Understanding that discrimination is the reason for lack of educational opportunities will make it easier to fight for inclusion. If people with disabilities continue to allow themselves to be treated as sick and exempt from ordinary responsibilities, they may be les likely to fight. I was alarmed to hear of attitudes of teenagers with physical disabilities at the Hugh MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre in Toronto not too long ago. Many of the teens said that they fully expected to live on disability pensions and most did not expect to work.

A person with a disability who has a job is not filling time" any more than anyone else who works is filling time.

I know that non-disabled people often assume I am being supported by a government disability pension, but if people with disabilities themselves expect such support to be their only option in life, how will that affect their motivation? It is hard to have ambition if all around you there are barriers and negative messages about your chances of finding a way through.

People with disabilities will only believe they have the same rights and responsibilities as non-disabled people when non-disabled people believe it. Non-disabled people will only demand the same degree of responsibility and confer the same rights on people with disabilities when disabled people demand their fair share of rights and responsibilities. Perhaps the hardest part is believing in our own abilities and believing that we, as people with disabilities, are indeed as good as those without disabilities.

Where's the Real Teacher?

Let's go back to the question of credibility. I discovered that not only did some non-disabled people view me at my job as "filling time," but that some of the disabled learners in the program prefer to be taught by someone without a disability. This attitude, I think, comes from my lack of credibility in a society that systemically discriminates against people with disabilities. My degree of knowledge and ability is perhaps suspect compared to a non-disabled person's because how could I have achieved a comparable level of education and ability in a world that hasn't given me the opportunities to do so? A person with a disability who is being tutored by me may wonder quite reasonably if they are getting a good deal. Or are they being given a "second rate" teacher to match their own "second rate" ability? This kind of thinking is extremely destructive, but it is easy to see where it might come from and why.

A person with a disability who has a job is not “filling time” any more than anyone else who works is filling time. People work to support themselves and their families; they work to make contributions to the community and because they have skills and enjoy using them. Disabled people work for all of the same reasons, but assumptions and attitudes about disability make work and finding work a lot harder.

First of all, getting the job may be hard. An employer who is familiar only with the medical model of disability may assume a disabled worker will miss a lot of time for medical appointments and sick days, and will need a lot of costly accommodations and special equipment. The employer will wonder- as will the employee-about the reliability and availability of transportation. Can an employee guarantee that Wheeltrans will get her to work every day? With the cutbacks to Wheeltrans in Toronto, coupled with controversial methods of determining just who is disabled enough to be granted use of this service, this is a genuine concern (it's also another article).

If the employee can get to work without difficulty, the workplace most likely won't be accessible. It hasn't needed to be as long as people with disabilities were busy playing a sick role in institutions and hospitals and at home. If a school, for example, is actually wheelchair accessible, it might be accessible only for students. No one has thought out whether a teacher can get into the staff washroom or access the school photocopier or reach more than the bottom edge of the blackboard. Why would a teacher be in a wheelchair anyway? She would have no credibility. Students couldn't learn from her. How could she control the class? Wouldn't their safety be jeopardized?

You want to perform?

As a song writer and performer I have met up with many inaccessible buildings and inhibiting assumptions. I have, for example, been assured that a school, library, or community centre is "fully accessible," only to find out that, yes, there is a ramp, maybe even a wheelchair accessible washroom, but no ramp to the stage: "What do you mean you need to get up on stage?" or "People in wheelchairs sit and watch other people do things, don't they?" While I have not heard these attitudes voiced quite so blatantly, I have certainly encountered the astonishment, and stages that are seldom wheelchair accessible. Perhaps no one would take a disabled performer seriously and, anyway, don't you think it's a peculiar way for her to fill her time?