I'm co-teaching a class (with long time employment mediator Stefan Mason) at the Straus Institute this semester.  We covered the Americans with Disabilities Act last night and spent an hour of the class "listening" to the voices of the disabled by watching YouTube videos, one of which I provide for my readers below.

The first "adult" book I ever read was To Kill a Mockingbird (film link here and movie clip here) when I was in the fifth grade. I know it's considered sentimental and not well written by the academy these days.  But what do you say about a book that changes someones life?  

Surely, I had never before heard the phrase

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-until you climb in his skin and walk around in it.  ~Atticus Finch

And as much as Harper Lee loved and respected Atticus, I did too.  In my ten-year old heart, he embodied everything I was already beginning to care about -- tolerance, respect, kindness, generosity and a fierce devotion to justice regardless of the consequences.

With Atticus' advice still sounding in my head forty years later, I bring you the voices of disability from Stefan's and my ADA class last night.  The Credo for Support.  Listen.  Reflect.  Your next mediation with someone who's disabled will be transformed by this.