Category Archives: Disability Rights

I am really fed up with the media’s insistence on describing people with a variety of impairments as ‘special,” “special people,” “special children.” Yuk yuk yuk! In my cynical view “special” is simply a euphemism for “second class.” We are no more “special” than any other human being. We may have particular needs because of our impairments, but others have them for other reasons also, because they are refugees, battered women, orphaned children etc. They are not generally referred to as “special” in the same patronising way disabled people are.

This morning an otherwise interesting item on Morning Report was marred by the constant gratuitous use of that word, and not by the person being interviewed either.

We have to challenge it each time it is used. It places disabled people very firmly in a ghetto. No organisation associated with disabled people should get away with using this term. Either tell it like it is or simply use everyday language. There is nothing wrong with using the term “disabled people” if it is relevant – we are disabled by society – or even, if we must, people with disabilities, or just plain ordinary people.

If we have human rights, and we most surely do, then we must expect journalists and others to use the language of rights, and give every human being the respect and dignity they deserve by using dignified, respectful and neutral language.

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Learning Better Together is a long overdue report. Subtitled working towards inclusive education in NZ schools the report is a breath of fresh air in the so called ‘special’ education debate.

Making a strong case for including all children in our schools the report says “Inclusive education stands in contrast to ‘special’ education, where disabled children are educated in separate schools or classes, or treated very differently in the classroom to regular students.”

The report presents evidential research to show that disabled children will do better on many counts if they are included. This is not ‘mainstreaming’ or even ‘maindumping’ as I have heard it called, but it takes the next step.

Some people think that the increasing numbers of disabled students attending mainstream schools after the 1989 Education Act were the first disabled children in their local schools, but of course this isn’t true. Some of us were there more years ago than we care to think about, and we survived. We may not have been included in today’s sense, but I still think we are better off.

Of course some of us are barely literate or numerate but nonethe- less I would have hated to be sent away at five years old as were many of my contemporaries. I was sent away at thirteen, but that’s another story and another kind of institution!

When I worked in EEO a fair number of years ago I checked out all the disabled people I knew in Wellington who worked in the new improved public service. To a man and a woman they had all had the most significant part of their education in mainstream schools. I know it was a totally unscientific survey, but it supports the argument for good quality inclusive education.

I first came across Jude McArthur, who wrote the report, a few years ago when she presented her research with disabled children at an IHC education forum, I was so impressed that I asked her to speak to our Commission meeting. The voices of disabled children talking about their experience at school are telling. They show just how much work there is to do.

But of course true inclusive education is not just a slightly improved ‘special’ education. It is a whole new way of educating our children together in a learning environment which respects and values them all, and which enables them all to achieve.

If you have trouble with the link or want a hard copy or a copy of the accompanying DVD you can write to:

IHC Advocacy
PO box 4155
Wellington 6140

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