#cripteaching

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How having a physical disability and dealing with mental health issues has positively influenced my teaching

Written and posted on February 5th, 2022

Content warning : This post contains a brief description of intense OCD symptoms, mention of an eating disorder, anxiety and depression.

Before I started teaching college French in the fall of 2018, I wondered (and worried) that my students might treat my differently because I have Cerebral Palsy. I was worried that maybe they would take me less seriously perhaps.

I started teaching and realized that, at least as far as I can tell, my physical disability does not change how they see me. I am now in my fifth term of teaching college students. They respect me, enjoy me and see me as their professor who happens to be disabled.

I remember a story my mom told me in my first year of teaching. She has her own housecleaning business and as it turns out, I think the grandson of one of her clients ended up being in my class. He was telling my mom about this French teacher he had, how she was kind, funny and he thought she was a good teacher. My mom asked if this teacher used a mobility scooter. He said yes, and then my mom told him that this person was her daughter. She told me this story because she said that, when my student was talking about me, he didn’t even mention my disability until my mom brought it up. Meaning that I guess he just saw it as part of me but not necessarily the first thing he thought of. I’m not saying that my disability is not important - there are places for it to be front and center, such as on this blog. I’m just used to that being one of the first things people notice and take with them, and it was cool that for this student it was not the first thing when he described me.

I think in my first year of teaching, I made a point to briefly tell my students about my physical disability just so that they would know. But this year so far, I kind of forgot at the beginning of the term and realized that they don’t necessarily need to know that, unless it comes up or I feel like telling them.

 I think that having a physical disability has influenced my relationships with my students in a positive way. It has made me want to make sure that my students with various disabilities are getting the support they need from the Disability Resource Center at our university, and it has made me feel more comfortable talking with students about these things. 

So far, I have not had a physically disabled student that I was aware of, but if and when I do, I will help them to the best of my ability. I have only had a few students who have needed accommodations and from what I could tell, had either learning disabilities or anxiety.  Accommodations forms do not explicitly state a person’s disabilities or conditions, so I only know if students disclose this to me.

 I had one student last term who was in her early 30s and just within the last year got diagnosed with ADHD. She had asked me if she could stand in class because sitting for long periods made it hard to concentrate. I said of course, and then wrote her an email letting me know about how to get set up with accommodations. She thanked me for sharing that and said that she had no idea what was even available to her because this was her first time in college with this diagnosis. 

Having my own challenges with mental health has definitely impacted how I respond to students dealing with similar things. I have had anxiety since I was young, have had challenges with an eating disorder (ARFID), have had some situational depression and I had an episode of intense OCD when I was 26, in 2017. As I mentioned in my last post, when I started grad school, I was coming down from my very intense OCD period. That spring and summer, things were so bad that I washed my hands until they bled, could not sit down anywhere and could not hug my family members or touch our cats because I was so afraid of contamination. I ended up being able to stay in school with a reduced workload, and this saved me. Being at school and having to be in the world meant that I focused less on my compulsions. I was also taking medication and going to therapy at the same time, but school helped a lot. 

Needless to say, these experiences have made it so that, as a teacher, I have a soft spot in my heart for students dealing with mental health issues, and I want to make sure that they can get resources if they need them. One interesting thing about having a physical disability and teaching kids online (I teach and tutor French on Zoom) is that they cannot tell that I am disabled, because I am usually sitting. For the first time in my life maybe, when I started this job online in 2020, my disability was sort of hidden in a way. I have told some of my students about my Cerebral Palsy, but I get to decide to tell them, which is usually not the case. My Cerebral Palsy is pretty visible and I use mobility devices. So people see it usually and I don’t have a choice. 

As far as how my physical disability affects the physical tasks that able-bodied teachers normally do, it doesn’t change too much for me. I have a hard time passing out papers, and it takes me longer to walk around the room (not doing this because of COVID right now). I can stand for my whole class period - this surprised me, since it’s an hour and 50 minutes. I can use the computer and operate my slideshow with my lessons. It is harder for me to write on whiteboards and chalkboards because I am standing and left-handed (and only 5 foot tall). So instead, I just use a Google Doc or a new slide in my slideshow as a whiteboard.

Are you a disabled teacher? How does your disability/s or condition/s influence your teaching? I never had any disabled teachers (that I was aware of) so I hope to show others that you can be disabled and a teacher, and maybe inspire some people who want to teach (disabled or not). Doing my job as a teacher has increased my independence so much as well.

See you in the next post!