“Take your sick children out of here, they scare our children ... I am the owner here, go to your third building ... You will not walk here ... You will move out of here. Go with your children, I don't understand why you come here. You have your yard, and we will find out if you can walk there, organize your playground. You must have your own quarantines, all kinds of crap, all your own. " This monologue of a resident of St. Petersburg on the playground, where children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were walking with her child at the same time, spread widely on social networks. The police are checking under a criminal article on incitement to hatred, society is indignant and demands to lynch this lady, and organizations of parents with special children are trying to resist the wave in their own defense, explaining,that the criminal punishment of one particular woman will not make their children more comfortable or easier to live.
In today's world with the Internet, radio, television and a thousand other ways of obtaining information, to say that you know nothing about the existence of special children is to lie.
At the same time, if you ask the layman the question: "Are you personally ready, who just wrote a comment about" a fascist who drives away special children, to offer such children as an alternative to classes in their own yard on the playground? "
- the answer "Yes" will not sound at all in 100% of cases.
Because it is very convenient for special children, beggars, homeless people, old people to sympathize at an easy distance.
Rather, the answer will be heard that the state should provide such children with special comfortable playgrounds.
At the same time, one should not blame society indiscriminately.
Just ten years ago, such special children generally sat at home, and parents shared their pain only in specialized forums.
Just ten years ago, a child in a wheelchair, with Down syndrome, with ASD, who plays in an ordinary playground, would have been a violation of the picture of the world.
Now, deviation from the norm is a negative reaction to such a child.
What to do now?
To plant and stigmatize ordinary people who do not want to see special children next to their own and who believe that if their own child is scared, then instead of explaining that children are different, you just need to remove the fear factor from the field of view, although this factor is just someone else's child ?
I am convinced that such an approach will not lead to an improvement in society's attitude towards people with disabilities, but, on the contrary, to a deterioration.
You cannot force to love.
You cannot force people to be kind - otherwise we will get a GULAG with very bright faces, shining "voluntary" smiles-grinning.
In this regard, instead of a flurry of curses against that woman, it would be much more correct to make the action "Our playground is glad to special children."
For such an action, no budget is needed: just talk with neighbors, explain to them and make a decision: “we are not fascists”.
Believe me, this step will be much more difficult than writing a cursing comment from the sofa, but it will bring you many times more good.
Imprisonment or criminal punishment for that woman will not change anything, except maybe ... it will worsen the life of special children in that particular St. Petersburg courtyard.
And now - about the children who are "scared".
And how to make children grow up kinder than us.
In my opinion, in the fright of a child, if he first encounters special peers, there is nothing terrible and fatal.
After all, when we go to the gym for the first time, we do not immediately take on the 120 kg barbell. No, we start by lifting dumbbells by a kilogram, then two, three, then we add weight, slowly pumping up muscles. The mental muscles swing according to the same principle. First, read on the Internet about such children, about how their parents live day by day. About the fact that there is no danger in such children that would not come from any other child. Show pity for a stray animal. Transfer money to a charitable foundation instead of a wedding anniversary gift. Buy bread and milk for an elderly neighbor and take it to another floor. Call an ambulance on the street for a person who has become ill. Our society is already mastering all these skills and will only master them further.
And it is precisely these skills that should be gradually and consistently instilled in children instead of any lectures “about morality” that are read by adults who themselves do not follow the principles they are talking about.
To pump not only those muscles that develop in physical education lessons, but also others, mental ones.
Which you cannot read with any lectures (especially since pretentious lectures cause only yawning in children), but which, even at the level of school education, can be replaced with practical exercises.
Finally, let's talk about officials and the state.
We will not repeat the platitudes that instead of buying expensive cars and tickets for business class, officials would be better off using this money to create a comfortable environment in cities for all citizens.
To begin with, local officials could not interfere to begin with. At least not to destroy what caring people are trying to create with such difficulty.
I will give examples only from requests for the last week. Here in Kazan there is a unique project in the municipal school No. 1 for the inclusive education of those very children with ASD together with ordinary schoolchildren. This is not just “take and shove all the children into one class”, this is the work of methodologists and psychologists with teachers, with students, creating a comfortable environment for special children, this is a huge job. Unfortunately, this project is now collapsing, since a few years ago, part of the premises of the public school was leased to a private school for elite children. Parents of ordinary children and children with disabilities write that now, since there is not enough space, schoolchildren study in two shifts, senior classes are reduced, children do not have access to public spaces while elite children use them. And for some reason there is no order at all to enroll children with ASD for the new school year.Such is the concern for the morality of elite children: not to see, not to deal with ordinary children and children with special needs, to put the needs of the elite above the needs of ordinary people.
What then be surprised if such an elite child buys himself a large apartment in a new residential complex. He will see that special children are playing on the playground, and will come out to them: “You will not walk here. You must have your own quarantines. "
Or the Doctor Lisa Foundation and other respected funds to help the homeless have been traveling several times a week to the vacant lot behind the Yaroslavl railway station several times a week to feed the homeless and simply the poor. Whether the homeless will receive their bowl of soup, hot food and a glass of tea in the future is a big question, because a district official was found who decided to arrange a check and demands mythical agreements “to help the homeless”, which are not and cannot be provided for by law. The official just doesn't like the fact that several times a week ragged beggars on her territory receive free food, this is an ugly picture. The official does not understand that if she kicks out the funds, the homeless and beggars will remain.
If this woman from St. Petersburg knew that she was the only person in the country who fears and hates “special children”, she would not speak out like that.
But she spoke with the confidence of a person who is convinced that she is pronouncing the position of the majority: "Only not in our yard."
"The 19th century hatred of realism is the rage of Caliban, who saw his reflection in the mirror," Oscar Wilde once wrote.
In order to win the collective Caliban society, one must not break the mirror.
We must fight the inner Caliban every day.
If Caliban will change, so will the reflection.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.