i’ve been thinking about SU alot and i think the existence of morps is something that isn’t talked about enough. morps are absolutely beautiful and i hope u all come to appreciate them as I did during my steven universe rewatch.
had an interaction a few days ago that i’m still thinking about. I was talking to two students about the Day of Silence protest coming up that friday, and both of them seemed interested but needed more information. Both of these students were disabled with relatively high support needs for communication, processing, and learning. At least one was intellectually disabled.
I explained the basic premise of Day of Silence, and one of the students asked me to repeat myself, explain again. I did this several times, and she was engaged with me, even if she wasn’t processing yet she clearly wanted to know more and was interested in what i was saying. Her para-educator then came over and said it wasn’t worth trying to explain anything to her because she wouldn’t understand.
The para-educator’s intentions were good, she wanted to save me time and believed i may not have known this student was disabled. But to say that, in front of the student, as though she couldn’t hear the comment, is rude at best and downright hostile at worst. Furthermore, to be in a position in which you are the one in charge of helping this person navigate the world, and to believe they only deserve information that you think they can digest, is such an awful way to view someone you are supposed to help. This student was asking me questions, she was listening, and honestly - who cares if in the end she didn’t understand? just because we don’t end up understanding something doesn’t mean we can’t engage with it.
Intellectually disabled individuals and disabled individuals in general are not infants, they’re not incapable of learning or connecting with others. Yes, they may need extra help, and yes, some topics may be too complex for them to tackle, but let the individual decide that for themselves.
TLDR: The person who was supposed to be helping an intellectually disabled student navigate the world decided for that student what they could understand. In doing so, she projected her beliefs about the students abilities and overshadowed the student’s ability to define her own boundaries. Intellectually disabled people deserve the autonomy to decide for themselves what they want to engage with at a given time, not told they are too dumb to understand.