Those Who Can't, Teach: The Disabling History of American Educators

Abstract

This essay is an exploratory history of American educators as viewed through the lens of disability studies. By this I mean that I am looking at the history of school teachers with disability as the primary marker of social relations, in much the same way that I and others have looked at the history of education through the primary lens of race, gender, ethnicity, age, religion, and sexuality. Looking at the history of teachers through the analytic framework of disability studies allows us to see first, how educational systems, practices, values, and professional norms have developed in a way that excludes people with disabilities from educational employment, or assigned them to parallel and marginalized institutions of special education and second, how notions of normality have defined the work and identity of all educators. It is this latter point that is my greatest interest here: how cultural concepts of ability and disability have shaped all educators' occupational identity and experience over time.