Ableism

Hehir, Thomas. Improving Instruction for Students with Learning Needs: Confronting Ableism Educational Leadership. Feb 2007. Volume 64, No. 5, pg 8-14.

In his article, "Improving Instruction for Students with Learning Needs: Confronting Ableism," Thomas Hehir discusses the results of negative stereotypes and attitudes toward individuals with disabilities on their ability to succeed in the academic setting. He laments the push to force students with disabilities to adhere to the identical standards of able peers while emphasizing that effective accommodations can be made when done correctly. Drawing attention to the disparity in the severity of disabilities, he outlines various groups of learners and the effect that ableism has had on them.
Reading this article, I found that the confusion amongst his conclusions to be a very accurate reflection of reality. Students run the gamut of mild to severely disabled and correspondingly varied approaches must be taken. In particular, Hehir dances around both sides of the issue when it comes to whether or not the typical societal goal of wanting students with disabilities to be like “normal” kids is progressive or heinous. He applauds the NCLB regulation that students should be in the least intensive environment possible, but also sneered at the idea that disabled students should be encouraged to hang out with non-disabled students. Both ideas have good reasoning behind them, but do not give a clear dictate to educators for how to reconcile the current situation with the ideal situation.
The term ableism opens the floor to a many areas of debate but it seems to me that individuality is really the crux of the argument. The driving force behind ableism is that students, with or without disabilities AND with or without extraordinary abilities, deserve to be treated as the unique individuals that they are. Students who can move past their disabilities should be afforded the tools to make that transition. Students who cannot leave their ability limitations in the dust must be accommodated and supported until they have reached their true full potential.