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Back to School 2001: Disabilities no handicap as teachers rise above physical problems to do classroom jobs
Monday, August 27, 2001 By Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Like many teachers, Amy Bittner and Lisa Lester are spending these last days of summer readying their classrooms at Clairton Elementary School for the new school year. They have put up calendars, posters and alphabet charts on the freshly painted walls and wiped a summer's worth of dust off bookshelves.
But the women's most critical preseason chore is arranging the furniture.
Bittner and Lester teach from wheelchairs, and they must make plenty of room to maneuver around pupils' desks and chairs.
"With us, space is always an issue," said Bittner, 28, a first- and second-grade learning support teacher.
Thirty miles away in Downtown Pittsburgh, Richard Lewis, too, is pondering his classroom layout as he prepares for classes to get under way at Pleasant Hills and South Allegheny middle schools.
A school social worker for the Allegheny Intermediate Unit since 1982, Lewis is completely deaf in his left ear and profoundly deaf in his right. Heavily reliant on lip reading, he's careful to arrange rooms to his advantage by placing his groups at tables or in circles so he can always see the face of the person with whom he's talking.
Lewis also avoids rooms with a lot of carpeting -- it muffles the sound --and bad lighting and noisy air-conditioning and heating systems, which get amplified in his hearing aid.
Clearly, all three educators face challenges in managing a classroom. But they say they don't let disabilities get in the way of doing their jobs. Lewis, in fact, considers his impairment a blessing, in a way, because it's forced him to be more visually aware.
"I think I notice more than most," he said. "I'm going to see that kid who isn't himself today that other teachers will probably miss, which is the best way to ward off problems."
Because of mainstreaming, children with disabilities aren't uncommon in today's public schools. But it's still unusual for a disabled person to be standing -- or sitting -- at the head of the class, especially for those with more serious impairments, such as Bittner and Lester.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 6 percent of all Americans with disabilities -- or about 411,000 people -- worked as teachers in 1991-92, the latest year for which statistics are available. Another 28,000 worked as counselors.
Why don't more disabled people go into the field of education?
Prejudice and ignorance, said Phyllis Seward, chairwoman of National Education Association's Physically Challenged Caucus. The federal Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of disability. But Seward said some administrators were reluctant to hire physically challenged teachers because of negative stereotypes.
"They think we're not capable of putting in an entire day's work," she said.
Despite a nationwide shortage of teachers, schools of education haven't exactly gone out of their way to woo disabled students, Seward said, even though they best understand the challenges children with disabilities face in the classroom.
The shortage also may have something to do with money. The ADA requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for disabled employees as long as they can perform the essential functions of the job. And those adjustments can cost money.
"But budgets can be stretched," Seward said. "The bottom line is we're quite capable of doing what the job requires, which is working with students."
Still, some people with physical handicaps may avoid seeking a challenging career such as teaching, because, as Lewis said, "they're told what they can't do instead of what they can do."
That was Bittner's experience.
As a youngster, the Jefferson Hills native dreamed of becoming a teacher or a police officer. When she was 11, doctors discovered a tumor inside her spinal cord. Surgery left her dependent on a walker.
While her classmates saw past her metal canes, she said, a high school geometry teacher openly made fun of her in class. A physical therapist suggested she find herself "a nice little desk job."
But Bittner earned an education degree from California University of Pennsylvania. She was one of just a handful of disabled students in the program.
"I didn't want to see another kid be treated that way by a teacher," she said.
Lester initially planned a future in business and earned a degree in international marketing from Seton Hill College. Upon entering the work force, though, she said she found ability wasn't enough. "You also had to have a certain look, a presence."
Born with a form of muscular dystrophy, a disease marked by progressive wasting of muscles, Lester, who navigates around Clairton Elementary in a motorized wheelchair, can't walk without a walker and has difficulty writing.
"So I didn't fit the profile," she said.
So she enrolled at Slippery Rock University and earned a master's degree in special education. She was hired by Clairton, her alma mater, in 1993, the year the district began an inclusion program. She currently teaches third- and fourth-grade learning support classes.
Like Bittner, part of Lester's reason for becoming a special ed teacher was her own unhappy school experience. Unaccustomed to dealing with disabled students, teachers either ignored her or couldn't hide their discomfort, she said.
Having a disabled teacher in the classroom, she said, changes that.
Disabled students "feel more comfortable with us because we can relate," she said.
High school was equally difficult for Lewis, 54, who hid the severity of his hearing impairment for fear of being ostracized as the only disabled person in a graduating class of 520. He wasn't allowed to play football. He didn't find out President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated until he got home from school because he didn't hear the announcement over the loudspeaker and no one thought to pull him aside and give him the news.
A sympathetic vice principal, however, saw something in Lewis that his teachers had missed.
"He actually got into his own pocket and paid for a hearing exam, which led to me getting a hearing aid, applying to college and getting into social work," he said.
Today, all three educators make a concerted effort to be very candid about their lives. Lewis encourages youths to look in his ear at the hearing aid, and Bittner leads guided tours of the "Robovan," her modified minivan. And they all gladly answer questions about their disabilities, no matter how personal or embarrassing.
Lester's pupils, for example, were amazed when she had her second child about two years ago.
"They wanted to know, 'Can you do that?' " she recalled with a laugh.
Bittner also has fielded her share of probing questions. One child, in particular, wanted to know how she showered. But mostly, she said, they ask the same things they ask every other teacher: Are you married? Where do you live? Do you have any kids?
That openness, they say, helps dispel myths about the disabled as well as build respect.
Because of the teachers' disabilities, their schools have had to make certain adjustments. Lewis' volume-control phone, for example, amplifies phone conversations so loudly that he needs a private office.
Lester and Bittner need a little more time for bathroom breaks and both teachers occasionally require help hanging things up. In addition, Lester had to have a lever-type doorknob put on her classroom door because she couldn't grasp the regular round model.
And very occasionally, administrators must modify the curriculum to allow for their special needs. A new elementary reading series being used this fall, for example, requires a lot of hand motions and finger snapping -- something Lester has difficulty with. So special education supervisor Idessa Hricisak devised a plan that allows her to instead tap a pencil or a chopstick.
But by and large, accommodations are few, and the teachers wave off any extra attention.
"Just because I'm in a wheelchair doesn't mean I can't do stuff for myself," Bittner said. "I'm just a person doing a job."
Lester added, "Can't is a swear word for me."
Lewis conceded that parents were sometimes apprehensive of having a deaf person counseling their children. But after meeting with him one-on-one, those fears are usually dispelled, he said.
"He's super," West Mifflin Assistant Superintendent Norman Randolph said. "He has a real ability to communicate and work effectively with the kids."
Bittner and Lester say being in a wheelchair has a certain advantage: It allows them to be at eye level with their young charges, which makes them feel more secure.
Teachers with disabilities can be inspirational not only for pupils but also for staff members, Hricisak said.
"They might have a physical disability, but they don't have a handicap," he said. "These women show people that being disabled doesn't stop you from living."
And it sends the message that if you're willing to work hard, there's no challenge you can't overcome, Bittner said.
"Kids think it's fun being in a wheelchair, but I tell them the truth," Bittner said. "It's a lot of work and frustrating, too."
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