mag's own story,

Copyrighted 2004


Two Schools, Big Difference

        I spent the last three years of high school in alternative schools. That
is a school where students work with individual teachers and design their
own courses. At the first alternative school I learned to weave on a loom,
bake bread, and learned organic gardening from the ground up literally. I
also studied French, and learned to write critiques.  At the second school,
I had a more normal course work, Art, English, French, Computer Math ,
Marine biology, Ethnic studies, and Social Studies with a wonderful Quaker
teacher.  I loved it at that school. I had really gifted teachers and I
learned a lot from them in all areas. I graduated with a 3.75 GPA, and got
to go to a
make-your-own-sundae gathering, and had my name in the paper.
        I graduated high school in 1974, and since I have cerebral palsy and could
not go backpacking through Europe with my able-bodied friends, my parents
took me with them on their sabbatical. We drove across country to DC, where
my dad drove on to New York to put the car on a ship to Rotterdam, and we
visited with family in DC for a few days, and then flew to Europe. We
traveled throughout Europe for three months, and then took a ship to Israel
where we stayed for six months. That entire trip was very important and
eye-opening to me.
        I had applied to college, and been accepted and granted a year’s
deference. Vocational rehabilitation had agreed to pay for my tuition and
books, and I think my share of the room as long as I
shared a room.
        My first year at college was at a private school about two hours away from
my parent’s house. I lived in a dorm and shared a room with a girl named
Sherry who had Tourette’s syndrome. We were the only students with
disabilities on that campus for a long time. There was no such thing as an
office for students with disabilities at that time. I later met my friend
Marion who had hypoglycemia. But all in all, it was a pretty scary, lonely
place for somebody like me who had such an obvious disability.  I also had
a friend named Linda Goldman who was perhaps the only other Jew on this
campus.
        I was depressed and my reading which had always been slow, became tedious
and painful as my eye muscles tend to get very tense when I'm under
pressure. So, Linda, bless her heart, would read the text books out loud to
me. By this time, I had moved out of the room I shared with Sherry, as
Sherry had personality difficulties and was very overbearing and
controlling. I lived in my own room in another dorm hall and my parents
paid for it. But by the following year, I had a nervous breakdown and so I
left that school and went to live in the downstairs part of my parent’s
duplex.
        I lived there for nine months, and then I moved in with one of my dad’s
psych-major students who needed a third roommate. I started attending Cal
State Long Beach, where just the year before, the president of the
university had gone around campus in a wheelchair for several weeks, and
major accessibility issues were quickly fixed! It is a much larger school
than my old school, and had a large, wonderful office of disability
affairs. I loved hanging out there with my friend Steve from junior high,
and others I came to love and admire.
        At CSULB, I was given note-takers, readers who read my books out loud to
me, and I became editor of the disabled students’ union newsletter. I
worked hard, and got almost all A’s. Being uniquely me, I didn't have a lot
of tolerance for required courses that had endless chapters to read, and I
also avoided math classes of any kind. My major was Creative Writing and my
minor was Women’s Studies, so I figured why do I need math, why do I need
this or that?  (How I wish I had realized how close I was to graduating! I
discovered years later that I had many more units than I realized.)
        I would whittle my class load down to two or three a semester, since I was
also doing all my own housekeeping, laundry, cooking and shopping myself
and it was damn tiring. Rehab was never happy about it, but sometimes I
would also take a semester or two off to write books, try to find a job,
volunteering at UFW, NOW, Amnesty International, and anti-nuke/anti war
stuff.
        Rehab never hassled me too much though, because they knew I was much too
bright to stick in a mindless workshop, and I was much too disabled for
them to find even one employer who would even interview me. This became a
point of contention as I knew that I needed job experience and I never got
any.
        Finally, I left CSULB, and moved to Santa Monica to live in an ashram,
which is like a monastery where I studied Eastern meditation and
philosophy. I loved it, and even though I moved out after one year, I
stayed in Santa Monica and did the practices in my apartment and continued
going to the ashram for evening programs.
        My advice to students with disabilities is to go to an ”accessible”
school, where they will help you obtain the physical things you need;
note-takers, readers, sign language interpreters, tutors who understand how
to work with people with disabilities, and where you're able to traverse
the campus without killing yourself. I also advise you to seek out a school
where there are many students with disabilities.
        Although I hated them for it at the time, in hindsight, my parents were
right in not allowing me to sign up for kitchen privileges at my first
school. You will be expending a huge amount of energy on more important
things, such as just getting around, going to classes, reading, writing
papers, taking care of your apartment, and let’s not forget socializing and
being active in student or community activities. The time will come soon
enough when you will need to cook for yourself.
        As much as you might want to strike out on your own and get as far away
from your parents as possible, please consider staying within an easy drive
of your family, at least for the first year. College can be a rough place,
especially if your parents have sheltered you. Speaking of which, your
parents should begin teaching you how to do laundry, how to grocery shop,
how to cook, how to handle money and balance a checkbook a long time before
you even finish high school.
Well, that’s my story in a nutshell.

Tamar Magenta Raine
[log in to unmask]

IM; tamarmag48
Oakland Mayor's Commission on People with disabilities


> [Original Message]
> From: Elizabeth Thiers <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 4/14/2004 4:25:04 AM
> Subject: Looking for articles
>
> Subject: Call for contributions: anthology about first-year college =
> students
> with disabilities
> From: "John G. Reiss" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 11:15:51 -0400
> X-Message-Number: 3
>
> The Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) is soliciting
> articles and artwork for an anthology about first-year college students =
> with
> disabilities.
>
> The purpose of the book is to educate prospective college students with
> disabilities, parents of students with disabilities, university =
> personnel,
> and transition specialists in K-12, through the voices of current and =
> former
> college students. The book will focus on two major issues: the =
> experience of
> graduating from high school and going to college; and life during the =
> first
> year of college as a student with a disability.=20
>
> Fictional short stories, essays, poetry, photographs and art about =
> college
> experiences are welcome. Submissions may be written/typed, =
> signed/videotaped
> or spoken/audiotaped.=20
>
> More than one submission per person is allowed, and submissions from
> students outside of the U.S. are encouraged. There is no age limit.
> Submissions may have multiple authors or artists, as long as one of the
> people submitting the work has been a college student with a disability. =
> The
> deadline for submissions is June 1, 2004 =F1 requests for extensions of =
> this
> deadline must be made in writing by May 20, 2004. Important information
> regarding submissions:
>
> 1. All submissions must include a cover page, with the author/artist's =
> name
> and contact information, including an address, email address and phone =
> or
> TTY number. If the piece has multiple authors/artists, submissions =
> should
> include full names and contact information for each person. Some
> correspondence may be necessary this summer =F1 if contact information =
> will
> change during the summer, please note that on your submission. If pieces =
> are
> accepted for publication, authors/artists may use a pseudonym.
>
> 2. If written submissions have been translated, interpreted or =
> transcribed
> by a second party, please note that when submitting the work so AHEAD =
> can
> ensure appropriate acknowledgements.
>
> 3. All written submissions should be typed and should not exceed 5
> double-spaced pages.
>
> 4. All photographs and other artwork must be submitted in digital format =
> by
> the person submitting the piece. For example, photographs must be =
> scanned or
> taken with a digital camera. Artwork should be photographed and =
> converted to
> digital media. A brief description or artist's statement may accompany =
> the
> piece, but it is not required.
>
> 5. At least one person submitting the work must: 1) have a disability; =
> and
> 2) have attended a college or university at some point after high =
> school.
>
> 6. Send all submissions to Wendy Harbour at AHEAD: [log in to unmask]
>
> AHEAD is an international non-profit professional organization for
> disability service providers in higher education.=20
>
> For more information, see the AHEAD web site at www.ahead.org, call
> 781-788-0003 V/TTY or send an email to [log in to unmask]