We talked to disabled social worker Dimitra Gasouka about the value of inclusive fairy tales.
Source: ow.gr
We talked to disabled social worker Dimitra Gasouka about the value of inclusive fairy tales.
"Another inclusive fairy tale?" I wondered to myself when Vassos Mavroudi's new book "The Butterfly with the Broken Wing" came into my hands. And yet, when I read it with my 8-year-old daughter that night, I realized that it was very different from most fairy tales starring children with disabilities, which I hadn't noticed until then.
In this book, the story does not revolve around "the poor butterfly who was so unlucky and is now forced to live differently from everyone else." Instead, it's perhaps the first time that the inevitable question of the young reader "why is she disabled?" is finally answered. It is where the role of the community, the group, of society as a whole comes to the fore. And where, until the end of the story, the child forgets that the butterfly is somewhat different from the rest of the forest creatures, even if it moves around with an "instrument of dignity", in other words a crutch. Because the emphasis is on what it can do and not on what it cannot do.
During the interesting book presentation, Dimitra Gasouka, Disabled - Social Worker, Municipal Councilor of Halandri and co-administrator of the online group "Disabled Women", recounted a saying of Hans Christian Andersen, "fairy tales are written so children can go to sleep and wake up adults". She also explained this to me in our discussion on inclusive fairy tales: For them to be truly inclusive, the adult who reads them to the child must really know what disability and inclusion means. Does he/she know?
Why do we need fairy tales about inclusion?
"We need fairy tales for everything, anyway. With fairy tales we grow up, mature, learn, travel and dream. We come close to our feelings, to creatures that are not familiar to us and through them we can identify ourselves. When you identify, you also learn. You most embrace these roles so that you can evolve," says Ms. Gasuka.
"We need inclusive fairy tales because... they don't exist. And they don't exist because there is no inclusion. If there were, we probably wouldn't need them. It would be something we would have accepted, that would have been all around us. That's why not very many inclusive fairy tales are written. Fairy tales are written that focus on the impairment, the problem, the difficulty of the hero, e.g. how he overcomes difficulties, how he is accepted, how he deals with ridicule or how he becomes friends with a person of typical development. So, we need these fairy tales to get close to a role model that doesn't exist."
At this point, she clarifies that in the field of disability there are two dominant models that help us understand the processes that lead to either inequality or discrimination:
1. The Individual/Medical Model, which focuses on the impairment of the individual and considers disabled people "to have something wrong with them" that needs "fixing" in order to live like "normal" people. Disabled people are treated as a burden on society and it is assumed a priori/theoretically that they live an unhappy life.
2. The Social Model, which distinguishes "impairment" from "disability". Specifically, the first concept refers to some kind of impairment that the person has and can be either acquired or has existed from birth, and it concerns chronic physical/motor, intellectual, emotional, sensory impairments as well as chronic diseases. The second concept describes disability as something that society imposes on us, together with our impairments without taking into consideration the design of an infrastructure that would include all human diversity in everyday life. So, disabled people cannot participate in society equally.
The social worker Ms. Dimitra Gasouka
The issue of disability is deeply political
Unfortunately, the issues relating to disability in Greece have not been resolved. "There are many stereotypes that have prevailed for years and are perpetuated. This is a deeply political issue," explains Ms. Gasuka. "If political decisions had been taken, they would have been resolved years ago. The issue of disability is not included in public discourse and that is why it is a subject that alienates us, and creates mostly unpleasant feelings in us. We either identify with it or fear to identify with it because of what we see. And precisely because there are so many emotions, the fairy tale comes to give some answers. The point is: how does the story do it? Does it focus solely on the individual or on society as well?''
She describes that in most fairy tales she has read and which are characterized as inclusive, the existence of impairment is not presented as part of human diversity. Instead, the disabled creature is presented as a hero, because he struggles to become "well", to be accepted as "different" or as an angel who comes down to Earth. The latter is often written about children with intellectual disabilities, and especially about autistic children.
In this way a gap is created between children of typical development and children with disabilities. Therefore, stereotypes are perpetuated, in other words that disabled people are sick.
"Most of the corresponding fairy tales show how the hero deals with others that is placing the problem on the human. They vie him against others and show that the disable person bears the burden, and it is not society's fault for what the individual experiences, it’s not society’s fault that is not inclusive, and that it is not made for all creatures. For example, it's not society's fault that there aren't ramps everywhere," she continues. It's his fault... his bad luck!
What do inclusive fairy tales offer to children with and without disabilities?
Beyond the story itself, to be truly meaningful, an inclusive fairy tale must also be used correctly. "Before reading such a fairy tale to the child, the parent needs to have processed some things himself. To have understood what the impairment is, what the disability is. Not to change the tone of his/her voice so that he/she shows pity for the child-protagonist with the disability, because by doing so the message that is conveyed is that the disabled child is pitiful", explains Ms. Gasuka.
With which criteria should we choose such a fairy tale?
How can a parent who is interested in being informed and imparting knowledge correctly choose an inclusive fairy tale? Discussing with Ms. Gasuka, we came to some informal criteria:
1. The main thing is not to focus on the story of the disabled creature. The purpose of the story shouldn’t be to find out how "those children" feel. In itself, "those children" creates a distance, a distinction.
2. It might make sense to look for a fairy tale written either by a person with a disability or by people with experience in the field of disability.
3. Finally, perhaps a fairy tale that proposes solutions and that makes everyone feel a part of them would also make sense. For example, writing a fairy tale about a school without ramps, not about a child in a wheelchair; A fairy tale that will not focus on awareness. "Because raising awareness," as Ms. Gasuka says, "will not solve my problem. The ramp will solve that." She adds that recently the Municipality of Halandri built ramps in all schools, without any exception. "However, there is still a lot to be done if we want to talk about universal accessibility."