Another series of CSIE’s popular disability awareness workshops took place last week, on Wednesday 23 November, for all S3 students in Turnbull High School in Glasgow. Six workshops were delivered, engaging groups of up to 17 students in each workshop, exploring disability from a range of perspectives. 100% of participants (students and staff) said that they found the workshop helpful; some of the reasons they gave are listed below.

During the workshops students engaged in lively conversations about the meaning of specific words and possible implications beyond literal definitions. They also heard from numerous disabled people, through video clips or short extracts of selected writings, and considered what disability is and how it arises, the difference between disability and impairment, and the relative importance of similarities and differences between people. Through various real life examples, students identified some common assumptions about disability and considered how disabled people do things differently. At the end of each workshop students were asked to write on anonymous slips of paper whether they found the workshop helpful or not and why, and were offered a chance to ask additional questions anonymously, to which CSIE has sent written responses.

Some of the reasons students gave for finding the workshops helpful were:

“I learnt a lot of new things about disability and found it very interesting.”

“I learnt the difference between impairment and disability.”

“I’ve learnt more about disability and see it in a different way.”

“It has opened my eyes on disability.”

“I am more aware of disability and how it really affects people.”

“It made me think differently about disabled people.”

“It showed me that everybody is the same and shouldn’t be treated differently.”

“It opened my eyes to how I really see the disabled and how they should be seen.”

“It showed you how disabled people aren’t different from anyone else.”

“It has made me think about disabilities in a different way.”

“It has changed the way I view disabled people.”

After the event, CSIE received the following message from the deputy head teacher:

“I have been reflecting on the very successful workshops last Wednesday and the impact they made on our young people.

They were really engaged and certainly took a significant amount from them. I was really happy with the positive nature of the feedback and they seem anxious to use all the information and challenges put to them, saying that they will put them to good use in their daily lives.

I definitely think that they will try to be advocates for the disabled.

I was particularly impressed with the variety of clips and stories of disabled people and how they can overcome what others see as obstacles to having a full and enjoyable life. Very significant too was your ability to gauge the young people and react to their interests by varying the clips and slides to suit.

Perhaps the part with the most impact on the young people and which brought home the big issue to them were the perception slides which challenged them to look at what disabled people can do rather than the obstacles which we the youngsters think they face.

Again, Artemi, thank you very much for the time and effort you made coming in to our school and bringing with such vigour, rigour and enthusiasm the issue of inclusion to our young people which resonates so clearly with our values.”