Daria Doering

Sitting in this class

I don’t want to be here

I don’t want to learn about disabled kids

I can’t even stay awake.

 

Then we see a film that really gets me.

Comparing the experiences of

A wheelchair-bound and a normal person

Applying for jobs and housing.

The hidden camera captures it all.

 

Everyone lies to the wheelchair man,

And tells him there are no jobs.

While the walking person

Is interviewed and offered jobs everywhere.

 

But I can understand that.

You might not want to hire someone in a wheelchair.

However, the housing experience

Is the one that tears my heart out.

 

As a former landlord,

The wheelchair-bound man

Simply seems like a neat, quiet tenant to me.

Why would you not rent him an apartment?

 

Yet fully half the rental agents and landlords lie to him,

And tell him there are no apartments.

While the walking man

Is offered all sorts of housing.

 

Then we see another film that makes me cry.

About Peter, a Down’s syndrome boy

Included in a regular class.

The teacher seems staid and rigid,

And I don’t see how she’ll deal with him.

 

Peter has yelling outbursts and jumps on top of students, frequently.

But the kids learn to deal with him patiently,

His behavior improves,

And they all become great friends.

 

At the end of the year,

The teacher says she would move up a grade in a heartbeat

If Peter could be in her class again.

 

I have all these issue because of my severely autistic sister,

Who was an unmitigated bummer in my life.

I start to think it would be rewarding to be a special ed teacher.

What is wrong with me?!

 

Then I do a required school observation,

Going to the Cook Center, which uses Direct Instruction.

The teacher gives the kids two goldfish crackers,

Two teddy grahams or a tiny glass of coke

For each subset of math problems they do.

 

The students seem fairly normal,

Although in agonizingly slow motion

And their speech is slurred.

The school is incredibly cheerful, organized, positive and well-run.

 

A boy asks, “Will you draw the fish?”

He wants the teacher to draw a goldfish cracker

At the bottom of his page,

To encourage him to do his problems.

 

This instantly makes me cry,

I can’t even say why,

As I try to stifle it.

Just so honest and brave to ask for such a small thing.

 

7/03