Open Society

The verbs that awareness/history/acceptance months produce - we “honor,” we “highlight, we “reflect on” - seem vague and empty compared to the material, bodily harm that ableism creates. The time of life is being stolen from BIPOC disabled people under the cover of our complacency.

The paper's main insight is that whilst lockdown occasioned its own stresses for families, especially around home schooling, it also offered the young people a release from the often-stigmatising experiences of being an autistic student in mainstream schools.

Ivan Illich said much the same thing, if with very different wording, when he observed that: School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition. And school directly or indirectly employs a major portion of the population. School either keeps people for life or makes sure that they will fit into some institution.

Finally, I'd like to end with some words by Wendy Priesnitz: Life for children in school is public. They have virtually no time or space to which adults can be denied access. Children who find psychological privacy by daydreaming are labeled as inattentive or disinterested. On the other hand, life for unschooled children - even ones without siblings - is a mixture of personal and shared time, which allows them to get to know themselves, at the same time as they learn to value, yet be discriminating about, the time spent with others.  My observation of thousands of home educated children over the past 35 years suggests that another factor outweighs any kind of peer or sibling interaction in its influence on social development. Feelings of security and self confidence are created in children who have the freedom to venture into sophisticated social situations at their own speed. This positive self concept is nurtured by warm, loving interaction with parents who respect their children. As the main ingredients in a child's social development, these even outweigh the contribution of continued social contact in creating a child who functions well in society.