More on Disability and Etymology

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            One of the advantages of conducting community-based instruction with students with disabilities is that you get to see how these students “perform” across different environments and in different contexts.  This is a part of conducting environmental inventories for your students; in each of the disparate environments in which the student is likely to be, you need to be able to know what assets are at-hand for students, and what situations can best emphasize their strengths and abilities.

            When we approach special education from this perspective, it helps us to rethink how to consider disability.  We talk a lot about the importance of “person first language,” but often do not interrogate why this is important, or why we must mean what we say.  Because a person is never “disabled” – this is not some kind of essential or fundamental part of an individual’s identity. (Or, perhaps more accurately, this shouldn’t be the case.)  Rather, being disabled, in the verb usage of the word, not the noun, entails being in a context where there is something lacking at-hand. (“Able” comes from the Latin habilis, which means “easily handled,” “easy to be held,” “apt,” and “fit for a purpose.”  Our English words “handled” and “habit” are related.) We are disabled when we literally lack the tool necessary for the purpose at-hand.  I have said this before, but a short person is disabled when he needs the brand of detergent on the top shelf; the tall person is disabled sitting in coach class on an airplane.  A student with a reading disability is disabled when she has to read Romeo and Juliet; she isn’t when she watches it on stage. 

            This is, of course, also true with students with “severe and profound” disabilities, and those following alternate, life skills curricula. My student Odin has autism and a cognitive disability.  But he knows how to use the internet, how to conduct a Google search and check his e-mail, and he’s memorized all the lyrics to the songs by Meek Mill.  My student Forseti is mostly non-verbal and has a hearing impairment.  But he can work the school snack cart almost entirely independently, and memorize routes for us to take as we go door-to-door selling chips and soda.  The question, then, is how we apply these students’ abilities to other environments, how we enable them to possess the tools they need to for the purposes they will encounter.  (This is part of my attempt to trace disability back to the concepts of ownership and property rights.)

Something About the Meaning of the Word "Occupy"

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            Occupy (v.) - "to take possession of," also "to take up space or time, employ (someone)," irregularly borrowed from O.Fr. occuper "occupy (a person or place), hold, seize" (13c.) or directly from L. occupare "take over, seize, take into possession, possess, occupy," from ob "over" (see ob-) + intensive form of capere "to grasp, seize" (see capable).

            This semester, I will be working with my students on the skills that they need in order to transition into independent living as autonomous adults.  These students are no longer following the general curriculum that most high schoolers are on; no algebra or trigonometry, no physics, no AP French.  And, honestly, if they were in these classes, it would most likely be a waste of their time.  Rather, we work with them on the skills that they need, and we focus on three main domains: domestic, community/vocational, and recreation/leisure.

            I’m currently writing assessments for two of my students who will be working on several goals related to their vocational and leisure domains.  These are young men – 16 and 18, respectfully, both with cognitive disabilities who are on an alternative curriculum – who have very definitive concepts of what they want to do after they graduate.  And so much of it revolves around how they want to spend their time.  “I want to have a job.”  “I want to start a blog.” “I want to hang out with my girlfriend.”  “I want to play the drums in my basement.”  These sentiments have an effect on how we plan our curriculum; if a student wants to start a hobby of playing the drums, then he’s going to need how to get to the music store, how to ask the clerk about the differences between the products*, and how to budget for buying what he wants and needs. 

            The key concept that I want to take away from this is that a major part of focusing on a student’s right to self-determination – the belief that the locus of power in a student’s life ought to exist with that student– is dependent upon how that student chooses to occupy his or her time.  From where they work to who they hang out with to what their hobbies are, students with disabilities need to have the know-how to make use of their time in a way that the see fit.   

NB: I wrote this for class, hence the slightly different voice. 

* I don’t really know anything about drums.

Independence

This semester, I am working in a functional life skills classroom at one of the local high schools.  A lot of our class day is spent on "community based instruction," which entails traveling about the community, working on skills such as buying goods, riding the bus, making plans for future trips, ordering in restaurants, etc.  Today, Robyn pointed out this nice post from Crooked Timber about a father learning to cope with his son's increasing independence in New York City. 

Oh, and to keep the old-school philosophy blogs rolling, Brian Leiter at Leiter Reports has an excellent perspective on the Chicago Teacher's Strike:

Of course, it would be hard to generate enthusiasm among hedge-fund billionaire busybodies for doing something about the economic environment in which the victims live, so instead we are presented with the absurd idea that if only the teachers were better, everything would be dandy, as well as the destructive idea that to make the teachers better, we need to measure their performance based on standardized test results.

As for me, I've got a bunch of backed-up blog posts talking about the strike, property rights, teaching vocational skills, and teaching to the common core state standards.  But I also have, you know, work to do.  And it's college football season.  So I'll try to get more interesting reads out shortly.  Happy Sunday!