This Fall 2024 grant funded four evenings of disability education for the Needham community, with a film screening followed by a panel discussion exploring the film’s topics and how they affect or influence the experiences of youth in Needham (where over 1,000 students, or one in five, receive special education services in the schools).
The films included:
- The Ride Ahead, about a young man navigating life while having a genetic disorder that affects his mobility and communication.
- In A Different Key, in which families with autistic children look to Don Triplet, the first diagnosed person with autism, as a role model.
- The Right to Read, about young students who struggle to develop essential reading skills.
- The Disruptors, where renowned CEOs, athletes, and entertainers share their experiences of having ADHD and the challenges they faced, and now credit their ‘differently wired brains’ for some of their greatest successes.
The films were well attended by many people affiliated with the Needham schools and the town including the Needham Disability Commission, Needham Select Board and School Committee members, Needham educators and administrators, Needham Diversity Initiative, Progressive Needham, as well as Needham parents of kids with and without disabilities.
Grant recipient Jenn Scheck-Kahn, along with committee members Meera Sunder, Andy Wizer, and Sasha Yampolsky, noted “Our goal with the series was to remove barriers for inclusion, to center the experiences of people with disabilities, to create closer connections between the disability and non-disability community, and to educate policy and budget makers about the experiences of people with disabilities.
Including a student with a disability on the panels was especially enlightening. Our literacy event featured an extraordinarily articulate student with dyslexia in the fifth grade. She described her experiences of being othered and excluded as well as her experiences of working hard to do things that are easy for other kids and her wish for a disability curriculum in the NPS. So many times the audience erupted in applause. Later her mother told me how much her daughter needed that, how meaningful it was for her daughter to be validated and celebrated by a room of supportive adults. I hope this experience is one she’ll carry with her long into adulthood.”
A parent shared that “[her child] said he learned more about his disabilities from the films than he had elsewhere and having watched them, he’s hungry for more. The films have sparked a search for identity. I do not think this would have happened if we’d watched the films at home. The films were more important because we watched them together with strangers who also valued what they were learning. Although we talk about disabilities and his disabilities in our home, he’s not been in a room of people where these topics are discussed in public and by adults. Breaking that silence removed the stigma; it elevated the value of the conversation. He truly felt that people attended to know about him; being there made him feel special and supported.”
Scheck-Kahn remarked “Many parents shared how much of themselves and their families are in the films. Some who are very involved in the autism community said that we showed the best film on autism that they’ve ever seen. Most moving for me was, when watching The Ride Ahead and The Disruptors, I heard the audience erupt in laughter after a person with a disability said something funny. Those moments felt like proof that stigma was being obliterated and in the most joyful way.”
