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Nicholas Motamed
5/25/2020
Professor Herman
English 1T

Walls Between Higher education and students with Physical and Neurodiverse
Challenges

When Growing up I had to face a bunch of learning challenges such as slowly

processing information and my mind could not keep up in fast paced environments in

school. I have a list of accommodations, such as extended time on assignments to help

me complete them to the best of my ability, which honors my Human Right for free

education by allowing me to be able to participate and empower me to succeed in

school, as part of my right for free education. Although I am surprised to find that

according to the “National Center for Education Statistics' federal data shows that only

41 percent of students that happen to have challenges, [in the United States] graduate

from two-year colleges within eight years; that rate drops to roughly one-third for those

attending four-year schools. (Stephanie Snider, Barriers to Education). There is a

human rights violation for students in higher education that have physical and learning

challenges such as, physical barriers to the school, limited or poor technology, and lack

of transportation. There are people with learning challenges that do not get any

assistance in school to help in the class, and worst of all these can lead to an issue for

both students with physical and neurodiverse challenges for this lead to them feeling

discriminated against for they feel their being disrespected for who they are. Students

are being denied their right to free education so adminsators, staff, outside support and

teachers are responsible for empowering students no matter what their challenges are.

Most Students get to go school to learn and hangout with their friends, although
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the majority of Students with physical challenges can not even step foot in their schools

to do what other students are doing for there are stairs in every school in the United

States, that are nice looking, but hinders students with physical challenges from

entering schools. For “According to the United Nations, 52% of schools [do not have

any elevators or ramps for] students in wheelchairs to use. While my school Foothill

College has accessible elevators, automatic doors and in the Disability Resources

Center there are people who drive a Cart that drives people across campus, especially

those who need assistance getting from one place to another. Most schools in the

United States are not inclusive for students with physical differences because they do

not have ways for them to enter the school and feel welcomed. While it is a physical

challenge this can also lead to students feeling sad and hurt for they are being

discriminated against for no one thought of how to make the campus inclusive for

students with physical differences. For the students need help so they are included like

everyone else.

students with [challenges] roughly 11 percent of our country's undergraduate

population, that's more than 2.5 million students

College students these days use a lot of technology to work online courses that

are fun and engaging to help you learn, but do not provide technology that students

physical and neurodiverse challenges to be able to use. College students with physical

and neurodiverse challenges who need to access online school websites can not,

according to the United Nations, ” 61% of government websites do not meet the needs

of those with differentiable challenges. Students with physical and neurodiverse

challenges can not reach their school websites because they might not be either
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readable if the student is blind, zero ASL support if they can not hear the information or

no different ways to access a keyboard. Those with physical or learning challenges

taking online courses not many job opportunities for “ employers would “[hesitate]

hiring a [student] with an online degree” this is since they would be “skeptical about their

collaboration skills ” since they are not around people(Brittany R. Collins Online

Education Is a Disability Rights Issue). While it is not totally a false concern if someone

with online courses has any teamwork experiences. This is a perceived notion for there

are many friends and other students that I know that do use teamwork skills and are

successful. Many people use online courses There are many ways through online

courses, and the online websites that are not able to support students with physical and

neurodiverse challenges.

College Students get to get to school faster and enjoy going to school on the

bus, although students with physical challenges such as students with a wheelchair do

not have ways to get on the bus to school. Students with physical differences are not

able to ride on a single bus because according to the United Nations few have “

accessible transport systems”(United Nations date on image). There seems to be a

concern for either little or no transportation for students with physical challenges and is

a problem that needs to be accres in order for students to all have their rights honored

and respected in education.

There are students who do manage to attend college,although there are students

with learning challenges that need extra support like notetaker or calculators but

“don't have the proper support” for high Education(Peter Eden, “College Guide
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for Students With Learning Disabilities”). Yet the world is filled with various

students with various learning challenges such as Lee Willliams, with College

Autism Network, who points out that there needs to be more “training and

support for the staff and faculty” to help them learn how to include students with

learning challenges so they are empowered to succeed(Snider, interview Lee

Burdette Williams, interviewer, 6(the interviews are listed by number so put this if

it helps find them better). If the teachers and other higher education faculty

members do not provide assistance to help them or get trained to be able to

have compassion on the people with learning challenges so they can help them.

There are students that think that since people with challenges are “federally

mandated” to have support for them on campuses and make it inclusive. This is

unfortunately false for there are plenty of students with learning and physical

challenges that get discriminated on campuses for all the barriers mentioned so far.

While there are kind teachers and students, there are teachers and students alike that

perceive students with learning and physical challenges as having” low intelligence and

less mobile” which is not true, which puts them down making the student get negative

on him/herself too. In addition students are told to lie that they have challenges in order

to get into colleges; although there is a truth towards it it is not totally true. According to

Burdette, from College Autism Network, plenty of “colleges and universities do make it

more accepting to help students with challenges and willing to help them reach their

goals'' (Snider, interview Lee Burdette Williams, interviewer, 6(the interviews are listed

by number so put this if it helps find them better). Leads to exclusion to students with

learning challenges, leaving them feeling disrespected. Teachers that are not doing
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whatever they can to help their students with learning and physical challenges feel

included are in a way mocking, and discriminating for that’s what it can feel when they

are being denied the resources they need, as well as the other students learn to not be

so mean.

Students with physical and learning challenges make up a lot of our schools in

the United States, let their right to education get violated. Most teachers are supportive,

but adminstaro and staff need to learn to help the teachers educate students to be

inclusive and provide as much resources as necessary. To do this School staff,

administrators and teachers should learn about these “differences from a student, so

they can [help them better]”(Snider, interview Lee Burdette Williams, interviewer, 6.

need to be trained to be able to have compassion on students that are differentiable and

be able to provide whatever the student’s to succeed. The adminstaros should be able

to provide our teachers with as much support as they can so all students are

empowered to be able to go to school, have fun there, learn and be succesfull.

Most Students with neurodiverse and physical differences are amazing smart

individuals with their own unique talents. Administrators are responsible for providing

the resources teachers need to help students and both administrators and teachers

need to learn compassion in order to have Human Rights ``free education”. We learned

that there were low numbers of graduates from colleges, we need to help students so

we give them their rights.

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Work cited:

● CDC. “Disability and Health Inclusion Strategies.” Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29 Apr. 2020,
www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/disability-strategies.html.
● Collins, Brittany R. "Online Education Is a Disability Rights Issue." Gale
Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2020. Gale In Context:
Opposing Viewpoints,
https://ezproxy.fhda.edu:2746/apps/doc/QSMQIE482417219/OVIC?
u=foothill_main&sid=OVIC&xid=2b88bcdc. Accessed 17 May 2020. Originally
published as "Online education is a disability rights issue; let's treat it that
way," Inside Higher Ed, 29 Aug. 2018 .
● Snider, Writers, Staff. “Barriers to Education - Disabilities - Best Colleges.” Best
Colleges.com, BestColleges.com, 15 Oct. 2018,
www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-barriers-disabilities/. Williams,
interviewer, 6.
● Purdue Writing Lab. “MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics // Purdue Writing Lab.”
Purdue Writing Lab, Purdue,
owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_
guide/m la_in_text_citations_the_basics.html.
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