Changing Minds, One Conversation at a Time

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that one of my biggest frustrations is how often people make assumptions about disability.

Sometimes those assumptions are well intentioned. Sometimes they are not. But almost all of them have one thing in common: they are based on a lack of knowledge and experience.

People fear what they don't understand.

People pity what they don't understand.

And people often underestimate what they don't understand.

That is why I have always believed that disability awareness programs matter. Not because they teach people facts about disability, but because the best ones create opportunities for people with and without disabilities to get to know one another.

The key phrase there is the best ones.

A one-time assembly or presentation may raise awareness for a day. But lasting change happens when disability awareness is part of an ongoing process that includes learning, conversation, relationship-building, and opportunities to interact with people with disabilities as peers.

Awareness without connection often fades. Awareness combined with meaningful relationships and hearing directly from people with lived experience creates understanding that lasts.

Several years ago, a friend of mine who is a teacher at Ida Crown Jewish Academy in

Chicago approached me about helping her create a unit for her English students around

disability awareness and education. The unit has evolved over the years and includes

researching the ADA, the disability rights movement, disability representation in

literature and media, and the voices of people with lived experience. This year, students also learned with one of the school's rabbis about what Jewish tradition teaches about inclusion and respect for all people, including those with disabilities. Judaism does not leave communal responsibility to chance. Our tradition speaks clearly about dignity, justice, belonging, and shared responsibility. The Torah commands us not to place a stumbling block before the blind, a teaching our sages understood not only literally but as a call to remove barriers that prevent people from fully participating in community life. Jewish tradition teaches that every person is created b'tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, and that our communities have an obligation to ensure that all people can participate fully in religious and public life. The rabbis also teach, Lo tifrosh min hatzibur, do not separate yourself from the community. Just as individuals are called to remain connected to community, communities themselves have an obligation to ensure that no one is excluded or left behind.

This year we expanded the project, and I had the opportunity to read some of the students,

reflections afterward. Their words validated for me why this work matters so much.

The students spent time learning about disability, disability rights, disability history, and Jewish values. They researched the Americans with Disabilities Act, the capital crawl and examined how people with disabilities have been portrayed in books, television, and movies.

But what made the biggest difference wasn't the research.

It was the people.

The students had a lunch in with Keshet high school students-a program for students with

intellectual disabilities that shares space in the Ida Crown building. They spoke with adults with disabilities, including me. They asked questions. They shared pizza. They had conversations.

In other words, they did something surprisingly simple.

They got to know us.

What struck me most when I read their reflections was not what they learned about disability.

It was how many of them described a shift in their thinking.

One student wrote:

"Meeting Alan changed my whole perspective. When I first met him, my first impression was just that he was a normal person. He likes pizza, he hangs out with friends, he plays basketball. He has a life. His disability is one part of him, not the whole story."

Maybe this student missed the part where I talked about what exactly "normal" means anyway, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Another student wrote:

"That was the moment it clicked for me that disability does not define who someone is."

Clicked.

That word jumped off the page because it perfectly captures what happens when disability stops being an abstract concept and becomes a human relationship.

Another student reflected:

"At first, I was nervous about participating in the lunch-in with Keshet, but once I sat down with Fireman Sam, my worries quickly disappeared. I found that making conversation came naturally. After the lunch-in, I no longer viewed people with disabilities as a separate group or as people to fear. Instead, I realized that they are very similar to me."

For many people, disability exists at a distance. They may know a disabled person from across a classroom, see someone using a wheelchair at the grocery store, or encounter a blind person walking with a cane or guide dog. But they rarely have the opportunity to sit down and have a real conversation.

Without that interaction, assumptions fill the gaps.

Then something remarkable happens when people actually get to know us.

The blind woman becomes a wife, mother, grandmother, author and board chair of a major

organization.

The young man with a disability becomes someone who loves basketball and pizza.

The person who communicates differently becomes someone who loves cats, dancing, traveling, or making people laugh.

The disability doesn't disappear.

It simply takes its proper place.

One aspect of a whole person.

That is what inclusion does when it is done well.

It doesn't ask people to ignore disability. It helps them see beyond it and understand it as a

natural part of human diversity.

This is also why it is so important for children with and without disabilities to learn together,

socialize together, and participate together. When children share classrooms, lunch tables,

extracurricular activities, youth groups, camps, and community programs, they have the

opportunity to build relationships instead of relying on assumptions.

Students without disabilities learn that disability is simply one part of human diversity. Students with disabilities gain the opportunity to be known for their personalities, talents, interests, and contributions rather than being defined by stereotypes.

Relationships replace misconceptions before those misconceptions have a chance to take root.

Several students described exactly that transformation.

One wrote:

"Before this project, I did not think much about people with disabilities at all. If I saw someone with a disability, I thought of them as not normal. I did not mean it in a mean way, but that is just how I saw it. Now, after hearing from speakers, sitting with Keshet students, and hearing what Judaism says about disabilities, I see things differently. People with disabilities are different, but they deserve the same respect, the same chances, and the same treatment as you and me."

Another reflected on how their understanding of independence changed:

"Before this, I mostly thought about disability in terms of limitations. Now I think more about

individuality and independence. Something Michelle Friedman said that stood out to me was that independence does not mean doing everything yourself, but making your own choices."

Still another student connected disability inclusion to Jewish values in a way that moved me:

"The distance between knowing about disability and truly understanding it is gone now, and this project is the reason why."

The student went on to write about speaking up when people make ignorant comments, choosing inclusion over exclusion, supporting organizations like Keshet, and embracing what they described as the difference between hospitality and home.

"Jewish values do not call for hospitality, they call for home. The difference is everything."

That reflection stopped me in my tracks.

Because ultimately, that is what inclusion should be about.

Not welcoming people as guests but

Creating communities where they belong.

Several students admitted that before this project they felt uncomfortable around people with disabilities. By the end, they described feeling more comfortable, more respectful, and more willing to engage with people who were different from them.

That is not an accident.

It is evidence.

I spend a lot of time talking about inclusion, disability awareness, and representation. Sometimes I question whether these efforts really make a difference.

These students answered that question for me.

Yes, they do.

When disability awareness includes people with lived experience, perceptions change.

When people have meaningful interactions with disabled individuals, stereotypes begin to fall apart.

When people stop seeing disability as something tragic, frightening, or inspirational and start seeing it as part of the human experience, belonging becomes possible.

You can read every article ever written about disability. You can memorize statistics. You can

learn laws and policies.

But nothing replaces getting to know an actual person.

Nothing replaces a conversation.

Nothing replaces a relationship.

And those conversations matter far beyond the classroom.

The students who participated in this project will someday become employers deciding whom to hire. They will become teachers, doctors, policy makers, neighbors, community leaders, and parents.

The student who learns today that disability is simply one aspect of a person's identity is more likely to become the employer who hires a qualified person with a disability and asks, "Why wouldn't I?"

They are more likely to become the parent who talks to their children about disability with

understanding rather than discomfort or pity.

They are more likely to challenge stereotypes when they hear them and create communities

where inclusion is expected rather than exceptional.

That is how real and lasting change happens.

Not through a single lesson.

Not through a one-time assembly.

Not through a slogan.

It happens when assumptions are challenged, relationships are built, and understanding grows.

It happens when people see disability not as something to fear, pity, or place on a pedestal, but as a natural part of the human experience.

Reading these students' reflections gave me hope that we are getting there.

Not because they memorized facts about disability. Not because they learned laws, policies, or historical events, important as those lessons are. And not because they heard experts talk about disability from the outside looking in.

Their perspectives changed because they heard directly from people with lived experience. They sat across the table from disabled students. They asked questions. They shared conversations.

They moved beyond assumptions and began to see people.

That is where understanding begins.

Not all at once. Not through grand speeches or one-time presentations. But through authentic relationships, honest conversations, and the willingness to learn from people whose experiences may be different from our own.

One conversation at a time.

Written By Michelle Friedman

Michelle Friedman is the board chair of Keshet in Chicago, a member of Disability Lead and has been a disability advocate for 40 years. She has written two children’s books and is a frequent speaker for elementary and high school-age students. #AllInForAllAbilities