Are You Amazed?

Are You Amazed?

Martha

Bagley

Are

You Amazed?

by Martha Bagley

From the Editor: The

following editorial first appeared in the Fall, 1997, issue of RE:view, the

quarterly newsletter of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of

the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER). Martha Bagley is Coordinator of the Older

Adult Program for the Helen Keller National Center, Dallas regional office.

She also serves as an Executive Editor of RE:view. It is not often that we agree

whole-heartedly with the views expressed by the AER, but this is certainly one

time when we do. Ms. Bagley has a healthy respect for the consumers with whom

she works, and she puts her finger on important issues for consideration by

every professional working with disabled people. We can only hope that other

AER members will reflect on her words and be guided by her good sense. This

is what she says:

Have you ever been called

a saint? It used to happen to me regularly. Every time I was picked up by a

cab at the Helen Keller National Center in Sands Point, New York, the driver

would eventually say something like, "You must be a saint to work with

those people. It is so amazing what they can do."

Those of you who know me

will readily attest to the fact that I am no saint! Like all of us, I come to

work every day and try to do the best that I can with the tools and resources

available. Sometimes I manage really well; at other times nothing seems to go

right. So, if I'm not a saint, does that mean that the people with disabilities

with whom I work are not amazing?

The print and TV media

have called Christopher Reeve a miracle because he has gotten on with his life

despite his accident and severe disability. Is this just another example of

the news media's quest for a story and publicity hype that surrounds stars?

Maybe, but it isn't going away. Every time Chris Reeve does something that would

be expected of anyone else in his profession, he is described as "amazing."

That attitude crops up

even closer to home. Recently someone working in an agency that serves people

who are blind commented to a professional who is deaf-blind, "I just can't

understand how you are able to get up every day and do the things you do."

What generates this attitude

of amazement? Why shouldn't people who are deaf-blind or who have other severe

disabilities do the things that we take for granted in everyone else? Why is

it amazing that they get up and go to work every day? Why is it amazing that

they can use a cab? Why is it amazing that they fall in love and get married?

Why is it amazing that they go to school and get an education? Those things

are not just expected, but assumed, of everyone.

Are individuals with deaf-blindness

and other disabilities somehow lesser people? To some degree this amazement

is everywhere. It comes from an attitude that these people are unlike us and

limited in their abilities; therefore, it is okay to expect less of them. Indeed

we should expect less from them.

It is time for us not only

to stop expecting less from people with disabilities, but to stop rewarding

them for doing what everyone is expected to do as a full member of society.

Let's not give them just the right to an accessible voting place but also the

responsibility to go and vote.

How can our services help

people with disabilities if our personal expectations are that only the amazing

among our clients and students will be able to do what we take for granted in

people without disabilities? In a way it is amazing that people with disabilities

ever overcome those beliefs about themselves.

We need to eradicate that

attitude from our profession and also to set the world straight. Expect people

with disabilities to do. Expect them to use your cab, rent your apartment, come

into your store. Be prepared to accommodate them just as you would any good

customer.

We should save our amazement

for something really appropriate. We need to look at people with disabilities

as being basically like everyone else. Yes, sometimes they need our help, but

most of us could use help from time to time. Underneath their infinite variety,

human beings are the same with the same needs, desires, and dreams. If we truly

see the value in all people, we will cease to be amazed when they show their

individual worth.

Reprinted with permission

of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation, from RE:view, Volume 29, number

3, Fall, 1997, published by Heldref Publications 1319 18th St., N.W., Washington,

D.C. 20036-1802.