Bullying from page 22

These children may arrive in school
with a sense of entitlement, attitudes
of disrespect and a lack of empathy. At
this point, we expect our educators and
administrators to become social work-
ers, law enforcement officers and parent
surrogates who will see to it that our
children become neshamah, good souls.
On the wider circles, beyond the edu-
cational system, we have the community
norms and the cultural influences. The
schools are sandwiched between indi-
vidual and family characteristics and
the issues that prevail beyond the play-
ground.
It is unfair to believe that our schools
— with shrinking budgets and height-
ened demand for academic achievement
— can be the transformational solution
for every social problem.
The unrealistic assignment we have
thrown to our schools has become a
boomerang and landed on our own
doorsteps. The finger we have pointed
has circled back into our faces; and we
must open our eyes. We must become
role models for the behaviors we want
our children to possess.
If outrage and anger become our
strategy for success, our children will
see kindness as a weakness instead of a
virtue.
If we seek power to control others
rather than earn power to heal the
world, our children will compete for
power to control their peers.
If we reject others because of their
differences and disabilities, our children
will not look with favor upon people
who are dissimilar.
Bullying will always be with us,
handed down from one generation
to the next, until we listen to the chil-
dren. They have had to go to dramatic
lengths to capture our concern, and they
are in great pain. Children will ridicule
each other, ostracize their peers, intimi-
date those who are vulnerable and cause
anguish for one another until we hear
their cries for relief.
We cannot demand that they reform
until we are willing and committed to
accept the challenge ourselves. ❑

Advocating Disabled Rights

M

uch of my life's work has
focused on upholding the
rights for disabled people
in America. Despite the passage of
the Americans with Disabilities Act
in 1990, clearly providing guide-
lines to level the playing field, it is
still too challenging for disabled
people to make independent lives
for themselves in the United States.
Still, I find myself amazed that
countries not so far from us are
generations behind in how they
perceive and treat disabled people.
Recently, when I was asked by the
government of Ecuador to visit the
country to help them in their own quest
to develop rights for disabled people,
akin to what we have here, I had no idea
what I would witness there. Nothing in
all of my work here could have prepared
me for what people with disabilities
face in that developing South American
country.
Upon stepping foot inside Ecuador,
I soon was struck by the harsh realiza-
tion that not only were people with
disabilities largely unsupported, they
were viewed as cursed, the by-product
of evil-doing relatives generations
before them, without having uttered a
single word or performing a single act
to define who they truly are as human
beings.
In rural areas outside of the major
cities and university communities,
disabled children are not permitted
to live indoors with their families and
are therefore banished to live with the
animals. They are forbidden to go out

Back home
in the United
States, the
journey for
disabled
equality may
never end.

in the community because it would be
perceived as being a bad reflection on
their parents.
It would be easy to judge them; but
as I began to think about how the
Ecuadorian culture was modeled and
how these perceptions were formed, I
understood that many of them have just
never known any other way to think
about a disabled person's possible role
in society.
It is important to understand that
Ecuador has an inherently profound
cultural respect for athletic achievement
and idolizes its athletes. Their abilities
provide Ecuadorian citizens with pride
and hope. Knowing this, the Ecuadorian
government set a course to use athletics
as a way to change the perceptions of its
people toward the disabled community.
In coalition with the Ecuadorian gov-
ernment, the mainstream news media
and Ecuadorian universities, I was
requested to help demonstrate achieve-

SueEllen Fried, author of Banishing Bullying
Behavior and a national speaker on bullying,

spoke on Dec. 9 at the 29th annual Alicia
Joy Techner Memorial Parenting Conference

at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield to

provide strategies, understanding and ideas
for intervening and preventing bullying using
the moral and ethical principles of Judaism.
She has worked with 85,000 students in 36

states in bullying education and is founder
of the bully prevention program, Bully Safe

USA.

Richard Bernstein speaks to students at Colegio Americano de Quito

ments possible for disabled people if
given the opportunity. Having heard of
my dedication to supporting disabled
rights, coupled with my passion for and
participation in athletics, time and time
again overcoming my own disability, it
seemed my story would be a compelling
start to help them achieve their goals.
Breaking down the misconceived per-
ceptions of disabled people has become
a top priority in Ecuador. The vice
president of Ecuador, a wheelchair user
himself, expressed to me how deeply he
cared about improving the lives of dis-
abled people in Ecuador.
He wanted his country to serve as a
model for developing nations, about
how amazingly spectacular the lives of
disabled people could be when they are
given the opportunity to live free of ill-
formed stereotypes and restrictions.
As I traveled the country, I spoke to
various groups of students in universi-
ties. And I participated in two major
interviews with highly respected news
outlets about using athletics as my
vehicle to demonstrate the successful
achievements and contributions people
with disabilities can have in society.
I explained, cane in hand, that com-
pleting 13 marathons and one Iron
Man Triathlon are successes surely one
could not have achieved as a "cursed"
individual.
Clearly, more work needs to be done.
You can't solve a cultural dilemma such
as this in any one speech or interview.
My next step is to return to South
America. By working in conjunction
with athletic organizers, the government
and media outlets, I hope to continue to
assist the shift in the way Ecuador and
other developing nations treat their citi-
zens with disabilities.
To prove a point, I'm already sched-
uled to compete in a triathlon in the
Galapagos Islands to serve as a continu-
ation effort to destroy ill-formed per-
ceptions of disabled people.
Back home in the United States,
the journey for disabled equality may
never end. However, having seen how
much work is ahead for countries like
Ecuador, I realize how blessed I am
to live in the U.S. because of the great
strides we've made for people with dis-
abilities by maintaining our focus on
being a land of inclusion. ❑

Richard Bernstein is a member of the Sam
Bernstein Law Firm, Farmington Hills.

in Ecuador.

MI

December 23 • 2010

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