Deidre
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‘If you grow up with people with disability [and] they go to school with you, you work with them, you won't have that bias or discrimination, we hope. Well, I think so.’
Deidre is a retired teacher.
‘I worked for 25 years in schools, both in special education and inclusive education, and primary and secondary,’ Deidre told the Royal Commission. ‘I'm lucky enough to have also worked in disability-specific units at a regional level, and also in leader roles in schools.’
Deidre’s son is autistic and has intellectual disability and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
‘I suppose what I'm trying to do is have a helicopter view over that time and look at some themes as I have seen them … It scares me that I look back to what my classroom was like in 1983 and … not a lot has happened … to enable inclusive practice.’
Deidre said the segregation of children with disability in schools is ‘a form of abuse and neglect’.
‘The segregation, particularly here in Queensland, is getting worse. [I’m] seeing more special schools being built.’
Although a special school can be inclusive and welcoming, Deidre says, ‘at big society level that is segregation’.
‘I don't think what we are doing at the moment is reflecting the society I think most of us would agree we want to live in.’
Diedre says many parents are now discouraged from enrolling children with disability at their neighbourhood school, particularly the local high school.
‘You are faced with the principal or a deputy that sort of goes, "Oh, you know, the school down the road, the special school is for you.”’
Deidre says that while parents are often told their children have a choice of where they go to school, ‘it's not a free choice’.
Deidre resigned from her teaching job because she had ‘a bit of disagreement’ over the lack of inclusion. She became an academic and then trained teachers.
‘I remember one student put up his hand and said, "[Deidre], I have never met a person with a disability. How do I talk to them?" That is a reflection of our society.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.