Increase your abilities

Our class on community and inclusiveness came and went and I forgot all about one of my favorite speakers on the subject of ability. 

Aimee Mullins has overcome many obstacles in her life, but that is not why I find her so interesting.  I like her because she reminds us to look at people for their strengths and what they could be, rather than focusing on any perceived limitations.  As a pioneer in prosthetics design, she has called for artists, engineers, designers, athletes and others to use divergent thinking skills to reinvent the field.  She has taken her perceived disadvantage of having amputated legs and turned it into the advantage of having whatever form of legs she can think of.

She also points out that children are naturally curious and do not have the same fears and stigmas around disabilities as adults do.  It's not until we attach our baggage onto them that they become this way.  A reminder to keep adjusting your lens and be careful what attitudes we bring with us into the classroom.

It serves to show our students all the wonders that people can create when they ignore the limitations put on them and imagine what can be.  Art breeds imagination, which leads to empathy and creates community.

If you have ten minutes, it's worth the watch.

Capsized

We live in a country that has an ethos designed to privilege those who are white, male, middle class, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  You know the drill.  Yet we keep worrying about those "bossy kids" from Paley's book and how this new rule of "You can't say you can't play" would upset them.  Most of those kids who are in charge are going to be those very same children who have benefited from a system designed for them, by people like them, not to be discussed by anyone and therefore destined to remain.  If an outcast child can be brought into the mainstream at a minor expense to their "fun", then so be it.  Sometimes building a community can be difficult.

We tend to look at kids from different backgrounds, genders, social classes and abilities as needing to be "fixed".  I see it the other way around.  Those of us in a dominant social group have the moral responsibility to look at how we are benefiting from an unfair social structure and in what way we can change ourselves to strive for fairness.  If we are going to ask our kids to "live the way they want the world to be" and be the flag-bearers of change, then they need to learn early that equity takes small sacrifices.  I have a saying with the kids I work with; "it costs you very little, and means the world to them".

One of our colleagues was thinking of ways to try to push for gender equality in their classroom without taking an all-or-nothing stance; a way to "gently rock the boat without sinking the ship".  I think this is a noble idea that goes a long way to try to meet the needs of every child evenly.  I wish it would be this simple.  I might suggest we try something a little more drastic.

For all of these issues of inequality, maybe it isn't enough for us to gently rock that boat. Maybe we need to stand up in the bow, raise our arms and voices and tip the sucker over. That splash of hypothermia inducing water might just be what it takes to wake people up.  I want my kids to know that the status quo of society is not okay.

While it may seem a brutal reality, if kids are indoctrinated into our ideological systems from day one, then they unfortunately are as mired in it as the rest of us. My hope is that they will have the courage to climb, soaking wet, back into the boat with a new perspective on things.  Then maybe we will all be ready to row on into a better future.