What I Wanted as a High School Student With Cerebral Palsy

When I entered secondary school, I quickly realized that everyone wanted different things out of their educational experience. Some people wanted straight As, the perfect Year 12 score, the entry into the “best” university. Others wanted popularity — the prime “real estate” in the quad, the devoted flock of followers that would agreeably pose in the background of that “TGIF” selfie. But my wish list, as a teenage girl with cerebral palsy, was driven by a desire for sameness more than success or social status.

This was all I ever wanted out of high school:

• All I ever wanted was that teacher aide who was not-so-subtly “monitoring” the back of the classroom (but really, they were watching me) to just leave me the hell alone and let me struggle through the Math textbook in peace.

• All I ever wanted was that impressive view from the top of the school chapel as an “extra timer” in the English exam to be a delightful environmental perk rather than an adjustment that crushed my confidence (and made me screw up my essay).

• All I ever wanted was for those bi-annual Individual Education Plans to magically vanish from my school records (or at the very least, stop the incessant fixation with my perceived weaknesses and “deficits.”)

• All I ever wanted was for that interminable trek across the road and down the many flights of stairs to the music block to magically become just a little bit shorter. (Not short enough that anyone would notice, obviously. But short enough to prevent the inevitable aches in my legs at the end of the day).

Did I get everything I ever wanted?

Without radical reform to disability funding, curriculum and pedagogy and school infrastructure, I realize in retrospect that I was never going to get what I wanted. And while those limitations made my microcosm of high school an entirely different world to that of the scholars and social climbers around me, it gave me perspective and a unique brand of tenacity that has served me well as a teacher. Indeed, the indelible marks of experience have helped me to make a new mark for my students, so they can experience an education that has everything they ever wanted.