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"An Ingenious Way to Live"
by Tamara Haspels

“Disability is not a ‘brave struggle’ or ‘courage in the face of adversity’…disability is an art. It’s an ingenious way to live!” – Neil Marcus

The Disability Social History Project, http://www.disabilityhistory.org/, is a community history project that highlights and affords opportunities for people with disabilities to reclaim “our” history and determine how “we” want to define “ourselves.” While re-examining and redefining the meaning of disability, the Disability Social History Project endeavors to share this information with the world and encourages involvement among those with disabilities and those without.

The website offers plenty of educational resources, tools for critical examination and a disability social history timeline. Notably, the project's page includes a curriculum presented by Education for Disability and Gender Equality (EDGE) http://www.disabledwomen.net/edge/curriculum/index-netscape.htm. This curriculum is easily integrated within an existing context of study for physics, biology, government and culture. The lessons are tailored to use traditional educational formats to emphasize equality for people with disabilities and are perfectly suited for all students to re-examine their perceptions about people with disabilities. The underlying premise of each of these lesson plans is that no one is any more or less whole than any other person. They utilize a wide of range of resources including written accounts of people with disabilities to highlight this point.

The Disability Social History Project receives funding from the San Francisco Foundation to hold workshops throughout California. These Living History Project workshops, http://www.disabilityhistory.org/projects_new.html#ilc, critically examine the ideas, goals and accomplishments of the Disability Movements by offering a forum for critique of the movements from within and outside the disability community. The intent is to generate discussion among participants about what aspects of disability history are the most important and meaningful to them.

The Disability Social History Project demonstrates that perceptions about people with disabilities are the main cause of discriminatory practices against disabled people. By looking at “disability” and how “disability” is defined in history, the project promotes a greater understanding of people with disabilities. While examining notions of “equality” and “universal design” in regards to people with disabilities, the Disability Social History Project affords everyone the opportunity to reconsider their own perceptions about the nature of wholeness.