Students experience disabilities firsthand

The staccato popcorn explosions were the only sounds in the room. All eyes were drawn toward the girl shuffling across bubble wrap, legs taped together and arms braced against the protective cage of the metal walker. It was an exercise in being the center of attention, and the group in the room was silent partly out of sympathy, and partly because they knew that in less than an hour it would be their turn. In a recent workshop, Graduate School of Education students -- all working for a master's degree in counseling -- experienced for themselves the difficulties and alienation of being disabled on Penn's campus. GSE Professor Jeanne Stanley and Medical School Professor Alicia Conill ran the session as part of Stanley's class on contemporary issues in communications psychology. "You get the direct stares, the 'I feel bad for you' stares, the look and look away stares, the blatant stares," said Andrea Mazzocco, who acted as caretaker for a fellow student who was bandaged and on crutches. "It took so much patience for me because I'm a hustler and a bustler, and I had to slow down. In a big city, things don't slow down." "The shame is always there," said Conill, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. "My idea of perfection was different than this.... You feel less than perfect, that's just the reality of it. When your mother tries to help you in the bathroom and you're 43, it's not good, because they still think you're three. Feeling little is a very frequent feeling." Dividing the class into pairs of students, one to be disabled and one to act as caretaker, Conill and Stanley presented the students with a list of simple tasks that their disorders made nearly impossible. Assignments ran the gamut from getting lunch in the food court to photocopying from a book in the Fine Arts Library to getting a pamphlet about disability insurance from the University. One student had a head cast, a black eye, a stiffly bandaged leg and a walker -- apparently the victim of domestic abuse. Others were in wheel chairs, on crutches or wearing ear plugs, dark glasses or mouthpieces to slur their speech. They not only appeared realistic enough to fool the casual onlooker, but were also wrapped in such a way as to simulate the handicaps for the students as well. One even wore pebbles in her shoes to recreate the painful jabbing sensation, a side effect of an AIDS medication. As the ragtag group shuffled, hobbled and wheeled back from the two-hour excursion around campus, they discussed how the public reaction to them was drastically changed. Some said they felt invisible, while others said they were tired of being called "sweetie" and "dear" simply because of their mock disability. "It's another world -- what you can see at [wheelchair] level, and having people look down at you all the time," Stanley said. "It's amazing how people think that when you're handicapped, you're stupid," said Ted Burnes, who was confined to a wheelchair. "I bumped into this one guy and he was like, 'Oh, it's OK,' and then he passed and goes, 'fucking cripple.'" He added that another sympathetic passerby actually tossed him a quarter. Conill is also the founder of the Conill Institute for Chronic Illness, which provides these workshops for healthcare professionals, families, patients and even corporate diversity training. Since they started in 1997, Stanley and Conill have run workshops on being disable at Penn at the Medical and Nursing schools as well. Conill and Stanley wanted students to experience the strain that disabilities can place on relationships because they demand so much attention. "Spontaneity is a thing of the past," Conill said. "The sense of being glad someone is with you is a real one, but at the same time, it is annoying to always have someone with you." Stanley said they were also hoping to illustrate the University's lack of accommodations for those with disabilities. She said she hoped that if nothing else, students would remember the dilemmas of simply entering the library or finding a bathroom, not to mention "the long term disability insurance that Penn offers that no one can find out about." Conill told the group to notice the frequency with which they said "thank you" and "sorry." And most found that the apologies were constant. "I was so determined to do it by myself," said Burnes. "I had to ask and I wasn't used to asking for help."