AIBU to say that not everything can be inclusive all the time?

[Summeriscumin]

A former student has asked for advice and I'm a bit stumped.

She has been running a drama club for 11 - 16 year olds in the village hall. The aim is an introduction to various theatre and circus skills.

These include vocal skills, breathing exercises, trust exercises, mime, juggling, acro, improvisation, script reading aloud, devising scenes and basic contemporary dance skills. It's been going very well and the subs are paying for the hall hire, so she isn't out of pocket.

But she's afraid she's going to have to give it up. A mum came along her son, a wheelchair user, asking to join and he was welcomed. My friend (C) explained what the sessions entailed and said there may be some that her son may not be able to participate in. Specifically she meant the energetic dance stuff and some circus skills and there was an issue with some trust exercises. - DCs have their eyes closed and move around and the wheelchair could prove dangerous.

The lad came for a couple of weeks and seemed to really enjoy it and C tried to make it as inclusive as possible without depriving the others of their skills training. They work in small groups so she always made sure there was a group he could work with.

However, this week the mother has said that her son must be included in everything or it's discrimination and that she should stop the exercises that he cannot participate in.

C says she may as well just give it up as that's just not fair on the others.

AIBU in thinking this mother is BU? I feel so sorry for C who has done her best to include the lad.

Honestly some people are crazy. It’s a fact of life that not everyone can do everything at all times. Things can and should be adapted and adjusted as far as they can be but still allowing the original thing to happen.

If there was a class teaching calligraphy and someone wanted to attend who could not physically write and used a computer to type words, what would happen? Would the whole class now have to use computers? Like using paint app rather than a pen? Who would buy the computers for the whole class? What if the disabled person physically could not write and used technology to use their eyes to speak and write? Should the whole class actually be somehow learning calligraphy using their eyes via technology?

I’m autistic. There are many things I can’t do in life. And quite honestly, many things I absolutely shouldn’t do because of it. I’m very academically intelligent. But you absolutely would not want me in certain jobs. And it would be ridiculous for me to try and squeeze myself into certain roles because no matter how many adjustments they make I’m still going to be shit at it.

Would you, hypothetically speaking, be so adamant if the situation were reversed.
Say if an able bodied or minded child were to attend a class where the specific focus was the disability ?
Would it then be ok to insist on limiting the time and energy the instructor put into the original focus of the class, ie disability inclusion, to ensure that the able bodied child participated to the utmost of their ability?
Would it be ok to say continually make the disabled children wait around while the instructor explained a different skill to the able bodied child? Would you complain that the able bodied child was getting bored because the activity wasn’t geared up to them in its entirety?

I understand that this is provocative, but inclusion is about understanding, wanting to be in a space with people who understand and acknowledge that being with people who are different to themselves, who think and act differently is a positive thing where everyone can benefit.
It comes from also knowing that at other times, it’s equally ok to do things and share spaces with people who are more similar to us, where we can be ourselves in a different way, be it through language, culture, beliefs or ability/disability.

It reminds me of how severely disabled Autistic children and their parents are now less welcome
in spaces designed for Autism.

So there is no point in the class where the child has nothing to do or is doing an activity by themselves because at any given moment at most one of multiple groups is doing this chorus line thing. And C has either adapted all other activities or they are already accessible. I mean, that seems pretty fine to me.

I'd even wonder if dropping the chorus line thing would actually make things better for the child. It sounds like it's a key attraction for a decent number of the regulars. Would enough stay to keep the class viable without it? I also don't imagine it would take Miss Marple to figure out why it was ditched if C does give in.

Sounds like C is doing a great thing in running this class and it's a shame more people don't do this sort of thing.

Not everything is inclusive but she can make adjustments so he's not sat there feeling left out.

FYI just so you are aware saying someone in a wheelchair is a health and safety issue has historically been used to exclude disabled people. It's similar calling a black woman "aggressive" or saying curry smells. Just so you are aware.

It's great that you're so content to be excluded and sidelined, but that clearly doesn't apply to all disabled people. Some of us aren't happy to wait patiently in the hope of being graciously thrown the odd crumb of accessibility when able-bodied people think we've earned it by being sufficiently docile and uncomplaining.
I've no idea when you became disabled but I'm betting it was later in life and that you have no experience of being a disabled child having to learn the heartbreaking lesson that very many people are going to see you as an inconvenience or a burden and that you'll have to watch as your friends and peers cheerfully get involved in games and activities where there is no place for you. I have been disabled all my life and maybe I feel so bad for this little boy because I was that kid once and it's not nice to always be the odd one out. Maybe teaching kids to be tolerant, thoughtful and inclusive is as important a life lesson as dance, juggling and mime.
I still think it was utterly outrageous of your friend to suggest that this child was a health and safety risk.
Also, as someone who has been completely blind since birth, I might suggest that a jolly game in which kids stagger around pretending to be blind for fun is a bit tasteless, but I'm sure you and other posters would think that was political correctness gone mad!

@Everlore
You seem to be a very angry person. It must be exhausting.

No need to feel sorry for the lad. He’s loving the classes. It’s his mother who isn’t.

The eyes closed exercise is one used in theatre groups for years. It’s one of many trust exercises that they do. As a wheelchair user I would not want to be propelling myself around a room where all have their eyes closed. Outrageous to suggest it wouldn’t be unsafe, in my opinion. In the days when I could walk I’ve been knocked off balance by a poorly driven wheelchair or buggy.

And they aren’t “pretending to be blind and staggering around” but I expect you know that and just want to stir the pot and be snarky.

We aren’t going to agree. I am comforted by the fact that you are very much in the minority.

I'm betting it was later in life and that you have no experience of being a disabled child having to learn the heartbreaking lesson that very many people are going to see you as an inconvenience

Good lord. I became 'disabled' later in life but have discovered, with recent knowledge, that I'm probably dyspraxic with ADHD. I used to be put on the outfield for cricket and in goal defence for hockey - entirely rational, given my hopeless inability to judge the force/speed of an incoming ball and to hit one at the right moment, in the right angle, to further my team's prospects. Other girls were way better at all that than I was.

Should I have been put in to bat/attack instead of them? Well, yeah, if a team scored points for some numpty flailing wildly with no sense of direction. That would be a different game, not the game in hand.

In different modalities, I was brilliant at interpretive dance and at comic drama (my Lady Bracknell was legendary!) Each child has to find their forte(s).

The role of their responsible adults is to identify their talents and abilities, to find and encourage opportunities for them to flourish and to expand their horizons. Not to limit the horizons of other children until they're all working to the lowest common factor.

Not everything is inclusive but she can make adjustments so he's not sat there feeling left out.

She has so he isn't.

Yes, I do get angry when I hear about disabled children being discriminated against, especially when grown adults, who should know better, are trying to justify it. I think everyone should be very cross about that. I know many non-disabled people are more comfortable with disabled people when we're quiet and don't demand any inconvenient adjustments to help make daily life even vaguely accessible to us, but that's not how things get done. You might consider yourself to be one of the good, long-suffering uncomplaining disabled people, desperate to gain brownie points for not being one of those bitter difficult disabled people that ask for things rather than sitting stoically in a corner, staying out of able-bodied people's way and enduring, but we're not all martyrs. If you're a wheelchair user I imagine you regularly use things like ramps, disabled toilets, wheelchair lifts, accessible seating on public transport, etc. How do you think those things came to be installed? Do you think that the able-bodied people who design and construct public buildings suddenly decided one day, "hey, wouldn't it be nice if we incorporated accessibility into our architectural plans or found a way to add it on after?" because, I can tell you, that's not how it happened. The limited accommodations that exist in some public places now are there because difficult, persistent, outspoken and, yes, often angry disabled people demanded them and fought for a change in the law to mandate accessibility in public places. You might not want to be one of these trouble-makers but you have much to thank them for.
I also don't know why you are certain that this child is perfectly happy with the way your friend includes him in his classes. Do you know him personally? Have you spoken to him about it? Do you not think it highly likely that he may feel uncomfortable to voice his unhappiness about the way he is treated in classes for fear of further exclusion? He is only a kid after all. Surely it is far more likely that his mother's requests to your friend have come about because her son felt able to tell her he was unhappy and she, completely understandably, advocated for her son when he was unable to do so for himself than that she decided to threaten to shut your friend's classes down out of sheer bloody-mindedness. If you can't see why a child might not feel comfortable expressing his feelings to your friend, possibly in front of the other students, then you may be lacking in imagination and empathy.
As for your suggestion that wheelchair users are a hazard to public safety, I'm not sure what to say to that other than to add that it is upsetting to hear someone so lacking in a belief that they, as a wheelchair-user, have just as much right to occupy space in the world as able-bodied people. I hope you will be able to come to see your wheelchair as the wonderful tool for freedom, mobility and inclusion it is rather than an inconvenient trip hazard which should be kept off the streets. Also, I find it hard to believe your stories of having been nearly knocked over by wheelchairs numerous times. I have never had a wheelchair collide into me and I'm completely blind all the time, not just pretending to be for a few minutes.
As you say, we will never agree and, as you remark, most commentors on hear apparently agree with you so I'm not sure why you're so affronted by the idea that not everyone does. Hopefully this thread has given you and your friend the affirmation that a majority of strangers on an internet forum thread think it's okay to discriminate against this child, so I just wanted to let your friend know, for what it's worth, that this particular stranger doesn't think she's in the right. I don't expect to change your mind but I hope that, in some small way, it might make you pause for a moment to consider whether it really is so unreasonable to attempt full inclusion in what is, essentially, a fun introductory class for children interested in sampling stage arts, not a West End audition. Why it can't therefore be made fully accessible is baffling to me. I can't believe it isn't possible to find a way for this child to participate in every activity, even if in a different way from the other kids. I find the idea of him having to miss out on full participation more upsetting than a grown woman like your friend being asked to figure out ways of including him. If this means that there really is no way of making the activity in question both safe and inclusive then your friend might consider replacing the blind trust exercise with a different, more accessible, trust exercise. I personally think your friend should give this a go. Who knows, the children might enjoy it as much or even more than the original one. Surely flexibility and adaptability are important skills when working with kids, most of whom are unlikely to stop enjoying classes because of a minor change to the syllabus!

That’s a very long rant with so many incorrect assumptions and accusations. You are overthinking this so much and it’s obviously causing you distress. Maybe you should step away.

My political activism was feminism but I’m not demanding your gratitude for free birth control, equal pay etc. We each plough our own furrow.

C is doing the best that she can do for all the children in the group. To restrict the majority from skills they are keen to learn is just not fair. There is plenty for the lad to do as I’ve explained many times. He isn’t a pathetic shadow lurking at the side he is loudly joining in with almost everything and says it’s the best part of his week. As do many of the others.

I’ve already said that trust exercise is one of many. You seem to have missed that.

I’m really proud of what she’s been doing unpaid for local kids. She deserves praise not unpleasant criticism.

@Everlore
I understand your point about pushing, sometimes aggressively to gain rights, and how we shouldn’t take them for granted.
However, sometimes issues tend to get pushed too far, before the country as a whole recognises the unforeseen consequences of launching head on into something.

Everyone can eat nuts at school. Let’s ban nuts in classes where there are allergic kids. Now let’s get to a point where we automatically ban anything containing nuts without there even being anyone allergic at the school. Time to hate on anyone who thinks this is ridiculous.
Oh dear this doesn’t seem to be working, let’s re introduce them again.

Let’s acknowledge that there are transpeople. Let’s acknowledge them more openly in society . Time to take this further and say people can literally change sex. Now let’s let people harass lesbians for being true lesbians, and let men stand on 1st place podiums looking like pricks . Ok we were idiots, let’s retreat.

My point is that there tends to be a time when things go too far.
Nobody wants to encourage anyone, with any characteristic, to wait for the crumbs. No one has suggested that a disabled person should have to limit their lives in any way but can’t you see that we need a middle ground to continue to make progress.

Hypothetical situation for you.
Imagine a group had organised a holiday for blind or partially sighted people. The trip had been throughly planned with activities that members wished to do , but would have been difficult to do alone.
Then a blind but also non verbal, severely autistic person with learning difficulties wants to participate together with his carer. Some of the activities are now not inclusive for him.
Do you think that the majority of the original participants would be happy to miss out on the opportunities they had been looking forward to?
Do you think that modifying the whole holiday would help or hinder the positive relationships between people with different disabilities?
Would it not be better for the Autistic individual to participate in the activities where he was able to, and not deny the others the chance? Would he not be more welcomed rather than resented?

You might consider yourself to be one of the good, long-suffering uncomplaining disabled people, desperate to gain brownie points for not being one of those bitter difficult disabled people that ask for things rather than sitting stoically in a corner, staying out of able-bodied people's way and enduring, but we're not all martyrs

Stop being such a twat. You preach about how much you fight for disabled people then come out with that diatribe. You don't get to decide who is or isn't doing being disabled right.

They prove no such thing.

They prove that the people in those videos to do the movements they can do in those wheelchairs.

Take a look at the chairs they are using, they cost about £3000, I doubt the child has one.

Disabled kids want to do musical theatre too.
she’s doesn’t have to do more to include him, but to not include him is shitty. It’s pretty simple.

@TheOriginalEmu

she’s doesn’t have to do more to include him, but to not include him is shitty. It’s pretty simple.

If only you read all the posts. This is one exercise, ONE.

What's the matter with you? To call a young woman shitty who is giving up her free time for young people is far more shitty. Look in the mirror before you throw your vile insults about. And stick to the facts not your wild imaginings of what you think they are.

Pretty shitty not to, I'd say.

I'm sure all the people claiming classes have to include everyone or else the teacher is a shitty person are running inclusive classes themselves, yes?

Is it possible there could be a carer for the child in a wheelchair? Where I am you can get extra funding for a few hours a week to help children with needs access groups like these.

Having a child with sen I can sort of see where the mum is coming from but if I was her I would work with your friend to find a solution that would work for all involved rather then playing the discrimination card.

And unfortunately sometimes things can not be changed, no matter how much you want the world to be inclusive.

I don't know what you're reading into it, but it doesn't sound like he needs a carer in the circumstances described, funded or otherwise. There's no issue of lack of supervision. He joins in with everything except one specific bit (which would not be solved by a carer) and she's got him occupied with another group during that so that he's not left out.

I couldn't agree more! This thread is pretty shocking in the casual abelist opinions being thrown around.

So much anger towards a little boy in a wheelchair who wants to join in like all the other kids

It would be a fantastic lesson for those kids to truly work together with the boy in the wheelchair. They would take that experience with them through life.

This thread is so bloody disappointing. Like so much of what I read on mn - I'm all right jack so nothing else matters attitudes so often prevailing

@NewShoesForSpring

What's disappointing is people not reading the thread properly and making assumptions about stuff that isn't happening.

They do work together in almost everything but there is the odd exercise they cannot do together. They do double skipping, for example, are you suggesting they don't do it anymore because the lad can't join in? How is that fair? While some are doing that he is in another group occupied with something else. Some of the others also don't do it because they can't manage it. But those who do do it gain a lot from it.

As I've said several times, I'm a wheelchair user. However, I do NOT expect the world to revolve around me or for people to forgo hobbies they enjoy because I can't join in. That's just daft.

He might not need supervision it's not always about that.
It's so the child in question can be safe to do some of the other activities (eyes closed) and also as unfortunately if the lady in question is on her own she would not be able to do two different types of activities (a less impacted dance) to be able to include the child in question.
So this would enable the child be included within a group doing the same activities together with the other children swapping over so they can all feel included in the activities which the boy would not be able to do otherwise and could leave him feeling excluded.

That's all I was implying,yes I have read and understood.

I have read & understood everything. I work in an area that provides accessibility in the arts.

I also have a parent who has acquired mobility issues & uses a wheelchair now but like you, didn't always. This is an important difference too. You, like my parents, were not always disabled & presumably have a lifetime to that point of experiencing whatever you fancied trying. This little boy doesn't have this.

You are a very angry person.

I am angry on behalf of C who is doing a wonderful thing, in my opinion. I wasn't angry until I read the nasty remarks aimed at her.

She will be reading this and wondering why she bothers when so many judgmental people think she should do even more. She is doing all she can.

I have also worked in this area as a teacher as well as directing youth theatre but understand that some people cannot do some things but as long as we provided alternatives then it's as OK as we can make it. Do you honestly believe that wheelchair users should be be accommodated by the Tiller Girls? Or Starlight Express?

The lad himself is happy and loving the classes. He does join in some dance exercises but not the synchronised one.

No your friend is not doing anything wrong.
We’ve been in a similar situation with a sport my husband runs. Luckily in our case the parents are supportive and are aware their child can’t do everything.
But my husband sought advice from disability sport Wales.

The boy is disabled, you have to make REASONABLE adjustments where possible. The key word is reasonable. Adjustments can’t be made in all circumstances but as long as it’s been looked into and considered then your friend is doing all she can. For example, if it’s a circus type event with tight rope walking, then the child in a wheelchair is not going to be able to do that.

Also, my husband was told that discrimination would only apply if the child was being left out of the group all together. If there’s some activities he can do then great, if there are some slight adjustments that can be made to allow him to participate in more of the events then great if not then you’re not discriminating, as long as you’ve given it thought.

Id suggest your friend seek advice from disability charities before giving up. I’m happy for you to PM me if you want more details as to our situation but the child in question does some aspects of the sport but not others to keep him and others safe.