Looking back at the ways we have approached people of disabilities, there has been a long history of abuse, discrimination, and lack of compassion. Recently, there has been a rise in awareness for discrimination against people of color and women, however, while disability discrimination has been present for decades, it has continued to go unnoticed.

Disability discrimination and bullying is the improper treatment of others based on one’s physical or mental impairments. While disability discrimination may not be as prevalent in some areas, it is still very prevalent in countries like Korea as it is perpetuated by their culture and traditional ideals. In Korea, many students with disabilities not only struggle to understand lessons at school, but go unnoticed, ignored, and often unsupervised. Considering this, parents have tried looking for alternative schooling methods, but the lack of specialized institutions keeps them from making any progress.

Not only that, there are many forms of bullying that is normalized in these schools towards students with disabilities.

There have been many reports about physical attacks that have caused injuries, bloody fights, and also verbal degradation. The results of this revealed the internalizing problems of behaviors such as anxiety, depression, withdrawals, and other somatic problems.

However, on top of not being able to find another disability oriented school, because of the lack of supervision, care, and no action taken by school administration, it has left parents helpless, keeping their kids home. Korea’s mainstream views and attitudes towards people with disabilities have been negative as they think of these kids as a life-long pain for oneself and their family as well as a detrimental aspect to their social standing, leading to their desire to even hide the person with a disability.

Considering these school struggles, Chungbuk Provincial Office of Education in Korea opened their plan to establish a school in Cheongju just for kids with disabilities. When they organized a brief session to listen to the citizens’ opinions about the establishment of the school, most of those who invested in the nearby Yuyang-dong D Apartment held an anti-competition movement against its creation, desperately asking to stop the process of building the site or requesting a change in plans. They questioned, “Who likes schools for people with disabilities?” and others expressed “I need a school, but who would like a special school?” claiming that if a school for disabilities was created, “young residents try to move away”, affecting their investments.

Through these sayings, there are multiple forms of discrimination as these citizens are also prioritizing unneeded money over education for also the students with disability. Aside from this, Korea is generally really strict in their kids’ education path and success so their careless confrontation against the creation of this school implies that they are saying that these kids don’t even need education, defining their purposelessness in society and lacking the recognition of the disabilities community. This is significant because students and careless schools on top of the general society expressing their opposition against supporting advancements made for the inclusivity of students with disabilities is a major problem triggering the continuation of the downplaying, normalization of this issue.

There are various ways in confronting this issue around the world but one way is to educate ourselves before creating judgements that essentially affect the way we treat people. The second way is to comply with all laws addressing individuals with disabilities. Realizing that the purpose of a law creation is to improve an aspect of society, instead of being self-serving, one should be more considerate by supporting law changes for the betterment of society. The last way is to be proactive in raising awareness. Actions like these are essential in changing the worldview of people with disabilities.

<Michelle Yoo / Northwood HS 11th>