Lesson 2

Aim

To enable pupils to understand some of the difficulties a disabled person may face.

Part A – Everyday Tasks

Learning Outcomes

The purpose of these tasks is to encourage pupils to think about their own bodies and mobility issues, through a series of interactive activities. CIT: 2b-c, 3a.

PSHE: 1b.

PSHE3: 3b.

ICT: 1b.

HE-SH: D4.

ES-PS-PN: D1, E1.

ES-PS-RR: D3. Activity

• Set up a number of stations around the classroom with everyday activities such as washing up, tying shoes, painting a picture or writing an email.
• Split the class into small groups and give each one a restriction. This could be using the non-dominant hand, eyes closed, one handed.
• Ask groups to move from station to station completing each task. They should also note down their feelings and if the task needed adapting.
• After completing the task, ask the class to report their findings and to think about the difficulties that disabled people face.

Whizz-Hintz

• Young disabled people face difficulties every day. By asking if they need help and empathising with their situation, we can help a young disabled person live their life as independently and inclusively as possible.

Whizz-Factz

• A disabled person is only disabled when there are barriers which do not allow them to be self-sufficient and able. Everyday activities can be adapted to make life easier for disabled individuals, such as adapting sports, providing ramps into buildings, using Braille to read a book and using a powered wheelchair. In this way, young disabled people can join in with their friends.
• Well-known wheelchair-users such as athletes and celebrities can also be discussed as positive role models, including Tanni Grey-Thompson (paralypian gold medallist), Julie Fernandez (actress in ‘The Office’) Ade Adepitan (GB basketball player and TV presenter).
• Whizz-Kidz has completed several pieces of research, which looked at the portrayals of disabled people on TV. The reports can be downloaded from www.whizz-kidz.org.uk and show that progress is being made, and that some broadcasters are making a particularly welcome effort.

Part B – A Day in Min’s Life

Learning Outcomes

Pupils should gain further understanding of the barriers that a young disabled person faces.

CIT: 1a, 2b-c, 3a, 3c.
PSHE: 1b, 3a.
PSHE3: 3b.
HE-SH: F4.
ES-PS-PN: D1.
ES-PS-RR: D1, D3.

Activity

In small groups, encourage pupils to discuss the barriers or problems that 15-year-old’s may deal with in an average school day. Perhaps write the suggestions in a place for all to see.

Min has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a degenerative disability that causes ongoing weakening of muscles in the body, preventing freedom of movement. I go to a school of 900 pupils. It is not my local school, which I would have preferred to attend. When I moved to secondary school, I had to leave all my friends.

The school won’t provide accessible transport as I’m the only wheelchair user in the area.

My teaching assistant is the only person in the school who is rained to help with my personal care. If he is off sick, I have to stay at home. The school seems to think that just because I am disabled I need a lot of protecting. I am not allowed to go into the playground on my own. This makes my classmates think I cannot fend for myself without the help of an adult.

Whizz-Tipz

The list below offer some suggestions of the difficulties Min may have.

• Getting up – Assistance needed for transferral from bed, dressing, bathroom.
• Breakfast – Being fed, limited food types and decisions.
• Travelling to school – Special taxi or bus may cause stigma.
• Learning Support – Meeting the carer before lessons begin.
• School – Different expectations from staff, studying less subjects, being the only wheelchair user in the school, being excluded from lessons such as PE.
• Lunchtime – Being fed and told where you can go, separation from peers.
• Friends and Peers – Special treatment may single young person out, social areas may be inaccessible. Do friends really include him in all their activities and if not, why not?
• Travel home – Special transport, contending with siblings for attention.
• Siblings and family – Being reliant on someone else to switch on computer, dial a phone number, limit on privacy.
• Going out – No accessible transport or inaccessible venues.
• Being a teenager – Being exhausted and wanting to go to bed early!

Ask students to group the barriers suggested in the first part of the exercise into the following three categories:

Environmental

• Such as lack of access within public buildings, poor lights, high desks. – For example, Vipul wanted to buy a book in his local department store, where there are stairs and no lift. He had to ask a shop assistant to go and get a selection of books for him to look at. He was not able to browse and choose a book himself.

Attitudinal

• Such as notions that disabled people are childlike, helpless and not ‘normal.’ – For example, Mark was in a shop buying a CD with his friends. The assistant spoke to his non-disabled friend rather than him. When she gave him his change she counted it out into his hand loudly and slowly, making the assumption that because he was in a wheelchair he also had learning difficulties.

Institutional

Such as an organisation’s policies, practices and procedures, lack of antidiscrimination legislation.– For example, Meiying’s parent sent her to a special needs schools.

She has to travel a long way to go to an accessible school and so do not have friends that live locally. Even those disabled young people that go to mainstream school often have a similar situation.

Feedback ideas and suggestions to the larger group. Make clear that many of these barriers overlap.

Maintain the idea that people need to change their attitudes in order to be pro-active in changing the environment and institutions.

Part C – Theory – Two Models of Disability

Learning Outcomes

The discussion will establish the viewpoint that it is society that disables individuals and that the responsibility to change lies with society; in the environment, in institutions and in people’s attitudes towards disabled people.

CIT: 1a, 1f, 2a-c, 3a, 3c.

PSHE: 3a, 3c, 4b.

ES-PS-PN: E1.

ES-PS-CD: D2, E2, F1.

Split the class into two groups and give them one of the case studies below each. Ask them to prepare a short presentation describing the image of disability shown, to deliver to the rest of the class. Perhaps students would like to act out the parts?

Activity

Read through the two case studies with the class.

Samuel, 16, has cerebral palsy and uses a manual chair:

I am in a wheelchair as I cannot walk unaided. Tomorrow I am meeting the doctor again so he can try to make me better. I have been to the hospital many times this year already, often for weeks at a time. This means I miss school and have to repeat my lessons at home.

I look out the window and see everyone moving around freely, whilst I’m stuck in bed. I would like to be normal like other children.

Kamila, 11, has hydrocephalus and spina bifida and uses a powered wheelchair:

When I am at home, I’m not disabled. We live in an adapted bungalow, with low door handles and no steps. My bedroom is bright pink and is tucked away at the end of the house, where I can speak to all my friends using my voice-recognition computer and my video phone.

I can travel to my school with my friends now; we always stop and stock up on sweets on the way. The pathway is flat and there is a ramp at the entrance.’

Bring the class back together to present their findings. Next, read out the following two descriptions and ask the class if they can match up the model with the case study. Is it a positive image or negative image? Why?

The Medical Model:

• Disability is an illness and, therefore, disabled people are in need of a cure to become ‘normal.’
• Demeaning for disabled people and misleading for members of society.
• Used by the government and media to stress the tragic aspect of disability.

The Social Model:

• The barriers in society disable people, rather than the individual.
• Liberating view for disabled people.
• The responsibility to change lies with society.
• Aligns disability alongside other civil rights issues, such as racism and sexism, as individuals who face barriers and oppression.

Promote a discussion on the idea that it is society that disables. Therefore the responsibility to change moves away from the individual and onto society. Ask pupils which of these ways of thinking they were more familiar with. Has the lesson changed their views at all?

Whizz-Factz

• Whizz-Kidz works within the social model of disability. The charity gives disabled children the independence to be themselves by providing them with customised mobility equipment, training and advice that is not available from the NHS.
• The social model of disability is not as well-known as the medical, partly because it is a more contemporary way of thinking. Students can play an important role in helping to change attitudes, by:
  • Using the right terminology
  • Thinking of disability as something which is caused by society, not the individual’s impairment

This attitude will send a positive message to all those encountered whether they are disabled or non-disabled, helping to break down some of the many obstacles that disabled people face.

Encourage the students to think of the day when all the barriers are removed and disabled people won’t be ‘disabled’ at all.

Part D – Accessibility in Schools

Learning Outcomes

This activity offers the pupils a chance to take part in a planned process of survey investigation, and follow up with work with discussion and analysis, whilst learning about the importance of accessibility for disabled people.

CIT: 2a, 3a-b.
PSHE: 4a, 4c
PSHE4: 3c
ICT: 1a-b, 3a-b.
ICT3: 1c.
ICT4: 6.
GEOG: 1c-d, 1f. HE-SH: D4
ES-PS-PN: D1.
ES-PS-RR: D1, D3.

Activities

Explain to the group that independent movement can have a dramatic effect on disabled children, often taking them from isolation to inclusion and giving them the chance to join in with friends and family.

Having independent movement from an early age is not only essential to a child’s overall growth and development, but also, vitally, increases their confidence and self-esteem.

However, one barrier created by society is the lack of access that means that even when a disabled young person has independent mobility through their wheelchair they may still face obstacles that stop them being able to carry out everyday activities.

Please refer to the ‘Accessibility Survey’ worksheet and provide each pupil with a copy.

Following the instructions on the sheet, encourage students to visit as many areas as possible and to note down all the data they collect on their activity sheet.

Whizz-Tipz

• Using the data they collect, the students should present their findings for a class discussion. This could be by collating their findings and compiling a report, creating a comparison bar chart preparing a presentation or by designing a school access guide, with route planning for wheelchair users.
• Encourage pupils to take responsibility for devising and implementing ways of improving their school grounds.
• One of Whizz-Kidz’ key objectives is to bring out change for disabled people through government lobbying. Pupils may be interested in reporting their findings to their local MP, Education Authority or forwarding the information to Whizz-Kidz. They can find an MP template letter on our website.

Part E – Disability Discrimination Act

Learning Outcomes

Familiarising the students about current legislation and how it impacts the lives of young disabled people.

CIT: 1a, 2a-c, 3a-c.
PSHE: 1b, 4a-c.
ICT: 1a-b, 3a-b,
ICT3: 5c.
ICT4: 5d, 6.
HE-SH: D4.
ES-PS-PN: E1-2.
ES-PS-RR: D1, D3.
ES-PS-CD: E2, F1.

Activities

Following on from the accessibility audit, ask pupils to research the Disability Discrimination Act (known as the DDA) and its impact on accessibility in schools, using websites and information from disability or government organisations.

Explain that the DDA created new laws aimed at ending the discrimination which many people face, making it unlawful to treat disabled people less favourably than other people for a reason related to their disability.

Mention that the DDA is particularly topical for schools in 2005. For education providers, new duties came into effect in September 2002 under Part IV of the DDA as amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA).

These require schools, colleges, universities, providers of adult education and youth services to ensure that they do not discriminate against disabled people.

The next phase, which will come into force in September 2005, will require education providers to consider making reasonable physical changes.

Whizz-Tipz

• Useful websites are listed below. Many of these are carefully presented to make them accessible for individuals with disabilities. For example, the size of text may be large and be left aligned, limitations on pop-up screens or have auditory descriptions. Ask the pupils to comment on the usability of the sites.
  • Whizz-Kidz – www.whizz-kidz.org.uk
  • Disability Rights Commission – www.drc-gb.org.uk
  • Information & services for disabled people – www.yourable.com
  • Centre for Accessible Environments – www.cae.org.uk
  • Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) – www.rnib.org.uk
  • Contact a family Every Disabled Child Matters

Whizz-Factz

• As an amendment to the DDA, SENDA only protects people who are defined as ‘disabled’ according to that legislation. In other words it too is based on the medical ’model of disability, focusing on the person with the impairment as having a ‘problem’ rather than on society.
• SENDA also uses the word ‘reasonable’ like the DDA so, again, it is open to interpretation. It is important to be clear that the level of adjustments depends on the circumstances of each case.
• Although the DDA applied to the whole of the United Kingdom, only England, Wales and Scotland are covered by SENDA. Scotland and Wales are exempted from certain aspects of the Act. The duty to produce an accessibility strategy or plan does not extend to Scotland.
• Even though the DDA has made many changes and is heading in the right direction, many people believe it does have some misguidance.

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