. Variations according to ability do not need to be negatively valued or wrapped in stereotypes.
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Reconceptualization of disability underlies work – like Linton.
The study of disability is not new…
San Francisco State University, for example:�
257 courses address disability across �9 BA, 22 MA/Ed, 13 minor, 10 certificate and 6 credential programs
Disability is a common feature
of human experience.
Attend to issues of voice
“Disability” is not what most of us �commonly think it is… (PL, p. 13-14)
PWD are not who or what we have been taught to assume they are. The experience of disability is not what we have been told…��All of us disabled and non-disabled alike, will never truly understand disability experiences and identities unless we examine what we think we know. We all have a lot of relearning to do.
US society continues to restrict or exclude PWD
Thinking About School�- Autism
Thinking About School�- Intellectual Disability
Thinking About School�-Multiple Disabilities
Table 1�Education Environments for Three Low Incidence Disability Categories in Fall 2015 and Fall 2020
Eligibility Category | 80% or more | 40% - 79% | Less than 40% | Other Environments | ||||
2015 | 2020 | 2015 | 2020 | 2015 | 2020 | 2015 | 2020 | |
Autism | 39.9 | 40.8 | 18 | 17.8 | 32.8 | 33.2 | 9.2 | 8.2 |
Intellectual disabilities | 16.9 | 17.9 | 26.3 | 27.9 | 49.2 | 47.6 | 7.6 | 6.6 |
Multiple disabilities | 13.4 | 15.1 | 16.4 | 18 | 46.0 | 43.8 | 24.3 | 23.3 |
Many PWD continue to endure economic deprivation and social marginalization.
�For example:
�WHY???
Although stage �not accessible �from seating area.
Evidence in report suggests 4 reasons �for slow pace of ADA compliance
Some data sources…
Dred-F… about us/publications/no more stares
Dorothea Lange, a world-famous photographer who was mildly disabled by polio, speaks of the intensity of the disabled experience in this little-known quote:�
“No one who hasn’t lived the life of a semicripple knows how much that means. I think perhaps it was the most important thing that happened to me. [It] formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me. All those things at once. I’ve never gotten over it and I am aware of the force and power of it all.”
�
Segue – from policy to theorizing to art.
Once you start looking, �disability is everywhere.
Disability issues will not go away �because PWD are not going away.
Responding Critically
[Image description: a hand-drawn diagram with arrows, bubbles, and words on lined paper. Visible phrases include “spatial inquiry,” “what is access?” “whom? “what conditions? “how do we map it?” “I’ve never noticed it before!” “I notice it every day!” “critical crowdsourcing” “how do we teach each other to notice?” “Let’s imagine anew world, not just reform this one,” “what do institutional policies” and “what does it mean to access an institution”] Critical Design Lab
�The question for us
Ideas for equity
“Interrogating Consequential Education Research in Pursuit of Truth”
What is truth and who decides?
When education research is considered, the implications and outcomes for marginalized communities can be harmful or beneficial. In pursuit of truth, education research needs to be (a) designed to matter in public policy and practice and, concurrently, (b) interrogated to ensure equitable processes and results.
Rich Milner
AERA President
More from Milner
Education research should be positioned as a necessary site in deliberations and practices. ��… education research can (and should) be at the center of co-constructing with communities agendas of consequence that have a real bearing on disrupting ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination.
While we are together…
Explore how we can implement this mandate
differently [than it has been so far…] and also��… be at the center of
co-constructing with communities
agendas of consequence that have a
real bearing on disrupting ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination.
The free-write
How might this Mandate be our opportunity�to disrupt ableism and other isms?
A Repository…
Website… The Mandate Project – DS in IL
Other ideas?
Resources
Readings… books, articles, videos
Websites
Lesson Ideas
Assignment/Assessment Ideas
Readings
Some highlighted here
See google doc
K-16 Books… for starters
More reading/watching
Websites
Some highlighted here
See google doc
Websites – a very small window…
�
Crip Camp: President Barack Obama �moderates a conversation on Disability Rights
Judy Heumann on Crip Camp with Trevor
A DISABILITY �REVOLUTION
K-12 Lesson Ideas
Some highlighted here
See google doc
The ones I know about…
Enhancing Subject Area Curriculum
Disability as a perspective or facet of themes already in place…
What AT is useful in your setting/missing in your setting?
How might AT be a topic to include within the
existing science curriculum?
�An engineering challenge?
Analyzing Literature
�The Big Box
Use checklist in preparation. Present an activity to students,
(e.g., Tell us about your own “big box” experiences via narrative - written or spoken voice, interview - or visual art)
Alternatives to Simulations
Why are simulations problematic?
See list of alternatives on next slide
Alternatives to Simulations (Baglieri & Lalvani, 2021)
Two Events from History
From Paul Longmore’s Why I Burned My Book…
RANDOLPH BOURNE�THE LEAGUE OF THE PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED�
Why disability history?
Disability, then, is at once a neglected set of historical experiences, an important theme overlooked in many fields, and a central component of history in general. As such, like gender, race, and class, it must become both a subject of comparative historical study, and a standard, indispensable tool of historical analysis (Longmore, 2003, p. 56)
Randolph Bourne
A highly visible disability – a twisted mouth, face and ear form a difficult birth, a severely curved spine and stunted growth from spinal tuberculosis
The Life of Randolph Bourne
“Bourne’s discrimination and rejection not inherent in his physical disability but part of that stigmatized social identity rooted in deep but unconscious cultural prejudice”
(Longmore, 2003, p. 37)
An intellectual - A feminist who opposed US involvement in WWI
Made the disability experience a starting point for broad social critique Explained his experience in sociological terms rather than psychological terms… Disability as a way of understanding the world
Why Study Bourne?
“in order to uncover cultural beliefs regarding such matters as body image, masculinity and femininity, personal autonomy and selfhood, and, of course, disability itself as they have impinged on disabled people…
When devaluation and discrimination happen to one person, it is biography, but when, in all probability similar experiences happen to millions, it is social history. We will continue to misunderstand individuals like Randolph Bourne as long as the history of disabled people as a distinct social minority remains largely unwritten and unknown”(Longmore, p. 39).
A quick peak locally… early 20th century
Chicago physician Harry J. Haiselden’s movie…
Chicago City Code Ordinance�No person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated�or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly�or disgusting object or improper person to be �allowed in or on the public ways or other public �places in this city, shall therein or thereon expose�himself to public view under the penalty of a fine �of $1 for each offense (Chicago City Code 1881).
[Chicago was the last US city to repeal its ugly law in 1974]
�
The League of the Physically Handicapped
A particular perspective – 1930s �Why this piece of history?
Reveals:�-- how early 20th ideology of disability prescribed social roles/ identities �-- that PWD politicized disability in seeking to redefine their identity�-- interplay between social policy and cultural values– the use of disability to mark its opposite, normality�Deepens:�-- comparative historical analysis of US social reform movements
Wednesday, May 29, 1935
Six young adults – 3 women and 3 men – entered NYC’s Emergency Relief Bureau demanding to see Director Oswald W. Knauth. �
They said they would wait
– until hell freezes over.�
The LPH Members
Rejecting both the crippled and overcomer identities, a group of physically disabled young adults in NYC redefined themselves as “handicapped.”
Owning Disability
Rejecting both crippled and overcomer identities, a group of �physically disabled young adults in NYC redefined themselves as �“handicapped.”
Submitted to the Federal government.
“Signers” hoped that FDR would lead and sign on…
The FDR Approach
-- overcoming disability
usual
rare
FDR 1882-1945
TLPH Directs Our Attention Toward…
… emerging scholarship that shows �disability’s pervasive presence in history �and its conspicuous absence from historiography.
“Disability is everywhere in history �once you start looking for it.”
-- Douglas Baynton
Assignments…
Some highlighted here
See google doc
Curriculum Project – �How I will begin changing the world.
Purpose
Curriculum Project – �How I will begin changing the world.
Resources
Curriculum Project – �How I will begin changing the world.
Example 5 min Presentation
This activity addresses the mandate in that an individual with a disability will deliver this instruction with me and our topic sets stage for thinking about self-determination
Note on a checklist whether children can tell me their dream feature, tell me about a friend’s dream feature, tell me how our visitor’s and at least one friend’s dream house is the same or different from theirs.
Guest speaker who uses a w/c reads aloud The Big Orange Splot and “sketch-to-stretch” her dream house for the children. Children then draw their own dream houses.
Middle/Secondary or University Assignment Idea�Mayer Shevin’s Poem�The Language of Them and Us
The Language of Us and Them response. Students will read a poem written by Mayer Shevin and respond to three questions about this poem – in light of their own experience and �WK 1-2 readings.
Middle/Secondary or University Assignment Idea �Follow a Disability Activist – Blogging
�Our purpose is to get to know one �activist and begin to stand in his or her or their shoes and share what you are learning with us. ��Choose an activist. Follow your activist on his/her/their social media. Generate a blog about the activist and post one each week across 5 weeks. In each blog consider how our course conversations and readings relate to your activist’s thinking/work. ��While professional bloggers generally post somewhere between 1000 and 2000 words, our blogs should be much shorter. A post that is 200 words is plenty sufficient for our purposes. This paragraph is 129 words to give you an idea of the expected length for your blog posts.
The Survey
What people know
What people need
Other Steps
Students’ Ideas for mandate teaching and learningSyllabus study
Syllabus study
Thank you – please be in touch.
fishermm@lewisu.edu