Inferiority

Many of my students with disabilities feel inferior to their peers in general education classes. They feel like damaged goods and that they aren’t good enough to succeed. This is the myth that I work hard at dispelling.

I want my students to know that they are as good as everyone else in the world and deserve to have good things happen to them. Even though they have a disability, they have other strengths that their peers might not have. For example, I had a broken radio in my car and two of my students knew how to work on cars so I let them replace the radio in my car. This was the first time that an adult let them do work on a car for them and I trusted them. I believed in them. Just because I didn’t know how to do that doesn’t mean that I’m inferior to them. When the radio was replaced and working well, they were learning to believe in themselves.

For many years, my students tried to hide the fact that they were in a self-contained special education class. When there was a class break and the bell rang for other students to change classes, my students would hide in the corners of my room so the other students couldn’t see them. Didn’t they realize that their friends already knew this? The only ones in denial were themselves. So, I made every student leave my class during a class break so they didn’t take up class time to use the bathroom because they wouldn’t go on break. I locked the door and wouldn’t let my students back in until right before the bell rang. I explained to them that if they acted like they had something to be ashamed of, then others would treat it this way.

My students had to learn that having a disability was not something they had control over. A learning/emotional disability was just like having diabetes or a prosthetic limb and was not anything they did on purpose. The important thing was learning how to live with this disability.

One way I worked hard to combat this mindset was by having a class motto. Every paper that they turned in to be graded had to have our class motto, “I am a Born Winner!” written on it. At first, they were embarrassed to write it. Then they just rolled their eyes and then slowly, they started to believe in it. They started holding their head up and accepting who they were. They stopped being embarrassed about themselves. What an amazing difference this made in moving forward in class. Suddenly success in school and life began to feel possible!

How do you handle this inferiority complex in your classroom? Please share.   

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash