An Ode to Preschool

Fellow readers, summer is finally coming to an end. In all honesty, I have had a very long and exhausting summer, but at the same time I learned so much. I think I have typed or said the word ‘disability’ more times than probably normal. Working with the Department on Disability in Los Angeles, at a law firm that focuses on disabilities and writing this blog, you would think I can just skip through school and already become the successful disability advocate I always wanted to be. However, in exactly 7 days I will be walking to my first 8:40 class to start a new chapter at Barnard.

When I think about the past that got me to Barnard, I can't help but think about OG school that started me on my path of education towards place like Barnard. That school was called Best Friends. Well, actually it was called United Cerebral Palsy, but that’s not cute and lovable for three-year-olds. United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) is an organization that, like in the name, helps people with Cerebral Palsy. UCP had a school in my hometown of Chestnut Hill, one section was a preschool and the other was for developmentally disabled adult patients. I attended the preschool, along with my two sisters and many others.

Quite frankly, I can't remember anybody I went to school with - I was three you know- but the memories of a place where disabled kids and abled bodied alike in the same classroom will always be special to me. I have memories of a girl with breathing problems having to use a machine once a day to help her get through the rest of her day, and I was fascinated. I remember during recess, I sat and played on the bench with certain students who were not able to climb the play structure because their body had ran out of energy due to their cerebral palsy. It was a happy place, obviously, because it was a preschool, but for me it will always be painted as such because it was a space that my disabled self was able to be incorporated other students without feeling like the other.

(I just wanted to add babies whoops)

When I found out that Best Friends was closing for good, my heart broke. For one, I will not be able to take my kids to a place that changed my life without realizing it. Moreso, I am upset that the school is closing because it was a space that I truly believe could have helped more disabled kids in the future like me. It was just preschool for me then, but now I realize how important integrated disability and abled-body preschool can be to someone like me. I genuinely believe there should be more schools like Best Friends. I am sure that there are other schools including disabled students into preschool life as smoothly and flawlessly as that school did. I hope to find one for my own kids to attend in the future - and eventually open my own once I am a successful disability advocate - but I still am sad that this institution is gone. I do not know how my life could be different had I not gone to this preschool. I might have been more insecure about the way I walk when attending Springside in 1st grade through 11th grade. And I might have been even more insecure to even attempt walking into my classes on that hot August day my first day at Barnard.

You see, since Best Friends, I haven't really felt as included the same way I did at that school. One reason is partially because I am no longer a preschooler, where my imagination allows me to be happy 24/7. It is also due to the fact that the older we get, the more alienated disabled young adults feel in school. Teachers are no longer forced to make the able-bodied students include us in their play. Parents are not obligated to tell their children to invite us to their sleepovers and playdates. The separation between able-bodied and disabled body students feeling becomes to consume our daily thoughts in and out of school.

I don't blame the able-bodied students, nor do I blame the teachers or parents who stopped forcing children to play with us. What I dislike though, is the fact that as we get older, school becomes a more independent focused place. With independence, comes a space for groups and categorisation. Ability is one of those categories that young children do not often think about. This then carries on into their teenage years, creating an environment where it is just not on the radar like it would have been at Best Friends or in other preschools. Because of this, I have always felt different, unwanted because of simply how ability is not something often talked about. If there is no forced conversation about inclusion of ability, how are middle schoolers and high schoolers - with millions of other things on their brains - supposed to also think about the ability of other students?

*PSA don’t drink in high school, the stress isn’t that bad*

Best Friends had a certain value for disabled kids like me. I was able to - even for two or three years at an age, when life was so perfect - feel included with everyone else. The integration between differently-abled body students and able-bodied students is not only be beneficial to the disabled students to experience inclusion, but for the temporarily able-bodied students to sympathize and see that disabled students are just like them. That way, there would not have a need for parents or teachers to force kids to play with differently abled children; it would be second nature.