Disability Pride Month: A Reflection on Disability History to Help Change the Future
By: Lily Gullion, Office of Special Education Programs Intern and Ph.D. Candidate
July is Disability Pride month, which celebrates disability and encourages reflection on the moments in history that have shaped the daily lives and opportunities of individuals with disabilities.
When I was in school, I never learned about disability history or talked about disability outside of the medical model. In undergrad, I took classes where there were many potential times to learn about disability history – American history, sociology, child development, public health – but the voices and stories of people with disabilities were never apparent.
As I pursued my graduate degree in occupational therapy, I interacted with disabled adults who talked about their experiences living in the U.S. and what their disabilities meant to them. Even still, I sat through abstract and brief lessons about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, but I didn’t place the individuals I met within their sociopolitical context.
It wasn’t until I worked with children in public schools as an occupational therapist (OT) that I started seeing how disability history is intimately tied with the daily lives of all. [...]