Emergence of Disability Pedagogy

It is without a doubt that education is liberation and when individuals are marginalized, segregated, and have no access to education, there exists, as Paulo Freire the founder of critical pedagogy would note, oppression (1997). People are of course oppressed for a diversity of reasons--race, class, gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and ability. Ability is the foundation of the justification of the term and philosophy of disability, while disability has been the justification to kill, test on, segregate, abort, and abandon. Oppression is a universal experience that is felt by everyone at one time or another. What must be stressed is that the cause and experience of oppression is not universal, it is personal, while social, political and economic. The central task of critical theorists and critical pedagogues is to analyze and identify the cause, justification, and history of particular oppressions and to provide space for experiences of that oppression to be heard and understood. The systematic domination of all must be challenged for it creates experiences of oppression, suppression, and repression. Recently critical scholarship on disability has been undertaken by people that are "disabled" and allies around the world. While still in its infancy, disability studies are making an explosive appearance across college campuses on a global scale. In this article, the author presents a critical engagement of dissecting the history and definition of disability on how it is used to oppress, dominate, repress, and suppress others, and discusses an emergence of a new pedagogy for those identified as disabled. The author provides experiences that are fundamental and central in creating the understanding for the need of disability pedagogy. He claims that disability pedagogy provides people that are oppressed because of mental and/or physical disabilities a shield for education defense, critical theory to fight back against an oppressive and dominating system, and a space to speak about their experiences with others. He stresses that domination and marginalization in education through normalcy and ablism should be challenged, and that teachers should find pedagogies that respect differences and challenge the current structure of the classroom and relationship between teachers and students. (Contains 9 notes.)