"From Where I Sit" Video Series

Yvette's Story – Faculty Response Video Transcript

Dr. Carolina Serna:
I really like the point that Yvette made about maintaining the same academic expectation for all students regardless of what our perceptions are of their abilities, and I'm also thinking — I think what you said, John, also brings to mind for me children at the elementary school level with physical disabilities and there's been a movement now to involve them more in the classroom instead of keeping them in a separate program, and I'm thinking of a student last year who had to use something that looked like crutches, but she was able to move around somewhat and the way that the teacher and the students just included her in everything that was going on, and they were actually working with stations, so the kids had to move from place to place, and I thought it was great — but for this little girl her mother was always there. So, that must have been her support, and she was like in second grade, but I thought, again, that at a very young age we need to address these issues and, again, it goes back to these "habits of mind" and for teachers the professional dispositions of being able — and developing that attitude of being very sensitive to these issues. So, yeah, I really enjoyed Yvette's story. I'm glad she shared it.

Dr. John Berteaux: She made me think of something — this one made me think of something I'd forgotten about which is an interesting example. I was leaving an elevator one day at the school that I — San Diego State that I taught before there were elevators in some of the buildings. So, I was coming down an elevator. We were leaving the building and there were the doors that you pushed the button, and it opens up. There was a young lady who was leaving with me in a wheelchair, and I looked at her, and I said, "Let me get the door." I said, "I know I don't have to get the door, but let me get it anyway, just humor me," is what I said to her. Now, sounds very funny but really what it was it was my own discomfort that I was masking there and that's part of the issue here is dealing with our own discomfort with these kinds of things because, on the one hand, I didn't want — I'm saying to myself — put it another way. I'm saying to myself, well, I can't help a lot because I know that people with disabilities don't want to be helped a lot but on the other hand I should be opening the door, you know, and so there I was trapped in the middle, and a lot of that, I think, goes on and that's why things, I think, sometimes are overlooked that maybe shouldn't be overlooked.

Dr. Carolina Serna:
How important it is for us as faculty to take advantage of the professional development that is available, and, John, I don't know if you remember, I think it was our first year because we started at the same time here. There was a workshop that told us, I think, through Troy Challenger's, office that explained a program where the books are put in — one of the students mentioned it, that the books are essentially put on some sort of an auditory — a CD and I forget — I want to see it was Kurtzwhile —

Prompter:
Kurzweil.

Dr. Carolina Serna:
Kurrzweil. It's — I remember going to this workshop and not really understanding what it was all about and then later that next semester this student that I had needed that service. So, then I decided it was so great that I had agreed to participate and learn more.

Dr. John Bertreaux:
You've brought in physical disabilities, the invisible disabilities, the obviously visible physical disabilities with Yvette and what you find is that each of the disabilities is going to — some things overlap. The getting your textbooks early is something that everyone here has mentioned —

Dr. Carolina Serna:
Yes.

Dr. John Bertreaux:
— commented on, but some things are very different and so, you're going to have to be sensitive, and it's not a one size fits all kind of thing.