Michelle Daly: The Easy Road

Transcript

One of the things that you did find with teachers in segregated school, they sometimes, I think they felt sorry for you, but sometimes they didn't have, you know, they'd obviously come to mid-retirement or it was a bit like they just couldn't cope, they might have been medically retired. They come out of it, so they thought the easiest road was coming to this bloody special needs school, it was going to be an easy road and there's a couple of teachers that, they did, our class was a bit challenging, the class that I was in, and I think they felt, 'cause they expect disabled people to behave in a certain way, you know, they don't expect disabled people saying 'Why can't we go out lunch time?' 'Why can't we go to the shop?' 'Why can't, why?', they don't expect you to question, they don't expect you to challenge, and there was a couple of teachers like that we found a bit pathetic, would want you to sit, you know, who sits down and has a long conversation with their teacher, you know, they wanted that kind of, you know, disabled children are seen as not to be naughty, they've got to conform to this certain type of behaviour.

Explore more

Explore stories by theme or view the timeline of significant events in education for disabled people