Music :
Latin pop music...
Diana :
Welcome to the Beyond Awareness: Disability Awareness That Matters podcast. Here, you will find a safe space to learn and grow with leaders in education, Disability Studies, disability, advocacy, and diversity, equity and inclusion conversations. Specifically, we look at how disability fits into diversity, equity and inclusion, and how to frame disability awareness. In the context of educating K through 12 communities, this podcast serves educators, parents, and community members who strive to learn and or teach about disability in a research-based and respectful way. Moving beyond simple awareness and diving into inclusive and socially responsive conversations. Thank you for joining us today. Now let's go Beyond Awareness.
Diana :
So I'm so excited to have my esteemed guest, Jeff Moyer, here with us today. Jeff, hi!
Jeff :
Hello, Diana. How nice of you to invite me to participate in your very important work.
Diana :
Thank you, Jeff. Well, I would love for you to just start with a self-introduction. What is it about you that our listeners who are educators, parents, administrators, and community members who want to know the best way to do disability awareness? What should they know about you?
Jeff :
Well, my name is Jeff Moyer. I was born in 1949 and in the summer of 1954, I had a severe case of measles that caused my vision to begin to deteriorate. Two weeks later, my younger brother was born mark with a severe cognitive disability. And I watched the cruelty in the neighborhood spiral. There were no schools would accept him by the time he was nine. Mark was institutionalized in a ghastly state institution. So the vector of my life has had really two strong components, my own experience with disability and the disability rights movement. I was involved as the Troubadour, both in civil rights. And then in disability rights, the 5 0 4 demonstration, I played following the signing of the ADA, and I've developed a number of materials for schools on disability, awareness and consciousness that are musical based activities and a play and so forth. And those are going to be re-introduced called a toolbox, a tool kit for social inclusion in about mid year, 2022. But I got my younger brother out of the institution and established a supportive living home for him and supported him until his passing in 2014. So I have been a strong disability rights advocate, a member of the ADA implementation network and a great believer in the importance of developing inclusive schools and communities.
Diana :
Wow. Thank you so much, Jeff. When you said you got your brother mark out of the institution, I just wanted to yell and cheer for you. I know what that takes. We're we're in alignment about the importance of that.
Jeff :
If anyone would know, you would, Diana. You're, you're one of the great champions in that regard.
Diana :
Thank you, Jeff. Well, Jeff, you and I met somehow fortuitously many years ago and we've stayed connected and I'm just so honored that you would take time to be here. You have done a lot in your life for both for your brother and for advocating for yourself and so many others. And then, you know, being that troubadour of the disability rights movement of the ADA and writing the ADA Anthem and just really encouraging the movement along through your passion, which is music. And now your passion, which is sharing disability awareness from a perspective of empowerment and dignity and respect for all people. And so with that said, what would you say is your vision for inclusion in education and disability awareness and inclusion in education?
Jeff :
Well, inclusion in its best is a whole school activity. The administration has to buy in and there has to be planning and kids with disabilities need to be properly supported. What seems to be happening is a backward slide toward dumping kids into classes without supports. And when you get a child who is for whatever reason disruptive, that's going to cause a ripple in the social fabric and cause a lot of negative attitudes toward that kid. So we need to be conscious about other children's experience, but develop schools where in not only are kids supported academically in the classroom, but I think most importantly supported so that there is social inclusion and that we develop means through which kids with and without disabilities can be together successfully out of the classroom. And that's where bullying occurs. And we know the kids with disabilities are targets and cyber bullying is such a crisis in our country. So we need to be thinking about every aspect of engagement of student to student.
Diana :
What do you see as some of the barriers to that movement towards connectedness, towards inclusion?
Jeff :
Well, as I said, I think that one of the first and worst is dumping of kids into classrooms without proper supports and you know, putting a child in a wheelchair for the day and not talking to them about the feelings that go along with all the confinement and restrictions in the built environment and so forth. The emotional side of the experience disability awareness should be thinking about the whole person with a disability and the, the understanding of children without disabilities. And we need to be teaching kindness and patience and that sometimes children or adults with disabilities need to be understood from a compassionate standpoint. So I think we need to be teaching about the whole people and looking at people with disabilities teaching about disability from that standpoint, really from a spiritual standpoint. Mm.
Diana :
I love that. You know, you mentioned, you know, having somebody in a wheelchair for a day so much of the research shows that that's actually more harmful than helpful because we are not addressing that whole person and we're not addressing societal barriers that cause disabling. So you can, you can, you know, feel what it's like to be in a wheelchair for that day, but that doesn't actually teach you what it's like to go through life every day and to not have access to a variety of spaces and opportunities and to have society look down on you, either as somebody who's inspirational simply for getting up in the morning or, or to be somebody who's to be pitied every day and the ableism that goes along with that wheelchair or that visible disability. And so what you said is perfect, is looking at the whole person, looking at people spiritually, looking in, in the context of compassion and empathy, and seeing that we have the power to empower or disable people through our attitudes, through our actions, through how committed we are to ensuring that there's access for everybody, because that access is how we demonstrate love, right?
Diana :
That's how we show that we want, that we believe everybody belongs when we ensure that there's access in our community.
Jeff :
Well-Stated.
Diana :
Thank you, Jeff. Well, you started it, so, okay. So, so that's, you know, what do you think we have to do? Like what specific things can we teach or share with our students in our classrooms or our children in our homes? What kinds of conversations should we be having in order to you know is it the word stoke the fire or yeah, to, to have that, that understanding become part of children's thinking process?
Jeff :
Well, the, the toolkit for social inclusion that I'll be teaching beginning of the middle of this year, next year includes an undertaking called project support that I was involved with for many years in Ohio, where it was conceived. And that's the development of afterschool clubs where children get together for social engagement and as a club to provide community service. And also along the line, there can be academic tutoring if need be, but to bring together kids so that they're not just in the classroom, but they get to know each other as kids, as human beings, as, as young people. And I've seen this work in ways that are, are absolutely remarkable. When you look at the life experience. For example, there was a, a club set or developed in a high school developed by a cheerleader and her brother who had down syndrome and the brother was being targeted, a great deal by bullying.
Jeff :
And what they did was together, start the club. And because of her privilege as a cheerleader, she attracted other high-end kids and they developed a, a very strong club and they got to know this boy with down syndrome, as they graduated, went into adult life, those relationships were maintained. And one of the girls in the club asked the boy with down syndrome who had become a genuine friend to her to stand up for her as best man at her wedding and was God father to her son and was hired at Walmart by the supervisor who had known him in the project support club. So it's a lifelong experience when you can bring young people together and teach social cohesion through life experience. So it goes beyond just the here's, what that disability is and blah, blah, blah. But when you do begin with that point to the greatest degree possible, have the person with a disability, do the teaching. And that empowers that person, it normalizes the disability and it helps of course develop all kinds of skills like public speaking, but it also is a way that other young people can see that kid as a whole human being.
Jeff :
Yeah. That's
Jeff :
Might not be clear entirely, but you get the drift.
Diana :
Yeah. Well, it's a Testament to you know, genuine, authentic, meaningful relationships, not just not just a pretend one for one night, you know, where you're going to take somebody to the prom out of pity for them. You know, but there was actually a relationship developed to the extent that he was her best man at her wedding and the godfather to her child that says a lot for the emphasis and the opportunity that was there and the intentionality behind let's just bring people together so that they can essentially fall in love with each other and be friends, not, not romantically fall in love, but...
Jeff :
Isn't that well-put? Yeah.
Diana :
Yeah. I love that so much. You know, and I think that there's so much resistance to inclusion sometimes when there's fear, "I don't have my special ed degree. I don't know how to include these, these quote-unquote, these kids in my classroom. I'm not sure what to do. I wouldn't know what to say." And what you said is allowing the, the people with disabilities to lead the way, to be the teachers, is often the best that we can do, and allow those natural relationships to form between students of diverse ranges of ability. Uto just get to know each other.
Jeff :
I do think it has to be socially engineered. I don't think you can just throw kids together. There has to be really watching and someone who an adult doesn't have to be a special educator. In fact, they did a study, I'm a social worker by training, and there was a study done. It took a group of people who were social workers and a group of people who are not, but they wanted to help in a human way. And they gave them both a caseload of, of equal equal weight, whatever the outcomes were the same, because it wasn't about the special training. It was about the intention. So an educator who wants to teach children, all they have to think about is, okay, how do you teach people to be together in a way that is humane and kind, and compassionate and thoughtful about everyone's needs? So if you, if you begin at that standpoint, you don't have to have a special degree. All you have to have is heart intelligence.
Diana :
Yeah. And get to know people in a deep and respectful way. You know, you said socially engineered. It is it's necessary sometimes. And I, I wanna, I wanna kind of unpack that, you know, so socially engineered, I think what you're saying, because I know you is you want to be responsible. You don't want to just dump people. You know, people with some significant support needs together in a class, in a general education classroom with an untrained teacher, an unsupported teacher. Of course, you don't want to do that. That wouldn't be fair for anybody. However, if you are responsible in making sure that, you know what is important to focus on and that you have the right supports there so that, because it can be scary sometimes when you're unfamiliar or you're overwhelmed, or you feel like you're being watched and judged. So it's important that there are people who have that intentionality, and who understand, who understand what ableism is and want to make sure that they're being, they're modeling anti-ableism and they're modeling inclusion.
Diana :
And they're modeling that empathy that you're talking about and that love and that kindness. Sometimes all it takes is a teacher who, when there is a behavioral outburst, or something that happens that demonstrates, oh, we were not creating access for all of our students. Wow. Let's recognize that, let's acknowledge it, and let's fix it together. What can we do to fix that together so that everyone feels a sense of belonging that everybody's included, you know, to be able to model that, that on the spot, teachable moment love for everybody, I think is really important. And that teachers trained or untrained, you know, in special education that they know that it's okay to not know all the answers and to work it out together.
Jeff :
Special educators don't know all the answers either.
Diana :
Right? And sometimes, especially don't know all the answers because the training has not it's been very prescriptive and it hasn't been as humanizing as it should be.
Jeff :
You know, one of the things that that I do, and when I work in schools is I develop, once we've gotten through the, kind of the basics with kids (interruption by digital device speaking in background...Jeff laughing while turning off device)
Diana :
That's okay. We love assistive technology here.
Jeff :
It has a mind of its own. I bumped it and it started to talk. Anyway, what I was saying is that to develop an in children, understandings, and then to develop in the same kids commitments to what they're going to do. So I developed something called a contract for social support. And it, it talks about, I understand that when people are excluded, this happens, I understand that there are ways of speaking that are offensive. And there are, I think, eight understandings, and then eight commitments to here is what I am going to do. I commit to only being a part of clubs that are open to everybody. I commit to only using language that is respectful. I commit to standing up for other people. And when I hear people being ridiculed, I will stand up and say, that's ridicule. And when you, when you do that, when, when children actually sign a contract, that this is the way I'm going to choose to live, then you've raised up the whole idea to a matter of personal integrity and community integrity. When people see that this is something that everyone in the room has signed and everyone has agreed to these principles, then those principles become the conversation point when someone is violating one of those precepts that everyone has agreed to. But that, that can be a very effective way to bring the conversation into the realm of personal responsibility.
Diana :
I love that so much, Jeff. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. What, and what a beautiful structure and example to set for administration and for teaching professionals. You know, sometimes you just don't know exactly what to say or how to structure it, what to do, and to have that resource that you can follow with your class, with your club, with your students. What a valuable tool. So thank you for sharing that.
Jeff :
You're welcome.
Diana :
All right. Well, Jeff Moyer, any last words of wisdom?
Jeff :
Again, I, I think that the, the emphasis that w w we should be attending to is what happens socially between kids and that classroom inclusion is important and disability awareness, disability consciousness is important, but what happens when the teacher is not looking is where kids live and breathe. And my emphasis through my career has been on social inclusion. So my toolkit for social inclusion involves music based materials, because music addresses our thinking, our feeling and our higher nature when the music is elevated and addresses matters of consequence. And I think that using cultural materials, like music and inclusive activities that are out of the classroom, like for example, the, the performance of a play, and they do have a play that I'm writing several versions for on what happens in schools, concerning bullying, cyber bullying, and, and the, the, the very serious outcomes for kids.
Jeff :
When we address social inclusion, then we're going to be developing young people whose, who are self-directed and self-motivated, and that's what our ultimate goal should be in education is not only to develop understanding scholarship, but social understanding and social behavior that will be lifelong developing of, of, of skills that will be lifelong and help our whole community and culture move forward and work counter to the lowering of the, the moral bar that has happened over the last several decades when ridicule of people with disabilities seems to be acceptable. And it it's, that's where we need to begin. And the, our goal should be graduating kids out of whatever grade with skills appropriate to carry them successfully with all of their peers.
Diana :
Hmm. Wonderful. Thank you, Jeff. So where can my listeners find you? How can they access what you have to offer Jeff
Jeff :
Jeff moyer.com,
Diana :
Jeff moyer.com. And you also have a show that you didn't mention earlier.
Jeff :
I do the Jeff Moyer show where people first, the Jeff Moyer shows on YouTube. We are, we have 17 shows in the can and we'll be running through the end of the year through show 20, and then we're going to set that on the shelf, but they will be available. And I do know college professors that are using them, the shows as, as teaching materials for their students, because every show we address a different aspect of the human experience of living with disability in, through, through many regards through interviews and reading and Mo my, my discussion of what I've learned through my 72 years
Diana :
Valuable insights that you have Jeff, and I love the term, "the human experience of disability." Thank you.
Jeff :
You're welcome, Diana. And thank you for this another, yet another brick in the wall that you are building in the foundation, that will be for many teachers, their understanding of how to be successful.
Diana :
Thank you, Jeff.
Jeff :
You're Welcome, Diana. Thank you.
Diana :
Thank you for tuning into this episode of Beyond Awareness, Disability Awareness That Matters. If this was helpful to you, be sure to subscribe, rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. You can also follow me Diana on Instagram @dianapastoracarson and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/GoBeyondAwareness. Or you can go to my website for more information at www.DianaPastoraCarson.com. My books include Beyond Awareness: Bringing Disability into Diversity Work in K-12 Schools and Communities, as well as my children's book, Ed Roberts: Champion of Disability Rights. They can both be found on Amazon. For your free Beyond Awareness resource called the "5 Keys to Going Beyond Awareness," simply go to www.GoBeyondAwareness.com/keys. This podcast transcription and podcast guest information can be found in the show notes. Intro and outro music has been provided courtesy of Emmanuel Castro. Thank you again for joining me. Be well, be a lifelong learner and let's be inclusive. See you next time.
Music :
Latin pop music...
