Striving to remove barriers that prevent us from building Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities!
The bullying and exclusion targeting Students with Disabilities in schools far exceeds what their peers without disabilities face, and a group of Massachusetts high school students chose to respond by producing educational materials on disability awareness. One student participant noted that the scope of disability across the population is greater than most people realize, and the numbers bear that out: roughly one in five people have dyslexia, more than fifteen million adults in the United States have received an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, about one and a half million people have Tourette syndrome, more than five million Americans use wheelchairs, and about one million are Blind. The bullying and social exclusion that Students with Disabilities face is a pervasive injustice affecting millions of people across the country, and this student group understood that and chose to take action.
Thirteen students from the Hampden County District Attorney's Youth Advisory Board (YAB) developed educational videos and a children's book on disability awareness, basing the content on direct conversations with People with Disabilities about their preferences and experiences. This group drew the material from what People with Disabilities shared about their own lives rather than making assumptions about them, a choice that grounds the work in the actual perspectives of those most affected by peer exclusion. The YAB is a year long program that brings together more than seventy students from schools across Hampden County, and its first gathering of the year opened with district leadership encouraging the students and noting that the adults were there to learn from them. This student driven project represents organized advocacy to raise awareness about the exclusion facing Students with Disabilities, built from the ground up on what People with Disabilities actually reported.
The foundation of this project was a commitment to learn from People with Disabilities directly before producing any educational content. Rather than assuming what disability awareness materials should say, the students gathered what People with Disabilities described about their own experiences and the treatment they seek from others, then built the videos and children's book on that foundation. Grounding peer education in the perspectives that People with Disabilities shared about their own lives rather than in secondhand assumptions ensures the content speaks directly to what Students with Disabilities actually experience from their peers.
The thirteen students who produced the disability awareness videos and children's book were part of a broader program that brings together more than seventy students from schools across Hampden County in a year long civic initiative. This initiative opened with district leadership telling the students that the adults intended to learn from them, framing youth leadership as central to the disability awareness work from the start. Community Builders committed to creating Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities recognize that removing barriers to full participation for People with Disabilities is a shared and ongoing responsibility, one that belongs equally to young people, educators, and every member of the communities they are building together, and that making belonging real for Students with Disabilities requires each person to take genuine ownership of that work.
Read the Full Article: How 13 high schoolers are fighting the bullying crisis facing students with disabilities.
By: Heather Morrison
