Help Teach

Help Teach: Episode 6 - Missing Out and Coming Up

Mihai Covaser: [00:00:00] Welcome, learners and learned alike, to Help Teach.

Mihai Covaser: Hello and welcome to our community audio project. I am your host, editor, producer, and project co-lead: Mihai Covaser. I am also a youth living with a physical disability. My most formative experiences living with a disability have come in the Canadian public education system. Many students like me, with physical, emotional, or mental challenges, go through their years of schooling lacking the supports and accommodations they need to partake of the same opportunities offered to their peers. The vision of this project is to provide educators in Canadian classrooms, students with disabilities, and members of the general public, with the tools and knowledge that they need to make our institutions more accessible and inclusive for all. Join me and a diverse cast of guests as we explore perspectives on disabilities and education in this podcast series. [00:01:00] One last message for you teachers tuning in: Listen in each episode for our key takeaway that you can implement in your classroom today to help us further this vision.

Mihai Covaser: Today I am very excited to be introducing to you all our group episode, to tie off this first part of our podcast series. I am excited to have all of my co-leads here, that have been featured on episodes before, to put a bookend on this and really share some interesting discussion over the next half-an-hour or so on the things that are important to us and really, I think, drive home why we’re doing this project. So I’m very excited to have you all here today. I think I’ll do a bit of a round robin introduction here, get you all to tell us who you are, remind us what we’ve talked about before and where we’ve heard you, and…yeah, I’m very excited to get into this together. So I think I’ll start off with Payton. [00:02:00]

Payton Given: Hi, my name is Payton. I did the first episode and I talked about mostly being in the Canadian public school system and how it negatively affects me, as I am in a wheelchair and have a physical disability, and that people don’t use the appropriate language that we should be using today.

Mihai Covaser: Thanks so much. Pass it off to Maggie.

Maggie Manning: Hi, my name is Maggie, and I’m a twenty-two-year-old student living in Kamloops, B.C. I was in episode two, where we discussed sports and physical education in school for youth with disabilities, as well as building community and finding your niche.

Mihai Covaser: Thanks so much. I’ll pass it off to Élise.

Élise Doucet: Hi, everyone, my name is Élise, and in the episode I was on–oh, well, [00:03:00] I guess I should start with that I’m a student also living in Kamloops, B.C., and in the episode I was in, we discussed Deaf culture and history, as well as the social versus medical models of disability, as well as living with service dogs and you know–

Mihai Covaser: Alright, perfect. And Alexis, if you’ll wrap it up for us.

Alexis Holmgren: Hi, everyone, my name is Alexis. I’m twenty-one years old and I’m an advocate and writer living in Red Deer, Alberta, and in my episode, we talked about living with rare genetic diagnoses, chronic pain, transitioning from public to online learning, as well as attitudinal barriers that individuals with disabilities face.

Mihai Covaser: Thank you so much. And just as a reminder, my name is Mihai Covaser. I am an eighteen-year-old student at the University of British Columbia, in Kelowna, B.C. I also live with a physical disability, and [00:04:00] amongst other things, I now host a podcast! And I’m very excited to have you all here to talk, to bring us all together and really share, I think, what’s vital about this project and this initiative, which is that we’re all here to share our stories together and to make sure that we really build on that sense of community that we all know and love, and that we can really bring forward our message in a great way all together. So…Well, to get started on this discussion, there’s this sort of a subject that’s on our mind that I’d like to bring up here. I think all of us have talked about this in a variety of capacities over our discussions in the past, and it’s something that is unique to every student with a disability, but that also can have a really big impact, and I think that we all have some things to say about it, so why don’t we talk a little bit about missing school? [00:05:00] I know that this was mentioned in your episode, Alexis, as well as Maggie; I think you mentioned it briefly, but I think that’s something that we’ve all experienced in different capacities, so–Actually, since that was in your episode, Alexis, why don’t you start off and tell us a bit about what that means for you and what that looks like generally for students with disabilities–though, of course, as I said, it’s unique for everyone–and maybe your personal experience with it, as well.

Alexis Holmgren: For sure. Thank you, Mihai. So for me personally, I missed a ton of school, all throughout middle school and high school, and it is different for everyone with disabilities, but for me, it was missing school for doctor’s appointments; it was missing school because I live in a relatively rural area, so I need to drive three hours one way to visit my specialist any time I have an appointment, so it’s like a whole day that you’re losing there. And then I also missed a lot of school just from [00:06:00] the effects of living with complex chronic illness, as well. In addition to treatments, being in the hospital–The point is, there’s a lot of reasons; we can all miss school for different things, and I think the biggest misconception that I faced with this is that unfortunately, I had some educators who believed that because I wasn’t at school, it meant that I didn’t want to learn or it meant that I was like–There was this rumor that went around that I was off going to parties or something during the day, instead of going to school, which is the funniest thing. Like I was at the hospital, having testing to find out if I had the same life-threatening heart condition that I had seen almost kill my mom, and they’re here telling me, like, that I was off partying, so that was an interesting time.
Mihai Covaser: Curious. As you say, I think there’s a lot of reasons for us, as students with disabilities, [00:07:00] to have to miss school, but also as you say, there’s a lot of misconceptions that come around that. Would anyone else like to jump in on this and mention their personal experience with this?

Maggie Manning: Yeah, for sure. So I had a very similar experience to Alexis, where I lived in a small town and my treatments all were in Vancouver, so that was a six hour drive each way for treatment, or appointments, or check-ups, and so anything like that. And this was before telehealth was a big thing, so telehealth coming in during COVID has definitely changed that, because now we have easier access to healthcare services. But before that, it meant at least three days missed school; so one day to drive down, one day of appointments, and one day to drive back. And obviously, not only are you missing school and the content, but you’re also missing that social interaction with your peers, and kind of as Alexis highlighted, it definitely takes its toll, and so–Yeah, it’s a really important thing to acknowledge, that we all have different experiences, and especially [00:08:00] when you’re in, like, a smaller or rural area, it’s a huge barrier to get treatment when you have to travel so far.

Payton Given: I live in Nova Scotia and I have missed a lot of school time because of surgeries and different hospital-related incidents, but I feel like there’s a huge gap. Because teachers think not giving us the work is helpful and, yes, that can be helpful in many different ways, but then it affects our mark at the end of the year and they don’t give us the opportunity to make that mark up, even though we want to be at school but we physically can’t be because of our disability or health conditions.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, that’s a super interesting point you bring up there. [00:09:00] I think–A couple things to note there; first of all, that we talk a lot about the experiences we have in school, but it’s not as often spoken about: the times that we’re not there, right? And I think that, as you say, Payton, there’s a lot of different strategies that different educators will choose to use in order to help that situation that may or may not have their intended effect, because–as you mentioned, Alexis–we want to learn, right, like we’re there in school for a reason. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be a part of it after a certain age, right, but it can be very difficult sometimes to have that desire met when there are things keeping us out of the physical classroom. But it’s not the same for everyone, right, Élise?

Élise Doucet: Yeah, no. I mean, for me, being Deaf, I didn’t have a whole lot of appointments to go to. I mean, occasionally perhaps an audiologist appointment that I had to go to; I did have a teacher of the Deaf [00:10:00] come to my school for a period of time, and he would pull me out of class and we’d do a little thing for a bit, but it was never–it was always seen as a positive for me, because I got to kind of skip class, because it didn’t happen that I was really missing anything. And for me, you know, in class, I was already missing so much, that to not have to sit there and pretend to listen was actually a really nice break for me. Yeah, so for me, it was a really different experience.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, and I think that’s very interesting that you mentioned that, because missing school is something that can happen because we’re not there, but as you just mentioned, it’s also possible to miss school when we’re right there in the classroom. I think that’s something that you all have expressed interest in talking about, is the fact that missing [00:11:00] in–or missing out on the content of a class and the education experience in a classroom doesn’t have, necessarily, to be tied to not being there, but even when there aren’t the right supports present in the classroom, it can be quite the same. I don’t know if anyone would like to pick up on that and talk about that from their own experience.

Payton Given: I can talk about it a little bit. With my physical disability, I need an EPA or an EA to assist me in writing and other physical tasks during the day. The school board definitely, in Canada, does not have enough of them and does not really ever pay them enough for people to want to be an EPA or an EA. [00:12:00] Because it’s a lot of work on them to write down what the teacher has on the board, because they already went to school and they don’t want to do it again, but then they have to write or do something for another person. And I think that I miss out on a lot because there’s not enough help given to me, as I’m in junior high and they want to push for independence, which I am very passionate about having independence. But there’s a fine line with independence and not being able to do something. So if my teacher–Like in English, if my teacher has a full thing of the board and says, “Copy this down,” I can’t copy that down in five minutes, that might take me [00:13:00] twenty to thirty minutes, and it takes the rest of the class ten minutes, and she erases it because everybody else is done, and that’s what I face when I don’t have an EPA. But I am not a high-needs person; they don’t call me high-needs, so I don’t have a lot of–I don’t have one hundred percent of the time–I have an EPA like for having supports, I guess.

Mihai Covaser: I see, I see.

Élise Doucet: Yeah, no, I had to say: when I was in a physical school, they actually used my funding to hire a teacher’s–I don’t remember if she was a teacher’s assistant or an educational assistant, but she was apparently hired to help me, and kind of like Payton touched on, write down what the teacher–Not what was on the board, but [00:14:00] what the teacher was talking about, or to sit next to me and tell me, kind of, being right there so I could lip-read easier what the teacher was talking about. But that was news to me, I didn’t find what her job was supposed to be until years later, because she never actually helped me; she just helped the teacher with whatever the teacher needed–Accommodations that should have been meant for me were just kind of used for other people, and all of my school funding that was supposed to be used for me was just used for other people, and then they would be like, “Oh, we have nothing in the budget for you,” and just kind of told to, you know, deal with it, kind of going with the whole, “You should be independent,” which, if it’s something I cannot do, like I cannot hear. I cannot regrow my cochleas, as much as stem-cell therapy has come along, [00:15:00] I cannot do that. Yeah, so it’s…There’s a kind of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” idea, when it comes to disability, that is just not possible to happen for a lot of people.

Alexis Holmgren: Yeah. I think that’s a really important point, that attitude right there, that we’re all expected to just pull it up by the bootstraps, just suck it up, do it, you know. And I mean, if I’m literally in surgery in another country, having like three heart surgeries in a 24-hour period, I’m sorry that my math assignment is going to be late, like my bad.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, that’s such a great way of putting this, but it’s totally true! And that’s super interesting to hear, coming from [00:16:00] all of you, because I’ve always straddled kind of a line between the chronic disability and completely normal–“normal”–group of students in my school experience, because though I do have a physical disability, it doesn’t impact my learning. I don’t have to use–or I didn’t, after a certain point, have to use walking aids, or if I did, they weren’t, you know, intrusive, so to speak; they didn’t involve a lot of extra accommodations within the classroom, and so my experience with this whole idea of independence was actually kind of the opposite. It came from me, and I was held back from gaining that independence because of safety concerns, protocol, you know, bureaucratic concerns, or, as you say, maybe there’s just something that–There’s something that I want to do, but there’s just that obstacle in the way that makes it [00:17:00] impossible, right, in that particular moment in time. So that’s really interesting to hear you all talk about it from the opposite side of things; being pushed to be independent, when you can’t cross that threshold on your own.

Élise Doucet: It almost sounds like you’re talking about that there’s this idea–I feel like there’s this divide that happens, where you either get pushed to be “normal” and don’t need anything at all, or kind of pushed onto that disability pedestal, where you have to kind of stay disabled and nice.

Payton Given: I totally agree, because I get protocol shoved at me every day. Because they say, “You’re breaking safety code for doing something on your own,” and I say, “Well, if you don’t have somebody for me, to help me, sure!” I might be doing something safe that I know what to do, but since the school board doesn’t think it’s safe, [00:18:00] I’m not allowed to do it, which I think is, first of all, stupid. But, yet again, I have to–When I’m in school, I have to follow their procedures and I think they need more education on what is safe and what isn’t safe, and it’s not just one person, and it’s not just out of a science textbook or a cure textbook. Everybody’s different.

Maggie Manning: Yeah, I totally agree with that. I’ve also had a very unique experience that’s kind of similar to Mihai, in that I walk that fine line between–Kind of in-between surgeries, I was not really considered to need all that much support, but then after surgery, while recovering, I definitely used wheelchairs and mobility aids, forearm crutches, and so I did have that unique experience where I kind of flip-flopped in-between needing support and it wasn’t until high school [00:19:00] that I realized how supports–when given to me–could be very helpful. And so I never really had accommodations until grade nine-ten, and for me, it was surrounding chronic pain, so I was always just pushed to, you know, sit in the chair, do my work, and I made it work for many years, but it wasn’t until I got these accommodations to be able to like, get up and walk around during class or to like, have a different type of chair that was more comfortable, did I realize how much of an impact it made on my schooling and on my education, because I was able to concentrate and not just have to be constantly adjusting and trying to get comfortable. You know, getting a little bit of extra time on assignments or quizzes so that I didn’t have to worry about trying to push through those really uncomfortable moments was so much help to me, and so I think it’s really important that even things that you might not visibly see is still there, and very prevalent [00:20:00] for the person, and so being able to accommodate that for the student is super important.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, for sure. What I’m really hearing here from all of you is that, really for each of you, independence and support means something different, right; it has a different kind of impact on how you act, it has a different impact on how much you get out of your educational experience, and it means something different with regard to how much you miss when you’re in or out of the classroom, so having that appropriate combination of support to either be independent, or support in the form of accommodations to help you through it, really makes all the difference, even in very little changes or adjustments, so… Yeah, I think that’s really super interesting to hear and to hear from all of you, a bit of a different take.

Maggie Manning: And you know, Mihai, it was actually through the media that I learned [00:21:00] that accommodations were available to me, and so having like that role model was also super important.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, that’s a really interesting point there. And you know, I kind of want to follow up on that, so tell us a little bit about that role model of yours in the media. What did that mean, to see your needs explained, demonstrated to the masses, whether or not they actually lined up with your reality… Tell us a little bit about that.

Maggie Manning: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that there was kind of a point in my disability journey, when I kind of tipped over the line into needing supports full-time, and it wasn’t something that I could really–I want to say “hide”, not that I was necessarily hiding before, but something that I embraced and wanted to like, advocate for disabilities. And so I started–The first thing that I did, is I started following Instagram accounts and that type of thing, and it was very validating to see other people who are like, using their lived experience [00:22:00] to share to other people, and as a young person looking up to that, it was like, “Wow. Like there are some things that I’ve learned through their experience that I can implement into my life, to hopefully make things a little bit easier.” And so just through a combination of things that I started approaching my educators with. I mean, like, “Would we be able to maybe give this a try; it’s something that I saw work for somebody else with chronic pain,” and that was super important in my journey, because finding those experiences through media and seeing that it’s worked for other people, then I was able to find accommodations that worked for myself.

Payton Given: I also can touch on that a little bit. When I was younger, I did not see people in the media like me–Like, I don’t see people with disabilities on the media very often, but when I do, I really [00:23:00] like to see what accommodations and what they have to say, because every person is different, and I think seeing people in the media really boosts our confidence and about six years ago, I started following a person on YouTube. Her name’s Molly Burke, and she has an eye disease, and she’s blind, but it showed me that I’m not the only person being bullied in schools, because you don’t see that every day, because I live in a smaller place where there’s not a lot of people in wheelchairs, or that have disabilities.

Mihai Covaser: I’m seeing a lot of smiling faces at the mention of that channel, so, first of all, you’re welcome for the free plug, but [00:24:00] who wants to jump in on that and talk a bit about that particular channel?

Maggie Manning: I can share a little bit. Molly Burke was kind of the first person that I’d seen, as well, and it was when I went to We Day, when I was in grade eight, and she spoke there, and that was kind of the first disabled person that I’d seen in person kind of getting up there and advocating, sharing her lived experience, and so… Yeah, super exciting. I think she’s very well-known across most disability advocacy groups and so, yeah, I’ll let my other people share a little bit, because I think she’s a super important role model.

Élise Doucet: Molly Burke is super cool, but her dog is cooler. That’s what I have to say.

Payton Given: Yeah. Both of her dogs are amazing. I watch her videos right when they come out, because honestly, [00:25:00] I love her guide dogs. They’re so cute. But yeah, she talks about–Yeah, Gallop’s the retired one, but Bennix, her newer guide dog is–It’s nice to see representation, because my friend has a service dog and it is not represented very often, and I know guide dogs and service dogs are different, but they’re seen as a dog and a cute, fluffy animal, and not as a medical piece of equipment, and I think she brings that across very well.

Mihai Covaser: That’s super interesting to hear from all of you. Actually, interestingly enough, talking about accommodations and, you know, the capability to get involved, We Day happened–I was still in elementary school [00:26:00] and I didn’t actually go, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it involved a lot of travel and I wasn’t sure that I was able, at that point, to take a school trip and travel to see this in person, and be independent and successful in that regard, so goes to show you that had that maybe been a bit more–had I been a bit more confident in the school’s ability to take me along and support me, maybe I would’ve been there to see that, but anyway. I’m really glad that you’re all mentioning this advocate of yours that you look up to and that represents disabilities well in the media, but I think there’s a lot of times when that’s not really the case. I’m not sure if anyone has a particular story they want to share there about a time in the media when disability was not quite so accurately depicted. I’ll go to Payton and then Alexis on this.

Payton Given: [00:27:00] No, it’s not really shown in media a lot. Definitely not on TV shows, because it’s almost like they want to put under the rug and want to hide it from children; it’s definitely not in children’s shows. It might be in more adult or more older kid shows, but definitely not–like definitely not in TV shows or modeling or anything like that.

Alexis Holmgren: I think there’s this unfortunate term within the disability community that we use, called “inspiration porn”, where people with disabilities are turned into… It’s like, “you ate cereal in the morning, how inspirational!” It’s like incredibly patronizing, [00:28:00] very insulting, and it’s basically making us an inspiration and saying there should be no excuses in life, people should be able to do anything they set their mind to. And interestingly enough, that is a very problematic statement that is not true. Like for me, there are literally things that exist in the world that I cannot do. That is fact, like it doesn’t matter how much support or what aids I would have; there are things I cannot do, and so to say that, like, that’s just an excuse or something like that is really harmful for those of us who hear that. And it’s an unfortunate spin that I see in the media a lot, that even really well-meaning folks with disabilities will go on the media and the media spins it in this way as to make it an inspiration for able-bodied people to make them feel better about themselves, and that’s not, like, the point [00:29:00] of representation, of course. And for me, like, I never saw anyone like me in the media growing up; I’ve never actually seen anyone with one of my rare conditions at all, on any TV show in existence, but another one–My heart condition actually was featured on an episode of Bones a few years ago, and they kind of…It was one of those things that there were some good points, there were some not so good points. I wrote an article about it, back when I was about fourteen or fifteen, because of what I had thought about it at the time, and, essentially, there was one point in the show, where it was kind of, sort of explained what the condition is, and because it’s a sudden arrhythmia death syndrome that can cause sudden cardiac arrest and sudden death, [00:30:00] one of the main characters had said something to the effect of, “Well, that’s a horrible life, I can’t imagine anyone would want to live like that.” And I’m like, “Well, I’m sorry, it’s not really a want, it’s reality.” So, you know, there’s good and there’s bad, and then there’s some that are a little bit more murky, like that episode, because it was good that people had heard about it, because finally I could, like, say to friends, “Oh, like, did you see that episode of Bones?” And they’d be like, “Oh, yeah, I think I have heard of that, then.” It was finally–It was like the first time we had ever seen it on media and I think it’s one of the only times, as well.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, super interesting. For our audience here, we have a bit of a visual situation going on here, where we can see each other. I saw Maggie’s jaw drop a little bit at that mention of the representation in that show; are you a fan, Maggie?

Maggie Manning: I mean, I’m just a fan of, like, [00:31:00] any representation. I mean, seeing your condition on TV is super cool. Yeah, although like Alexis said, it’s not always accurately depicted; it’s still very exciting.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and you know, what’s important about getting our message out there, is that, just like any other umbrella that you’ll put on a group of people, it’s a generalization, right, so any umbrella, any label under which we get placed is going to be, to some degree, accurate with regards to our experience, but ultimately the point of the generalization is that, of course, it doesn’t represent everyone’s unique experience because you can’t possibly do that with an umbrella-kind-of-representation like that. And so when we turn to media and when we turn to these sources out there to get our information, I think what’s really valuable to note is whether or not that source that you’re listening to [00:32:00] is telling you the full story, and whether or not it’s telling you someone’s story, or whether it’s making that sweeping kind of generalization, you know, with a broad brush. And as you all say, it’s really fantastic when we have people like us out there doing great things that we can look up to and be inspired by, as long as we be certain of exactly what that’s saying. I think that that’s a really great place to turn towards the end of our episode here and talk a little bit about our key takeaway, and it’s something that we’ve been talking about across the episode, if anyone would like to do the honors here of sort of describing what we want people to take away from this experience. I would love to have one of you do that.

Payton Given: I think that, for a teacher to know that everybody’s different, even though that we use a broad term as “disabled” or “disability” or different labels, “special needs”, [00:33:00] that we’re all different, and ask for our specific needs and don’t assume.

Alexis Holmgren: Yeah, every student is definitely unique, and ultimately this series is designed to help you build kind of a toolbox as an educator. It’s not a manual to memorize, as to how exactly to use this script to treat all of your students with disabilities, but it gives you kind of some tools to implement to start making change in the classroom, that fits your particular students the best.

Mihai Covaser: Absolutely. And I think that, throughout this series, we’ve done a lot of telling as to what you could possibly do, what you could “implement in the classroom today to make it more accessible and inclusive for all”, to bring that tagline back, but really, what we want to achieve, the vision of this project is that, whoever is out there listening, whether you’re an educator or a student [00:34:00] or a member of the general public, that you start to get a bit of an understanding, from our specific, unique experiences, of what it’s like to live life the way we do and what can be done to make sure that each of us has the opportunity to give our best contributions, not just in the education system, but in every institution in our society, regardless of the obstacles that stand in our way. And the more we can minimize those obstacles and the more, as you say, we can build our collective toolbox to help each other out and make that a reality, I think the better it’ll be. Well, I am delighted to have had you all here to wrap up this opening, if you will, to this podcast series. By all means, we intend to keep this going and continue to share our messages, and give teachers the tools that they need to make the classroom more accessible, but I think this really ties a nice bow on the end of it and brings us all together. Thank you so much [00:35:00] for coming on, and I look forward to talking to you all another time.

Mihai Covaser: You’ve just heard another episode of the community audio project, Help Teach. I’d like to give a huge thank you to my other co-leads on this project, Payton Given, Maggie Manning, Élise Doucet, and Alexis Holmgren, all youth leaders at the Rick Hansen Foundation, who I’d also like to thank for their continued support in this initiative and others. I’d love to give a huge shout-out to our community mentor for this project, Charl Coetzee, and to our professional contact helping in the editing process, Chester Hull. My name is Mihai Covaser. I am your host, editor, and producer for this podcast series, and this wraps up our opening collection of episodes, funded by Every Canadian Counts. Thank you so much to them and their #RisingYouth initiative for funding this project and for allowing us to put our vision for change out into the community. As promised, you can now find all transcripts, episode notes, and links to other resources on Transistor.fm, [00:36:00] or listen to us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And if you have any questions about the show, or would like to get involved, now get in touch at helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. That’s helpteachpodcast@gmail.com. Tune in next time for more great conversations and key takeaways that you educators can implement in the classroom today, to make it a more accessible and inclusive place for all. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time.