A few years ago, curriculum specialist Richard Cairn showed a photo from the World War II era to two young men he was working with on a campaign to promote teaching disability history. The image shows a man with multiple disabilities processing airplane parts in an American defense plant. Cairn said the two volunteer leaders, who live with multiple disabilities, were surprised by the image. “They were excited to learn that people with disabilities had been involved in helping to fight fascism during World War II and upset that this had not been discussed in their high school history class,” Cairn said.
The young men’s excitement turned the photo into Cairn’s favorite image from disability history — and he has many to choose from. Cairn is one of the creators of Reform to Equal Rights, a free K-12 disability history curriculum that features 250 primary sources in its lesson plans. The curriculum is a project of the nonprofit Collaborative for Educational Services, where Cairn works, and was supported by grants from the Library of Congress and Mass Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Cairn often speaks with teachers about disability history at educator events, such as the National Council for the Social Studies annual conference. When he asks teachers how disability history comes up in their courses, he usually gets two responses: Helen Keller or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In other words, if disability history comes up at all in K-12 social studies, it’s usually a passing mention. That approach neglects the richness of disability history, which is part of every major era in social studies.
