I’ve heard teachers say they notice some traits of their diagnosed students in themselves, pretty commonly now, and it makes me feel like there is a shift happening away from the industrial mindset of disability towards a more connected notion, perhaps a narrower gap being constructed between normal and disabled? I hear it as if the person is revealing a weakness, and that connection is starting to be ok where it wasn’t before. This possibly goes hand in hand with the greater number of diagnoses in the fuzzier disability categories, now given to people who previously didn’t qualify.
Description of graphic: Three panels. (1) Adult icon shown separate from a group of children, reading ‘Phase 1: Those are “special needs” children [completely separate]’; (2) Adult smaller and connected to the group of children, reading ‘Phase 2: Actually, I have some of those same traits, lol”; (3) Adult in same circle with children, reading: ‘Phase 3: My limitations are expressions of the same underlying diversity that causes the apparent disability of others.’
There are specific people I know who I’d like to encourage to see themselves inside the group that they say they want to help – that is, going all the way to the third phase. They may really be similar to the people in their target help group, but there may be just enough shame lingering that they can’t feel completely inside it. I think if we see the people we want to help as “us” rather than “them”, the help will be more relevant. If we can see ourselves as broken (imperfect, limited), then we can see others as no more or less broken than ourselves.
It’s easy for me to be in phase 3 in relation to kids in a classroom, and I’m getting faster in recognizing if someone is one of me. But I’m probably in phase 1 when it comes to the teachers: they feel like they are in the “completely different” box. Some days I’m overcome with oneness and some days I’m overcome with separateness. There is just one fabric with infinite diversity, and it makes big differences between people. And maybe as importantly as any possibly intrinsic difference, we face different levels of opportunity and accommodation, and get different amounts of shame and time, so we go in all different directions. Even as the one feeling like the functional helper, I might have started out in about the same place internally as the one getting my help.
Star Ford 