I have recently had someone publicly tell me that the information I post “is already out there and readily available, and what is the point of providing information if it won’t help anyways?”
And “Being NICE and COLLABORATIVE so they will like you is the wrong approach”
And “this is exactly the response system is hoping for: having parents spend a multitude of energy and hours on researching and getting information to “help their child” in the classroom, so they can self congratulate themselves in showing how collaborative they have been with parents.“
This person feels the human rights system is a waste of time. What needs to occur are legislations changes only and anything less than that is a waste of time. They feel the only response parents should be doing is pulling their kids out of the education system.
Here is my response:
Not to toot my own horn, but for this blog, it’s important I place myself in this topic before I dive in. I don’t want anyone to think I am just making this stuff up. It is an informed blog. One of my degrees is in Human Relations from Concordia University, Montreal, with a certificate in family education. I graduated with honors and an award. This degree is about human systems. How people function in groups of all sizes from families to large organizations and societies, systemic change, and how to intervene when systems become toxic.
Some people when they advocate can reach a point when they are beyond frustrated, angry and bitter. Some people have decided to lash out at other people. The very people they are in the trenches with. They end up making it harder and more emotionally draining for parents who are advocating. I don’t think they realize the impact and how upsetting it is for other parents to hear their comments. Crabs in the bucket. My perception is that there is a lack of understanding of how human systems work, and how systemic change occurs and they are frustrated because how they think they should be able to make systemic change occur, isn’t occurring. The wider the gap between our expectations and reality, the more depressed or angry we will become.
I can’t fit everything in this blog about how human systems work, so for this blog I am going to focus on macro-level and micro-level aspects. Macro-level systems are the big ones. The government bodies that include hundreds and thousands of people. They are our political system, the structure of our economy, the structure from the Constitution of Canada and the impact on our system, democracy, our education systems with public schools, private schools, online schools etc. The large groups of multiple moving parts that involve many complex layers, and are maintained by many layers of legislation, policy, and guidelines. Think of many many gears all locked together. They are all moving. Wish to change one gear, and they will all be impacted. These systems have formal codes of conduct and contracts. Also, the unwritten social contracts and social rules that glues everyone together. These systems are tidal wave systems that do not get pushed off course unless something massive happens. I haven’t even mentioned the topic of power. That’s a whole other blog. Systems that are oppressive like to remain that way, unless it’s detrimental to themselves to not change.
Micro-level changes are things that happen on one-to-one individual levels. Individual social interactions. A 20-minute conversation is a micro-level interaction. This is when we advocate with our child’s teacher and they learn something new about ADHD and now they are adapting their teaching and accepting of movement breaks because they understand things differently.
Some people think, that if we only change this one law, or have this one human rights case, or if we change one piece of legislation then everything will be solved for all of the following generations.
I can promise you, if this is how you think, this is where your pain is because that will never happen. Change will never happen because of one person. Ever. We are dealing with way too many macro-level systems all connected and interacting with each other, AND we are dealing with way too many micro-level individual interactions of ableism and lack of information about disabilities. One person is not going to swoop in and solve it all. The education system provincially has hundreds of thousands of people working in these systems. There is not one solution. If we are waiting for a hero to ride in on a horse and save us all, we’ll be waiting for a very long time.
One person cannot change a human system. It takes teams. Plural. And in our society, it is going to take multiple teams all working together with a common goal for a sustained period of time. These teams are going to have to cover ALL different areas and all different aspects of the multiple gears.
There are 4 elements to a social movement.
- There is a trigger event that inspires an intense reaction from the community
- ALL of the already established community groups come together and work together as ONE
- They have a common simple message that the public can understand. (Eg. Black Lives Matter)
- The advocacy of this one common message and connection of all of the groups needs to be for a sustained period of time. A long time.
That is a social movement.
Think of the women’s movement in the 70’s. We still have women’s issues today. But women entering the workforce was quite the shift that started it all off. The different professions women are working in today is because of that social movement.
We need to work at both a macro-level and a micro-level. Even if we had a piece of legislation change or a fantastic policy manual from the government we are still going to be dealing with the individual people who are ableists and want power over. Any change coming from the top down and they will figure out ways to get around it, ignore it, and we will still be struggling with the same shit.
It’s not that we just need to get EA standards and everything will change.
It’s not that we just need to get legislation changed.
It’s not that we just need this one class action human rights case.
We need everyone. We need ALL of it. It is all hands on deck. We need every disability organization, we need all parents, we need trustees, we need educators, we need PAC’s, we need unions, we need everyone working in their own corners advocating for accessibility and inclusion.
Anything less than that, and we will not be able to move the needle enough to notice change in this generation.
It takes a micro-level AND a macro-level response.
Social change, where people really feel that the needle moved, that is noticeable… usually takes 3 generations. But not always…
We are in a catch-22 when it comes to legislation changes. The government won’t enact legislation or funding commitments to items that they feel the majority of their constituents don’t want. Their goal is to get re-elected. If they don’t get re-elected they can’t pursue any of their goals. So, if the public doesn’t care about kids with disabilities and their access to an equitable education…. the government isn’t going to put a massive amount of money into that. They need to make their constituents happy. We also know that society is generally ableist. And oppressive. We are also dealing with evolutionary instincts. Humans are complex. We are a mix of beautifulness and survival instincts. When resources are tight, we want them for ourselves.
Everyone’s advocacy efforts are all part of the work. It all matters. Every single one of you. There is no one single solution or even one single group that is going to just fix everything in a couple of years. It takes massive amounts of people ALL advocating in our own corners. Micro-level and macro-level advocacy work. We can’t just change legislation. We need to change the hearts and minds of everyone to uphold and embrace the legislation even if it does change.
Having said all of this: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has” -Margaret Mead
Very true. It all starts somewhere. Seeds get planted by small groups that grow over time.
If you are someone who is belittling other parents’ advocacy efforts. Telling them there is no point to any of their work, and that the system will never change. Which is actually impossible, because systems always change. They are maintained by people and society changes all the time. Please, and I say this with love in my heart. Please find counselling or keep your comments to yourself. The human rights process may have been a waste of time for some people, which I am truly sorry. The human rights system enforces the Human Rights Code and creates the Duty to Accommodate which is the strongest piece of advocacy tool that we have as parents, and those cases that advanced the Code were because of parents who sacrificed. You are not helping anyone by belittling all of parent’s advocacy and telling them there is no point. You are now the one making this worse for them. When you make statements telling people to give up, you are now oppressing them. I have zero tolerance for that.
This is a marathon. Not a sprint.
It’s a team sport. We all need to train individually but run together.
Let’s build each other up and be supportive.
For further reading on social change I recommend the book: Let’s Move the Needle. An Activism Handbook for Artists, Grafters, Creatives, and Makers. By Shannon Downey
