Disabled Leader: An Oxymoron? I don't think so.....

My apologies for writing to rather long blogs in succession but I felt it needed to be written.

Reading through my Linked in profile today I saw this conversation going down simply called:  Disabled Leader: An Oxymoron?

I think it is an interesting conversation to be having, especially in these times here in the UK.

I do not agree its an oxymoron I just think there are still far to many barriers in the way to enable many potential disabled leaders to flourish. Until we move away from the old negative models of disability disabled people will continue to be viewed in negative stereotypical ways.

Interesting experiment ask non disabled people what the term disabled means. Or ask how many famous disabled people they know. Leadership ok how many disabled people are there in Westminster hmmmm. I bet it is not 20%, which is a rough estimate of the percentage of disabled people in our society, that much is certain.

Thanks to our beloved condem government disabled people are seen as scroungers or as benefit cheats. Thanks to an education system that fails to provide good support structures in schools and has low expectations of disabled people many disabled kids leave schools with lower qualifications than their able counterpart.

The message of inclusion states that it is society that disables. It disabled 100 years ago and it is going out of its way to continue disabling today.

Sorry not a very positive post. I am an inclusion and dyslexia specialist as well as a dyslexic and disabled person. and worked in further education for many years. I managed a dyslexia department in a college for 7 years.

I have witnessed the erosion and even the closure of specialist education for disabled people in colleges. I have witness the erosion of disabled people's human rights and dismantling of the inclusion agenda thanks to condem policies. 

I was also the victim of two years of bullying in one college I worked which I had to fight against. The only support I got when I was going through this was from two other disabled teachers experiencing the same thing. I took my case to court twice and both times the college waited until the day of my case to settle.

Only people who have experienced this can understand how stressful and difficult it is to go through this. During that two years I was barred from chatting to anyone about my case. I was made to feel like I was the bad guy. My union were totally hapless in fact the person who was supposed to be representing me was a friend of the person bullying me. I would never go back into teaching in a college anywhere.

That is why I founded Dyslexia Pathways CIC and embarked on Unique Dyslexic Get Creative. So that I could continue to teach and raise awareness on social models of disability and dyslexia. I finally got a leadership role but only because I made it for myself. Not because society enable me to become a leader.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog