Red Cardinal's blog: "How Dare Fu!"

I am a teacher of high school students with multiple disabilites. All of my students have significant mental retardation with IQs in the range of 40 (the lowest our test goes) to 58. The bell curve is 80-120 - the "normal" range. My students also have social and adaptive delays. I am VERY offended when I see others making fun of people with disabilities and I speak out. Why? If I don't, who will? My students are not capable of standing up for themselves. Do you have any idea how many times my students have come to me, crying, asking if they are dumb? And why? Because of others making fun of them or being nasty. It is heart breaking. If one makes fun of "retarded" people or even uses that word, how do you know someone isn't around who just lost their "retarded" son or daughter? Many of my students are given very little time on earth. Their parents know it. They enjoy as much of their child as they possibly can. They do not need the public reminding them that their child is different or "retarded" - they are well aware. How would you like to carry your child for 9 months - look forward to their prom, the day they go off to college, have kids of their own - just to find out your child has issues that will prevent these things? And not only that, but they have heart conditions that will prevent them from living past 35? (Many people with Downs live to around 35 due to their hearts, many people who have cerebral palsy in all four limbs die around 25 due to complications with pnumenia, people with Rhett's die around 21 because ALL of their muscles completely give out, but hey, thats up from age 11.) So, why am I being so forceful? Besides what should be the obvious? Why am I pissed at FU? FU has a "zero tolerance" policy for racism. GREAT! As it should be. When I have brought up issues regarding this - obvious ridicule of people with disabilies - I am told simply to "block" the person. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!? Yes - You read that right. So, below you will find the history of people with disabilties. I believe you will find it much more shocking than the race issue (even though that is horrifying in itself.) So, why why why why why why why why why is it ok with FU to allow this? I will no longer spend a dime on FU. I would stop all together, but I have made too many friends and besides, I want to keep spreading the message. Please take time to read - become educated. It is a direct quote. It is all stuff I learned in college, so I know it to be true, but it was easier to just quote it and make sure of my facts than to try to collect my thoughts when I am angry. I have the website so you can read it in its entirity.

Copied from http://www.bamaed.ua.edu/spe300/History.html with the middle about non-disabled children left out.

"History

The history of the treatment of people with disabilities is relatively new, because formal programs to serve these populations did not exist as professional fields until this century. As a field, special education is relatively new. However, the treatment of people with physical, health, and mental disorders has a long history. Textbooks over the years have attempted to break down treatment into periods or eras, as if there were some evolution of treatment practices correlated with advancements in science and tolerance. While there may be some validity to this approach, the differences across various cultures make it an improbable method in terms of historical accuracy. Treatment of disabled persons throughout history has always been in terms of the prevailing philosophies, religious doctrines, values, beliefs and attitudes of the times. There have been variable from one place to another, one culture to another, and have often advanced and retreated.

Conditions such as learning disabilities, the largest category in special education today, did not exist before 1969 and was not a problem in past centuries. The need for all people to read and perform in academic subjects was simply not a requirement until recent times. Blindness, deafness, physical disabilities, mental illness, mental retardation, and health problems have been obvious in all cultures dating back to antiquity, but there was little concern about education or accommodations. When education was only important for a relatively few, such as priests, scribes, and royalty, education for persons with disabilities was not a consideration. For those with disabilities, depending upon their cultures, treatment could range from acceptance to persecution and extermination.

Owing to the importance of the Greek culture in Western civilization and the fact that Alexander the Great was tutored by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, Alexander searched for talented young boys for special training. Some societies have killed people with disabilities for reasons ranging from superstitions, religious beliefs, economics, and state policy. For a paper on euthanasia and the disabled, see the web site by Sosbey.

In pre-recorded history there is only archeological evidence to suggest how people were treated. Beck tells us:

Neanderthals are the first creatures known to have buried their dead. Evidence indicates that 60,000 years ago a man was buried on a bed of flowers accompanied by a wreath of flowers. Other graves were surrounded by a circle of stones or goat skulls. Remains of an amputee and an arthritic man have been found, indicating that they cared for their disabled.

Mackelprang and Salsgiver tell us:

Neolithic tribes perceived people with disabilities as possessed by spirits. When the spirits were perceived as evil, escape routes were fashioned by drilling holes in the skulls of people who were thought to he possessed . . . The Spartans, with their rugged individualism, abandoned young and old people with disabilities in the countryside to die. Plato, to whom Western culture owes much of its ethical framework, viewed people with disabilities as standing in the way of a perfect world: "the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should. " The Romans, who borrowed the concept of reciprocity from the Greeks, gave assistance to adult people with disabilities with the expectation that they would demonstrate thanks by not rioting. However, like the Greeks the Romans also abandoned disabled or deformed children to die.

Kolstoe (1976) described eras of treatment as follows:

Extermination

The Greek city states of Sparta and Athens permitted disabled persons to be killed if they could not contribute to their basic survival. Even birth marks were sufficient, apparently as bad omens, to warrant death.

Ridicule

In some cultures the disabled were tolerated, but they were use for amusement as jesters and sometimes displayed for public view in zoos. It should be remembered, however, that even in this century there have been similar displays in carnival side shows.

Asylum

Primarily as an outgrowth of churches, some persons were permitted care in monasteries, charity houses, poor houses, and asylums, although treatment centered on spiritual redemption.

Education

Beginning with the work of Itard, a French physician influenced by Rousseau, the education of Victor, the "Wild Boy of Averyon" who was presumed to be a feral child, educational programs were begun.

There eras are more or less arbitrary and there is considerable evidence of highly variable treatment in any given period. For Western civilization, however, there has been a gradual progression dating back to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Both in scripture and in attitude, people with disabilities were treated with suspicion and fear and an indication of God's displeasure The term "affliction" was a protestant concept in America and came to shape the development of such terms as handicapped and later disabled. Earlier Jewish and Christian beliefs supported the notion that disabilities were punishments or demonic possessions, and later Calvinistic concepts of "pre-destination" sustained the belief that God punished people by means of birth defects and disabilities. Disabilities were retributions for the sins of parents.

Mackelprang and Salsgiver explain that persons who were deformed, "crippled," or short in stature were forbidden to become priests, and the Old Testament forbade people who were blind or lame to enter the houses of believers. The New Testament sustained the belief that people with mental disorders were possessed. Even today, however, it is possible to find places where disabled children and adults are feared, ostracized, abused, or otherwise mistreated because of religious beliefs.

Federal Support of Education

The federal government provided support for education in several limited but important ways beginning soon as the republic was founded. In 1785 and 1787, the Northwest Ordinances encouraged and supported public education at the state and local levels by providing millions of acres of land for schools. The next significant act was the Morrill Act of 1862 which set aside federal acres in each state for the provision of income to established agricultural and mechanical arts colleges. Know as "land grant institutions" some of the most renowned colleges in the United States were started because of this law. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 provided grants for vocational education, home economics, and agricultural programs in secondary schools, and support has continued since with amendments and appropriations. The relief acts during the depression and the war acts, described above, provided support for children in day care. And beginning in 1958, after the Soviet Union successfully launched a satellite named "Sputnik," there was widespread concern that the United States would risk its national security unless there was support for public education in the areas of mathematics and sciences, particularly, and other critical subjects.

Passage of P.L. 89-10 , the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), "was the first truly broad-scale aid to education act to be enacted by the U.S. Congress" (Gearheart, 1980, p.14). The primary focus of the Act was on economically disadvantaged children, as part of the "War on Poverty." Head Start programs were started by the Office of Economic Opportunity for children between two and five years of age. The intent was to narrow the differences between poor children and their more affluent age mates be providing training, health care, sound nutrition, and learning activities. Head Start programs still exist and may be getting significant support as the number of working mothers continues to climb. Head Start suffered significant criticism, but it has proven to be extremely effective and has been embraced by even conservative administrations, including Reagan and Bush.

P.L. 92-318 of 1972 included Title IX, as part of the Educational Amendments to the Civil Rights Act, which dealt specifically with discrimination against women in federally support educational programs.

The Bilingual Education Act of 1969, amended in 1974, has provided support for the training of teachers and direct instruction of children who do not speak the English language. The growth of the minority population and immigrants assures that this will be a continual interest, although there are heated debates about the goals and methods of bilingual education.

P.L. 99-457, The Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986, extends services for handicapped from birth to five. This is an amendment to P.L. 94-142 which provides incentives for increasing the number of pre-school children served by providing federal assistance. The Act was implemented fully in 1991, and it was revised in 1997.

While great strides have been made on behalf of children and adults with disabilities, a United Nations study reports that:

In all countries, educational institutions are not always accessible to disabled persons and in many cases such persons are not admitted to the same schools as other people. The same applies to vocational training and to academic studies;

Employment. In addition to the fact that many work places are not physically accessible to severely disabled persons, employers often fail to understand that a physical disability does not necessarily involve mental impairment and even fellow workers themselves may be opposed to the employment of disabled persons; Transport. Attention is drawn to the highly discriminatory effect of the failure to provide accessible means of transport and the obstacle which that presents to an independent life for disabled persons; Housing. It is noted with astonishment that even now, in highly developed countries, buildings which are not accessible to disabled persons are still being constructed. The use of wheelchairs, for instance, is extremely difficult, or even impossible, in many apartment buildings; Buildings in general. The above observations also apply to other premises such as public office buildings, restaurants, cinemas, theaters, libraries, hotels, sports facilities, etc. Apart from the obstacles presented by building design, prejudices often exist which render the access of disabled persons to premises such as restaurants or bars difficult or impossible. It is common to hear the management of such establishments say that there are no tables free when a group of disabled persons attempts to enter."

If you made it this far, on behalf of all persons with disabilites, be they mental, physical, medical, whatever, I thank-you. Help me fight the good fight and not spread the hate.

Bobbie Vetriano