Last Friday, Students Embracing Disabilities (SED) sponsored a viewing of "Mind Games," the story of a former Bowdoin student, Dr. Thomas French, who succumbed to Lou Gehrig's disease. The documentary followed his family and how it struggled and coped with the illness. It was powerful. Hours put in to athletic training and honors projects pale in comparison to the perseverance exemplified by the family as they stood by and cared for their loved one. As Bowdoin continues to improve its facilities, it is becoming increasingly important to be aware of the struggles our peers and others who deal with disabilities encounter in their day-to-day living.
The cliché, "you can't really know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes," pertains to disabilities. Although, I would argue one cannot really know someone, but can better one's understanding of the difficulties that their disabilities pose. I took the cliché's advice and spent a day in a wheelchair. With handicap access license plates, bathroom stalls, door openers, etc., it was very easy to deceive myself into thinking that it was not that hard to get around. However, before the actual experience, I was completely ignorant to the little things that make wheelchairs difficult.
I began my day at the mall, which, I must admit was initially not too bad. However, as my trip went on, little things began to irk me. Generally speaking, the main door to the buildings automatically opened, but all of the doors inside lacked that feature. This difficulty was typically exacerbated by the decrease in space to maneuver. Another example occurred at the CVS counter, where the debit card machine did not move, and I could not get at the numbers to punch in my PIN.
My eyes were really opened to the extent of difficulties that could arise when I moved from the mall to the downtown area. On all of the hilly side streets, every single store had at least one to two steps to enter, making them completely inaccessible. I could only enter about a third of the stores. The stores that did not have stairs all had a two-inch lip on the bottom which, in some cases, made it impossible to enter. Also, as I noticed sidewalks are made at an incline to meet the road, I assumed there were no problems changing surfaces or crossing streets. However, rarely is the road and sidewalk adequately connected. Often there is considerable gap in between the two, where the wheel or foot rests become stuck. At the end of the day, I was stunned about how difficult things were that I would never guess would pose the least bit of inconvenience.
While there is no official disability awareness week, SED are sponsoring a speaker next Friday, April 20, who will speak about how ADHD affects students' college experiences. As not all disabilities are physical, many can go unnoticed to any given community. ADHD is an example of such "hidden disabilities," and has greatly increased on college campuses over the past 30 years. Bowdoin is not isolated from similar disabilities, and I would encourage all to become aware of the difficulties many of our peers face which can very easily be taken for granted.