EDUCATING CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES

I recently joined a group of much younger adults for cocktails. Most of the time was spent listening to one 40-ish woman dominate the conversation. I don’t believe she ever took a breath the entire time, nor did she stop eating, although she probably weighed less than 100 pounds. Sigh.

My hearing is terrible, even with pricey hearing aids. Still, I got the jest of her passionate opinion about children with disabilities in regular classrooms. She objected to the integration of those children due to disruptive behavior on the part of some of the children. However, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I asked her how she would feel if her children had special needs. Would she want them segregated into a separate room or institutionalized? She immediately clarified that she wished school administrators “spread out” children with disabilities and have only one or two per classroom.

I wanted to give her a brief lesson on how millions of parents, teachers, and advocates worked long and hard to ensure children with disabilities received equal public education. One thing about aging is that you quickly learn no one cares about your opinion or your history, even if it might change someone else’s opinion or at least give them a different perspective. Many people in wheelchairs and/or with various disabilities experience the same disregard by others.

From the 70s through the early 80s, I worked for the national organization of the United Cerebral Palsy Association. My boss, a graduate of Columbia University, was instrumental in writing the language for Public Law 94-142, which was signed into law by President Ford in 1975. PL 94-142 was revised and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Act in 1990. The law stipulated that schools draft and execute an educational plan for children with disabilities that was a “normal” learning environment as close to possible as for a regular student. My primary responsibility was to teach organizations nationwide about the law and how to train parents to advocate for their children to ensure their schools implemented the requirements under the law. Many schools ignored the law until parents demanded equal education for their children. Before 1975, children with disabilities were lumped into separate classrooms. The teacher had to navigate the vast differences between the children and somehow educate them. The new law stipulated children with special needs had to be tested by various professionals, along with an individual treatment plan developed by the team.

Also, during the late-70s to early 80s, I also worked part-time for an organization that surveyed state institutions for those with developmental disabilities. I experienced first-hand the treatment of children and adults in those institutions. Our role was to impose rigid standards with the result of closing those institutions if they could not meet high standards of care. Once you walk into a room filled with many babies and children with various disabilities laying in cribs with maybe one or two aides for 30-40 children, you never forget it. Besides, many of those children had cerebral palsy. 50% of those with cerebral palsy are not developmentally delayed.

I expected poor care in the southern states, but to my surprise, California and Massachusetts institutions weren’t any better. One worker in California told me that right before we arrived, the staff bathed the residents by lining them against a wall and hosing them down. 

A staff member in Massachusetts revealed that they would tie their residents to a chair when they “acted out.” Both of those institutions were closed because of their treatment of human beings.

I understand it’s tough for teachers to have children with special needs in their classrooms. Also, teaching in classrooms, even without those challenges, must be difficult. Still, the alternative of forcing those with disabilities to a separate classroom or an institution is not how we should treat our children.