BRUNSWICK — Aren’t all students entitled to an equal educational opportunity and to learn in a safe and comfortable environment free from bullying, harassment and repeated humiliation?

This seems like a rhetorical question. Unless we’re talking about students with disabilities, whether they be learning, emotional, behavioral, developmental or physical.

At a very young age, children notice how people are alike and how they are different, including peers with disabilities. And these differences are not considered equal.

Studies of preschoolers show that they will choose non-disabled playmates over those with disabilities. Similarly, research tells us that students have negative attitudes toward students with disabilities and view them as inferior.

It’s not surprising then that students with disabilities are bullied, verbally and physically harassed and teased at a far higher rate than peers without disabilities, all based on their disabilities alone. We know this fact statistically and anecdotally.

YOUNGER CHILDREN MORE VULNERABLE

Mistreatment of children with disabilities can leave emotional scars and cause lasting psychological damage. Elementary school children are the most vulnerable. One result is that students with disabilities drop out of school at a much higher rate than other students.

This is not a small piece of the pie. Approximately 56 million people in the country have some kind of disability, the largest minority group in the country at nearly one in five of us.

Disabilities have no bounds; they cross lines of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation and gender. People with disabilities have the lowest level of education and the highest rates of unemployment and poverty of any minority group.

We have a major crisis. In Maine, students with disabilities mirror the national average; they comprise 17 percent to 18 percent of the total student population. What are we doing to avert the crisis for them?

It appeared that the 2011 Maine Legislature would help avert the crisis with a comprehensive anti-bullying bill. But desserts and firecrackers were given leading roles this session, and anti-bullying was relegated to cameo status when the bill was sent back to the Education Committee for 2012 consideration.

Although the Legislature bailed, the path to anti-bullying success for students with disabilities is pretty straightforward. We can’t change the incidence or fact of disability, but we can change the way children think, feel, and act toward schoolmates with disabilities.

For eight years, from 2003 through 2011, I had the privilege to lead an organization that developed and delivered to Maine elementary schools a highly innovative disabilities awareness program. The organization’s motto is, “We change attitudes.” As Winston Churchill recognized, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”

The unique program does not include “show and tell” or disability simulations. Instead, the program leads students through interactive exercises, questioning and facilitation to discover on their own and from their peers the principles of respect, understanding and acceptance of people with all kinds of disabilities.

Through self-discovery, students take ownership of these principles.

In survey responses, at least 98 percent of nearly 1,000 educators have expressed that the program is critical to anti-bullying efforts, and increases sensitivity to and inclusion of students with all kinds of disabilities.

As an elementary school guidance counselor observed, “Educators work tirelessly through anti-bullying programs. Your disabilities awareness program is the jewel in the crown of what this state offers.”

The program has reached free of charge nearly 30,000 students in more than 120 Maine elementary schools (many multiple times). That’s a lot of crown jewels.

THE STUDENTS GET IT

With a gentle push from the program, the students also get it. A fourth grade student wrote, “I learned we are all equal and are all points on this Earth. It doesn’t matter if people have disabilities. Sometimes people with disabilities can do amazing things, more amazing than people without!”

Equal opportunity to a public education is the foundation of our educational system. Regardless of anti-bullying legislation, effective disabilities awareness programs provide a springboard for today’s young people to move further and faster than past generations to guarantee this opportunity for students with disabilities.

To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the next generation can create a world where students with disabilities are not judged by their disabilities, but rather by the content of their character. It’s as simple as that. 

– Special to the Telegram