“My mom says I’m really creative!”: Dis/Ability, positioning, and resistance in multimodal instructional contexts

Collins, Kathleen M. (2011). “My mom says I’m really creative!”: Dis/Ability, positioning, and resistance in multimodal instructional contexts. Language Arts, 88(6), 409-418.

This is a story about how miracles can happen when we focus on children’s strengths in the classroom. Collins makes a strong case for looking critically at our notions of what is ability and disability in classrooms (hence the term Dis/Ability) through a sociocultural lens. Such a lens should assist us as educators in “moving beyond the assumption that abilities and disabilities are located solely within learners” (p. 409). The case presented here shows that what is considered ability or disability (i.e., deficit) always is constructed within the framework of what is valued in a particular context. In schools, certain kinds of behaviors and abilities have been traditionally more privileged than others, perhaps in an attempt to preserve a certain status quo. Print literacy is often at the top of the hierarchy in schools, and just below that, oral literacy. If you are not strong in those modalities, you may be seen as “deficient” and even disabled, and in the worst cases, you’ll be labeled and segregated, all in the name of “meeting needs”, as Collins observed in her three years of data gathering in the school described here. You may be strong in other modalities, like the visual arts or kinesthetic activities like sports or dance, but those are less valued in schools, and probably are not assessed or seen as strengths.

The focal student described here, “Christopher”, was an African-American male second grader who was seen as “a shy child” and “emotionally disturbed” because he would not participate in oral and written activities, and when pressed to do so, would retreat underneath his desk. He was on the road to becoming a “special ed kid”. It was only after Collins, who was a researcher in Christopher’s classroom, together with Christopher’s teacher, discovered Christopher’s ability in art and his self-identification as an artist (fueled by the encouragement of his family) that they were able to use that strength to set up a context (a play in which Christopher was costume designer and “chief set designer”) in which Christopher’s strengths could emerge and be recognized and valued. As the teachers began to value Christopher’s abilities rather than seeing him as disabled, so did the other children and Christopher himself, and a near-miraculous transformation is described.

I am deeply in agreement that we need to look at, value, and nurture children’s strengths. I also agree that children should not be marked as “disabled” just because their particular strengths differ from what the white, female-oriented, middle-class culture of many elementary schools (even those schools populated with non-white children and even in the classrooms of nonwhite teachers, because school values reflect the “dominant” culture in most cases) think counts or does not count as ability. What I am wondering about is how we can get the current view to change. In recent years, the status quo has seemed to strengthen rather than weaken, and children like Christopher often aren’t as lucky as he was to have someone willing to discover his strengths. How can we reach all the unreached “Christophers” out there before it is too late?

As a postscript, little tidbits about Christopher’s family intrigued me. He is quoted as describing a picture painted by an uncle—is this a family of artists who provided some important modeling and support? Also, it is noted that Christopher’s parents resisted special intervention (that would have probably ended in a special education placement). Many of us know of cases where children are known as two completely different people at home and at school. I myself was a child who was considered quiet and shy at school, but definitely was not at home. Was Christopher’s parents’ resistance a form of support for the boy they themselves knew as able, or even a protest against exactly the problem outlined here—a conception of difference as deficit, often resulting in labeling and educational inequity? Christopher’s family seems more important here than may initially meet the eye, and I’d like to know more about that important piece of the picture.