Monday, March 26, 2007

Secondary school days

Secondary School Years

Although the first day of secondary school is hard for everybody, I had the added difficulty of a school that, while it had ramps and access to buildings, was poorly designed in terms of how to access the access to the buildings. On the first day of every school year there would be a whole school assembly. Each year level had a specific door, through which everyone was supposed to enter the building. But only one door had disabled access. That door was not the door through which year sevens were supposed to enter. Nobody had shown me where I was supposed to enter so I went with my friends to where they had to go and found that I couldn’t enter the building. I stood around looking lost until my integration aide (who thankfully had moved up with me from primary school) came along and rescued me.

This made me more nervous and scared than I already was. It was also embarrassing because the rest of the school had already entered the hall by the time I did, so they all turned around and looked at me when I entered.

The solutions to this problem may seem fairly obvious. I should have been shown how to enter the building on orientation day, or perhaps the school could have simply made that door the access door for year seven.

The access issues didn’t stop with the assembly hall incident. Sometimes a class would be scheduled in a room that did not have disabled access, so the class would have to stand around waiting while another room was found, and then move to that room. This made me feel like I was creating extra work for the teachers, and embarrassed me because everybody had to stand around just because of me. The class probably didn’t mind so much because it meant we didn’t have to do so much work. However, I felt that the teachers were upset with me for disrupting their plans for the lesson.

I really don’t think I need to write the solution to this one in here; common sense should be enough.

During my time as a student, the school was renovated. A new disabled toilet was installed. This toilet was big and pretty good in terms of access, aside from one problem. I needed my integration aide to assist me with getting on and off the toilet but required privacy at other times. The problem was the toilet faced the door and was in the main administration building and thus faced a busy corridor. If my aide was to leave the room and give me privacy, I would have been exposed to the school community when nobody wants to be exposed.

A shower curtain around the toilet solved the problem but it took a long time (or at least what seemed a long time to me) for the school to recognise the need and arrange it.

Another issue arose when it came to my attending classes without my integration aide, whom I didn’t need with me all the time. Often she would set me up with my books and go and work somewhere else, and then return to help me pack up my books at the end of class. Some teachers would not allow me in the class without either her or another aide with me. When my aide went on long service leave I missed a whole term of maths class for this reason. I believe this had a major impact on my future, as while I was never great at maths, and never loved it anyway, maths became torture after this. I didn’t do maths at VCE level, which has placed limitations on my career options.

Each maths class the maths teacher would tell me to go and find the coordinator of the integration aides, and ask him to arrange an aide to work with me for that class. I would do so, to be told there were no aides available and to “go study in the library”. I was left struggling through the appropriate textbook by myself, when I should have been in the classroom where the teacher was explaining things.

The solution to this issue is more complex . Ideally, teachers should be comfortable having students with DisAbilities in their classes, with or without the support of an integration aide. If the teacher is not comfortable with this, an integration aide should be with the student at all times.

I tried to explain to the teacher that I would be fine without an aide and wasn’t about to drop dead or disrupt the class in any way, but he didn’t seem to believe me, or at least didn’t want to take that risk.

I think some people are afraid of things they don’t understand. All of my teachers should have had the opportunity to meet me, along with my aide and parents, to discuss my abilities and needs before the start of each school term. This may have helped the teachers to feel comfortable around me and would have made classes much easier for me.

I also feel that I was let down by the coordinator of the integration aides, because he failed to recognise the fact that missing class was a major problem for me, and never spoke to the teacher or arranged an aide to be with me.

My experiences at school were not all bad and I made some really good life long friends during this time. I remember in year 7, some of the boys used to like tormenting me by asking me if I would go out with their friends and then laughing at whatever my response was.

I grew tired of this (as it would happen at least twice a day) and finally said yes one day. Both the boy who asked and the boy I was supposed to go out with turned bright read and the boy who asked came up to me later and said that he was very sorry but he already had a girlfriend. I told him exactly what I thought of him and suggested that I could go and tell his girlfriend that we would be going on a date that weekend. He didn’t like that idea very much. I don’t know if I would have done it, but watching him squirm was very satisfying.

Another time, a girl who I now understand had a very hard home life and was jealous of me made some cruel remarks about ‘people like me and being allowed out in public’. I fell apart and was ready to leave school and never return but what this incident taught me is that I had some very good friends who comforted me, told the girl where to go and also told the teachers who dealt with her.

I wish I could go back with the confidence and understanding I have now and deal with the situation for myself. I would probably say to the girl that I understand that she has issues but I have as much right to be a part of society as she does.

The other major issue in terms of my schooling came when I was to choose my VCE subjects. I wanted to do law when I left school and to get high enough marks to gain a university place I needed to do the science subjects (and probably maths). However the integration coordinator informed me that it was felt that I would require too much assistance from my aide with the experiments for it to be considered my own work. Therefore I was unable to complete the subjects.

Once again I am not sure exactly what the solution is. I know I could have gone to the anti-discrimination board, but that would have made my life in the small town where I live hell on earth and I may not have got my VCE at all.

One day I will fulfil my dreams, I am just taking the long road to do it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so proud of you and these blogs. I really enjoy reading them. I really hope this gives people more insight of what life is like as a grown up, a child and a teenager growing up in a society with so called "normal" people. I look forward to reading more!!! Keep up the TERRIFIC work!!!! I LOVE YA!!!!

Jacqui said...

I didn't finish high school and have done various jobs over the years. During my early20s I started an Arts degree and then transferred after a few years to Law which i did externally at one of the most respected uni's in Qld. I definitely took the long way around but I am sure that if it is what you want to do, then you are more than capable of it.

Anonymous said...

Well written article.