Summer 2007

Teaching about the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Disability rights Movement

The majority of the Web sites researched for this article are appropriate for secondary school students within the social studies curriculum. Discussions of the civil rights and disability rights movements are included. The campaign for disability rights arose from the concerns of people with disabilities, their exclusion from the mainstream culture and their advocacy of equal rights, equal access and equal treatment of people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act is an integral part and, ultimately, the culmination of the disability rights movement. Here are some helpful Web sites:

Equal Opportunity Compliance and Diversity Policies — While this site by CUNY’s Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn is primarily concerned with issues involving students, visitors and those seeking employment at the college, it also contains a great deal of specific information about compliance with ADA/504 policies and procedures.
Among the things one can do at this site is to compare and contrast the definitions of “disability” as defined in the following laws: the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Administrative Code.

You can compare specifically how provisions of the Rehabilitation Act, Sections 503 and the ADA and New York State Human Rights Executive Law 296 prohibit discrimination and provide access to employment for people with disabilities.

Office for Civil Rights — The provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act are explained on this Web site of the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education. Persons with disabilities are protected by this landmark civil rights legislation in the areas of employment, public accommodation, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications.

Each section, or title, of the act provides good topics for student discussions.

Teaching Tolerance — Fight Hate and Promote Tolerance, three lesson plans from the Teaching Tolerance project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, provide much useful material. This first one is Civil Rights and Americans with Disabilities: Early Grades Activity. This is a detailed lesson plan for grades 3-6 which meet curriculum standards in Language Arts and U.S. History.

Motivation includes reading about a student with Down syndrome and conducting an “accessibility inspection” on school grounds. Links to relevant documents and Web sites, and student handouts are provided. A very detailed lesson plan for elementary level, this is downloadable in PDF format.

Legal Protections — This page provides lesson plans for grades 9-12. Discussion topics include debates about individual rights and the common good. Discussion of legal protections from the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution is contrasted with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Linkage to documents and student handouts are provided.

Three Discussions — This page provides an overview of civil rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act and offers three grade levels of classroom activities, early, middle and upper grades. It suggests material with which you can engage students in a discussion of voting, civil rights legislation and equal opportunity for all citizens. Background for teachers includes similarities between the civil rights movement and the disability rights movement. For the early grades, the “Assessing Access” lesson involves students in a tour of the school playground and questions of accessibility for a child with Down syndrome. In the “Activism and Legislation” lesson, middle grade students read personal narratives about the civil rights and disability rights movements. In the “Who’s Voting Now?” lesson, upper grade students can read and analyze historical documents of our democracy, civil rights and disability legislation, and the progress of democracy.

Lesson Plan #11 — From the Alaska Center for Human Development in Anchorage, Alaska, this lesson helps students understand their rights under the law. Using handouts about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, students will gain an understanding of equal access and equal rights for people with disabilities. One of the interesting activity suggested presents students with a dilemma involving access to a restaurant for two friends: one of whom uses a wheelchair.

Equal Treatment, Equal Access — Lesson 5: History of the Disability Rights Movement (Grades 10-12) from the Anti-Defamation League Curriculum Connections is part of a series of Anti-Bias Lesson Plans and Resources for K-12 Educators. The lessons teach about awareness of stereotypes and discrimination related to people with disabilities.

Lesson 5 is geared toward high school students. It is designed “for students to examine how past prejudicial attitudes and social exclusion of people with disabilities led to the rise of a nationwide, grassroots movement for the recognition of equal rights, equal access and equal treatment of people with disabilities.”

Lesson 5 is really six parts of a curriculum in the disability rights movement. Materials include readings, glossaries, history in pictures and words and a slide show. Students are asked to analyze stereotypes about people with disabilities, examine their own attitudes, learn about the disability rights movement and key leaders of the movement, and determine how accessible their school is for students with disabilities. For example, the lessons about stereotypes include student viewing of a slide show on the “History of Disability Portrayed in Pictures and Words, 1849-1939” and are asked to compare and contrast that to the “History of Disability Rights, Post 1940” regarding images and shifts in attitude towards people with disabilities. Very detailed lesson plans are organized for the teacher in this series.