Cripping School Curricula: 20 Ways to Re-Teach Disability
Main Article Content
Keywords
media, curriculum, disability studies in education
Abstract
As instructors of a graduate level course about using film to re-teach disability, we deliberately set out to “crip” typical school curricula from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Utilizing disability studies to open up alternative understandings and reconceptualizations of disability, we explored feature films and documentaries, juxtaposing them with commonplace texts and activities found in school curricula. In doing so, we sought to challenge any simplistic notions of disability and instead cultivate knowledge of a powerful, and largely misunderstood aspect of human experience. The article incorporates twenty suggestions to re-teach disability that arose from the course. These ideas provide educators and other individuals with a set of pedagogical tools and approaches to enrich, complicate, challenge, clarify, and above all, expand narrowly perceived and defined conceptions of disability found within the discourse of schooling.
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David J. Connor, Associate Professor, Learning Disabilities Masters Degree Program, Hunter College
David J. Connor is an Associate Professor in the Learning Disabilities Masters Degree Program at Hunter College, City University of New York. He has recently co-authored a book with Beth Ferri, Reading Resistance: Discourses of Exclusion in the Desegregation and Inclusion Debates (Peter Lang) and is working on another book titled “Urban Narratives: Life at the Intersections of Learning Disability, Race and Social Class,” featuring first person narratives of life at the intersections of learning disability, race, and social class. His research interests include learning disabilities and inclusive education.
Lynne Bejoian, Associate Professor, Inclusive Education and Disability Studies Masters Degree Programs, Teachers College, Columbia University
Dr. Lynne Bejoian is an Associate Professor in the Inclusive Education and Disability Studies Masters Degree Programs at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has recently co-edited an issue of Equity & Excellence in Education, called “Narrating Disability: Pedagogical Imperatives” (June 2006). Her research interests include spirituality and disability, disability in the media, and inclusive education.