It Didn’t Start That Way…

Many people who work in disability services are there because of someone they love. It didn’t start that way with me. I grew up in a small city where my parents, my Dad particularly, were intimately involved in advocacy and fighting for disability rights. Their reason? My oldest sister, Sue.

When I went to find my first summer job I didn’t want to work in the disability community, I wanted a typing job because I aced it at school. That didn’t happen. First, I didn’t type fast enough and second, I was known in my community as Doug and Barb’s kid so I must know what I’m doing, right? Thus started my summer jobs for the next number of summers as a recreational counsellor taking adults to camp and doing fun things in our small city all summer long. Turned out that wasn’t so bad. I changed my mind then right? Nope.

Fast forward to finishing my elementary education degree in the late 1980’s. There was an abundance of teachers back then and not so many jobs. I had many interviews, even one where I took a Greyhound for many hours to then fly into a northern Manitoba community. Then I had one for a teaching job with students with disabilities in a segregated class (they all were back then). I was invited to their separate graduation that spring which was held every two years because they didn’t have enough students to justify it every year. I was horrified! I didn’t have any other offers on the table and I wasn’t qualified, which I kept telling them, but they didn’t have anyone else who had even laid eyes on a disabled teen before, so the job was mine.

For two years I worked in that job as a special education teacher, starting by integrating my students into the main graduation and giving them roles in the school play. I worked my summers to get qualified as a special education teacher.

After those two years I was hooked. Why? I’d grown up thinking all disabled kids grew up in a family like mine. A family where parents advocated for their disabled kid to be included in the local schools. A family where one of your parents was on local, provincial, and national associations to advocate outside your city. A family where one of your parents worked outside their regular job to start to de-institutionalize residents from your local institution (that is finally almost closed, 40+ years later). A family where a parent worked hard to make sure your disabled sibling participated in activities like 4H. A family where a parent held down the home front while the other one did all that advocacy. A family where you went on family holidays because that’s what families do. A family where your disabled sibling didn’t spend one day in that local institution because your parents loved her the same as they loved all their kids. A family where your disabled sister moved to a bigger community at 21 so that she could have more things available to her to be more independent and she wouldn’t always be Doug and Barb’s kid. A family where your Mom shared years later that she hadn’t slept for months after that move! A family that I now realize held a lot of privilege as educated, white folks.

When I started teaching I thought all families were like mine. They aren’t. They aren’t for so many reasons, many that I can never be fully privy to or even truly understand. Those families and those students needed me to support them in ways that I couldn’t ever fully anticipate, not because I’m the “expert”, but because I cared enough to listen and try. The one thing I did know was that most of those students had families, of all definitions, who loved them and supported them in whatever way they were able. Some students didn’t and those students needed me to listen even more carefully. Not to fix them, but to provide them with a safe place at school, care, and the dedication to expand their worlds as much as I was able.

Thirty some years later, I’m still doing the work. My path has been winding and I’ve long been out of public education as a teacher. The reasons I keep doing it remain though. It started from a place of love, in my home. My role as a sibling has changed to being more about managing systems and services for my sister Sue, but my love for her hasn’t changed. The work I do gives me a glimpse into so many people’s lives. For that I am truly honoured.

It didn’t start that way…

December, 2023