Advocate for Me Magazine: Establishing and Sustaining Cultures of Love for All in Schools

As Aries, my son, has continued to advance in his education, one of the growing concerns I’ve simultaneously developed as a mother is the limited amount of exposure his peers have for the differences they see within my child. For those who know and love my son, they understand that his identity as a multiple disabled child is but one of many contributing factors to the wholeness of who he is. But to his neurotypical peers; who tend to be very new to the concepts of accessibility, neurodivergence, and communication differences, their understanding of him and students like him are consequently uninformed and (oftentimes) unaddressed. In my own experiences as both a parent and an educator, within the American compulsory education system we have made significant strides towards celebrating the diversity of ethnicity, gender, and language, yet we still remain very anti-progress when it comes to the celebration and inclusivity of disabled persons, their needs, and contributions to society.