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We now turn at #HES2020 to the panel after "Crip Camp": Tamara Myers, Kristen Chmielewski, Joel Miller, Neil Dhingra, Christopher Span. @2020_hes
Chmielewski starts with using the documentary in a class setting.
Chmielewski: Heumann's suit against NYC DOE (to teach) helped her learn advocacy skills. She had been denied a teaching license on the grounds of disability (NYC policy since late 1890s).
Chmielewski: Heumann made argument in the lawsuit that disabled people comprised an invisible minority; ACLU refused the case. Heumann learned how to do PR. She won, but only for Heumann as an individual.
For more on NYC and the broad discriminations against those who wanted to teach, see Christina Collins's "'Ethnically Qualified': Race, Merit, and the Selection of Urban Teachers, 1920-1980" (2011).
Joel Miller: this summer camp was the construction of a liberatory space. From a critical geographic standpoint, this was a disruption of their ordinary existence.
Miller: the disposition of the camp counselors was essential. The camp was a bubble.
Miller: The camp provided a space for the rest of the campers' lives. This raises a few questions. Who was made to feel welcome there? Who got to make decisions in the camp? Who held authority? Who legitimated it? Do people want to be there?
Miller: Could campers appropriate the space for their own purposes?
And (how) can we apply those questions in other educational spaces, such as K-12 schools?
And (how) can we apply those questions in other educational spaces, such as K-12 schools?
Neil Dhingra (wrote a review of film for H-Disability ... I'll find it in a second).
The Facebook page for the camp alumni was part of the origins of the documentary. Including digitization of the home movies from the camp (People's Video Theater).
The Facebook page for the camp alumni was part of the origins of the documentary. Including digitization of the home movies from the camp (People's Video Theater).
Here's Dhingra's review: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55249
Dhingra: There are a lot of questions about the history of youth camps. Heumann's memoir shows how negative her experiences in regular schools were.
Dhingra: There are other questions we can ask about the narrative trajectory of the film. And about the difference between a camp environment and the institutional structures that play a significant role in the later advocacy of camp alumni.
Dhingra: There are other questions about the ADA, both the advocacy process and the role of the ADA (as not standing alone, as Heumann points out in the film).
We're now in broader discussion. I'm stopping the live-tweeting; the panel is being recorded.
