Throughout my educational career, I have encountered
many people who seem surprised to see me, a young disabled person, succeeding
in school. I’m thinking of my ninth grade math tutor who came to teach me when
I was recovering from surgery, the one who said it didn't matter if I only
learned 70% of the material because “it's not like you’re going to go to
Princeton or anything.” I'm thinking of the proctor at my Advanced Placement
exam who explained his confusion with testing accommodations by saying that
"people like you don't usually take these tests." I'm thinking of a
woman I didn't even know in the local grocery store who shouted to her husband,
"This is one of the girls who went to college!” and how I knew, that being
from a town where most girls went to college, she really meant “this is one of
the disabled girls that went to college!” I'm thinking of countless others, now
blended together in my mind, who have marveled "College? Wow!” in the baby
voice, the one that sounds surprised I’ve done anything at all.
It hurts when others don't see the words “disabled” and
“accomplished” or “disabled” and “educated” as compatible. It hurts especially
when I think of all the bright, witty, incredible thinkers with disabilities
who have their academic promise overlooked because of assumptions about the
bodies and minds with which they live. This is not to imply that the only way
to be “smart” or “promising” is to be traditionally educated or traditionally
book smart. Disabled folks are gifted in all kinds of ways. Yet those gifts are
frequently unseen, unappreciated, or undiscovered, because we live in a society
that still does not expect us to have value. When the world tells disabled kids
again and again that their success will be an exception not an expectation, it
shouldn’t come as a surprise when many of those kids start to believe the lie.
To this day, now in my first year of graduate school, I contend
with low expectations for people with disabilities. Just this week, a professor
seemed overly impressed when I scored well on a test. Still, it seems, too many
people don’t see “disability” and “success” as concepts that go together. And they
are surprised that I’ve made it this far. In a way, it is amazing that I’m here. Amazing that before long, I will have a
master’s degree. But not for the reasons you think. My ability to do well in
school should be viewed as unremarkable, because a disabled person can be just
as academically successful as anyone else. The world I want to live in expects us to succeed. Yet it is amazing
that I am here when I think of all the barriers society has created for us. And
when people act amazed that I have come this far, I don’t want it to be because
they’re shocked that a disabled person can reach her goals. Instead, I want
them to be shocked that we live in a country that still makes getting a basic
education a battle for us.
It’s true that just 14% of people with disabilities[1] have a bachelor’s degree
in this country. But don’t think for a minute it’s because they’re not smart,
not capable, or not willing. Think about the fact that ableism runs so deep in
our nation that being able to get in the door of my school feels like an
enormous privilege. Think of what it feels like to fight for every minute of
learning you’ve ever gotten. Think about trying to do your best in a system
that doesn’t even give you a right to find out what doing your best means,
because all you’re technically entitled to is “adequate yearly progress.” Then,
maybe you will begin to understand that the scarcity of disabled people in
higher education is not for lack of talent, or ability, or strength, but rather
for lack of opportunity in an ableist world.
Given the chance to address every person who is amazed that
I am here, I would tell each of them that I am too. Not because I am not
qualified, but because the world tries pretty damn hard to put the opportunities
non-disabled people take for granted out of reach.
The thought of finding the ramp to get into the ivory tower can
be pretty exhausting when getting into a public bathroom is a treat. I would
tell them I have had moments when I wanted to give up on my education, not
because I doubted my intelligence, but because I was tired. Tired of fighting
for a desk I could use. Tired of wondering if the bus would show up, and tired
of knowing that if it didn’t, my complaint letter would probably disappear into
a vortex of bus depot apathy. I’d tell them I have a list of things I could
have, should have, might have fought harder for, if I hadn’t been so so tired. That
swimming against the stream every day takes enormous energy, and that
sometimes, if only for a moment, I needed to let myself float.
I’d tell them that if I didn’t have a mother who brought me
to school when the bus didn’t come, came to school to help me pee when the
umpteenth aide bailed on me, and displayed unending patience in the face of my
horrific spatial skills, I may not have had the chance to finish high school,
not for lack of ability, but lack of access. I’d tell them that in junior high,
a string of incompetent aides made me afraid to go to the bathroom in school,
and that I prayed with every fiber in my little 12-year-old being to stay
dehydrated. How that string of incompetent and often cruel aides convinced me
that it would be better if I denied myself water until my body was no longer
thirsty. I’d tell them how in tenth grade, the gentleness of the right
caregiver taught me slowly that I deserved to feel thirsty again, and to stop
apologizing for my basic bodily functions. But relearning how to be kind to my
body took time, and the tiny children’s water bottle I keep in my wheelchair
still feels like a radical act. I’d tell them that I still think through every
ounce I drink, because I can’t leave class to go to the bathroom and be back in
two minutes. I’d tell them that by the time they see me sitting in class, I am
all assembled, but behind the scenes, it really does take a village to brush my
hair, dress me, bathe me, and do all the little things it takes to live a life.
I often joke that simply getting ready in the morning is the group project that
never ends.
I don’t want people to be “inspired” that I am doing the
same things others are expected to do. I want them to realize the injustice in
the fact that for me, basic inclusion still feels like a privilege. I want them
to know that although I am tired from fighting so many battles, I am one of the
lucky ones, afforded opportunities that too many of my disabled peers have been
denied. I want them to know that for us, simply existing with bodies and minds that
the world deems inconvenient is a rebellion. So yes, it’s amazing that I am
here. But not for the reasons you think.
[1] Yang, K. and Tan, H.E. (2014). Disability statistics.
Retrieved from Cornell University Institute on Employment and Disability. https://www.disabilitystatistics.org/reports/acs.cfm?statistic=9