Every year, I would give my English students random prompts to write about in their journals and then the students would share some of their ideas with the class. One prompt I always assigned: What do you want to be when you grow up? Interestingly, some students knew exactly what they wanted to be and others had no idea. The ideas of the students in younger grades were more fantastical than those of my high schoolers but I could always count on students who planned to be professional athletes, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and veterinarians. However, I never had a student say he/she wanted to be president.
Why not? Why wouldn’t any of them dream of being the leader of the free world? I think maybe they thought it was too grand to aspire to be the president of the United States or maybe it would be too difficult. But I thought about it when I was in grade school because we were given an opportunity to write a letter to the governor of Indiana in grade 4 and if our letter was chosen, we were allowed to spend a day at the Statehouse. I dreamed about being chosen, and then one day becoming a governor, and finally the President! I did not win and I did not become the president but I did encourage my students to dream big. I always told them anyone could be the president. But, can they?
Can people with disabilities become the president? They can. As a matter of fact, we have had many past presidents with disabilities.“Dwight Eisenhower had a learning disability. Abraham Lincoln lived with depression. James Madison had epilepsy. Franklin D. Roosevelt had polio (”Disability History: An Overview, NPS.org“) Also Wikipedia lists multiple members of the U.S. Senate and Congress who currently serve or have served with blindness, hearing loss, loss of limbs, paraplegics, paralysis, and other disabilities.It seems the politicians in Washington are just as diverse as the people they serve and they did not allow disabilities to hold them back from their dreams.
At CORE we know our participants have dreams too. We also realize their disabilities can sometimes make it more difficult for them to reach those dreams but that is why we are here. We want to encourage our individuals with disabilities to reach for the stars and be the best they can be in whatever they choose. Who’s to say that one of our participants couldn’t someday be a congressman, a senator, or even the president of the United States! It could happen.
