On Thursday, April 3rd, the Disability Rights Club held its annual assembly. Themed “Disabilities: Visible and Invisible”, the assembly addressed a wide range of disabilities present both at Fieldston and the broader world, along with the perceptions and challenges that accompany them. To start off the program, the audience listened to a beautiful recording of a girl singing the national anthem. Afterwards, club leaders Jessalyn Gore (VI) and Max Kassan (VI) revealed that the singer was actually a blind seventeen-year-old girl with a disability that can cause severe skin conditions and seizures. This inspired thoughts about how what we see affects our understanding of a person’s disabilities.
Videos of student interviews have become a popular staple at the weekly Thursday assemblies, and not without reason. They help to establish and flesh out popular opinions regarding an issue that will be discussed over the course of the assembly. The videos shown throughout this assembly did just that; students not affiliated with the Disability Rights Club answered questions such as “What does a disability look like?” “Have you ever felt disabled?” and “Is Fieldston an accommodating and comfortable place for students with disabilities?” The candid responses to these questions helped lay a foundation for the moving speeches that followed.
Roma Murphy, form IV, delivered a thought-provoking talk in which she theorized that it may be easier to have a physical disability than a mental one. Referencing her walking apparatus, Murphy explained that she feels “really privileged to have to lug this thing around. It’s like a portable doctor’s note.” The existence of her walking disability is never doubted in the way that some less visible ones are. We don’t often think about physical disabilities in this way, and Roma’s point raises some interesting questions: While as a community, we strive to be accepting of disabilities that we can see, why shouldn’t this attitude carry over to the less visible ones too?
Jim Cullen, head of the history department, gave another interesting speech. Sharing the story of his best friend, Gordon Sterling (a talented software engineer), he explained that Mr. Sterling has muscular dystrophy, a disability which turns muscle into fat. He spoke with deep sincerity about accompanying Mr. Sterling to the hospital, saying that “there was nowhere else I would rather be at that moment than beside him.” He then talked about Mr. Sterling’s effect on his own life and what we can learn from him, concluding optimistically that “if we can adapt and if we can overcome our fears, among them losing that which we hold dear, then maybe there’s hope for us all.” This brought up another important topic regarding disabilities: fear. Be that fear of saying the wrong thing, not understanding somebody different, or, as Mr. Cullen points out, of losing something.
Many other speakers contributed to this powerful assembly. Shai Goodman, form V, spoke about her work with an organization that sets up baseball games for disabled children coached by non-disabled people of all ages. She explained how this work has influenced her belief that separating disabled and non-disabled people in our society limits what we can achieve. Danielle Sutton, form V, expressed her frustration with the snap judgments that many people make about people with disabilities, referring to a story about her uncle.
Together, all of these speeches widened the often oversimplified topic of disabilities to include both the huge variety of disabilities, and the many different opinions regarding them. As with most assemblies at Fieldston, the Disability Rights Club and the community at large are hopeful that this very relevant discussion will extend beyond the auditorium and into our everyday lives.
