Last week I went to a Rose Cafe where we talked about disability services at Cornell. I was really surprised to hear that the ADA wasn’t passed until 1990 because it seems like such an important piece of legislation, and I thought that it was passed much earlier. Another thing that we talked about was how during elementary/middle/high school, students with disabilities had their own classrooms and we never really got to interact with them. I remember in high school that students with disabilities even ate lunch at a different time/in a different room! Even though we went to the same high school for 4 years, we never really got to interact much with students with disabilities. I think this needs to be changed. I realize that some students with disabilities may need a specific learning environment to learn best, but I think that everyone would benefit if we all got the opportunity to talk to one another. Even something simple as having the same lunch period would facilitate that. I think that everyone has a unique viewpoint to offer, and that we would all learn something if we all got to share our viewpoints with each other.
This is an interesting observation. In my elementary and middle school, students in the special education class had the same lunch period as all other students, but they were always put at a different table. This maintained an element of social segregation. I think it would be important to rethink how we can facilitate more interaction between people of all different backgrounds in the same environment, because as you’ve said, we all have a unique viewpoint to offer.