Broadreach Training & Resources

DVD: THE STORY OF THE STRANGER
(High School Assembly - 50 minutes)

	Do my kids have cerebral palsy? No, because cerebral palsy is an injury, not a disease. An injury is something that happens outside of your body and a disease is something that happens inside your body. And you don't pass on injuries to your kids. If you can't figure that one out, all you have to remember is that when a pregnant woman breaks her arm, the baby is not born with a cast on.
	Am I going to die? The answer is yes...But I'vegot bad news for you.....So are you!
	I often wondered why people get so nervous around people with disabilities. And i think I figured it out. You see, I know I have a disability and you know I have a disability, but it seems like you don't know that I know I have a disability. And you don't want to be the one to tell me in case I go, "Oh my God, you're right! I'm crippled! AAHHHHH!"
\	What I indirectly learned from having years and years of physical therapy was, "The less disabled I appeared, the more people would accept me." Even when I got in a regular school, I still believed this. This was really evident when I went out on a date. Because whenever I was out with a girl, it was foregone conclusion in my mind was that the less handicapped I looked, the more the girl would like me.
	And what I learned that night was that I had the right to be disabled and that I was under no obligation to change who I was in order to be accepted. At that moment, my life changed. Because I figured out that the problem wasn't in me, the problem was in society.
	Later, I figured out that I wasn't the only person feeling this way. In fact, I realized that everyone was caught in the same trap believing that they had better than they were in order to belong. Because our society tells us you have to be perfectly beautiful, perfectly smart, wear the right clothes, say the right things, and only then will we be good enough to belong.
	So how do we get that feeling of belonging in a society that worships perfection? That's where prejudice comes in. We rely on making someone a common enemy, because if you hate the same person I hate, then we must be friends!
	Can you imagine going to a school where every single person had the absolute right to be exactly who they were? Can you imagine going to a school where it didn't matter if you fat or thin, disabled or non-disabled, athletic or not, if you were straight or gay? A school where everyone simply had the right to be who they were and had the right to belong. Can you imagine how much easier your life would be?
	Recognize that every person you meet has the story of their own life within them. If we can stay curious and seek the story in the stranger, we'll usually find a place where our stories overlap. At that moment, we discover how to build a sense of belonging out of our differences rather than in spite of them.
Students' Comments Questions for follow-up classroom discussion
Available in DVD - $50.00 *Order DVD*	Videos, DVDs, & Posters are distributed by the Special Needs Project Bookstore