Author Q&A: Dr. Howard Shane on His Unforgettable New Memoir, UNSILENCED

I set out to write this memoir as a way to better appreciate the impact my Belchertown experience had on my life’s journey. As I chronicled that experience, I came to accept that my youthful enthusiasm was not ill-advised. The writing process also taught me that many of the questions I asked as a young teacher—related to best teaching practices or bettering our understanding of individuals with disabilities—remain unanswered, despite the progress we’ve made. It is the case that so many professionals from different disciplines have applied their expertise to these questions over the past few decades, and there’s no doubt we live in a more inclusive society now—but there is always more to learn and accomplish.

One lesson from that experience I haven’t amended is a continuing disdain for human warehousing that regrettably occurred throughout much of the twentieth century. I believe that sharing this story can provide an important perspective on the people who were forced to endure institutional life. And regarding today’s climate and the prospect of reopening institutions: at the end of the book is a reminder of our perpetual need to fight against the ideological pendulum that might swing back, returning us to the collective belief that institutional life is acceptable in a civilized society. We must do everything in our power to prevent that!

Belchertown was the catalyst for my entire professional career. When I accepted this teaching assignment, I had few life goals or direction—except an inkling that education might be a place to start. In other words, more of a hunch than a calling. The only available job in education at the time was at this state institution.

Once I settled into the job, as readers will see in the book, it consumed and challenged me in ways I had never before experienced. When I began to take note of my students’ progress, I also realized that this experience was enormously satisfying. Ultimately, my early days in the classroom unleashed a powerful internal energy that drove me to think more constructively about teaching and innovation.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the influence of Henry Peirce, the UMass professor who frequented my classroom. He was a key figure in my Belchertown days, and I talk about him quite a bit in the book. Henry became the mentor that my rudderless young self needed to accomplish what started at Belchertown and continues to this day.

During my early tenure at Belchertown, I became fixated on the idea of helping Ron and Ruth communicate—both of these young people possessed what you might call normal intelligence, but they were unable to speak. For some of my students, understanding was not the issue. They could understand speech as well as I could; they just couldn’t produce it. So I was constantly on the alert for something that would enable their independent symbolic expression.

When I looked at the second hand of the clock, it occurred to me: here was an electronic pointer that continuously aimed at 12 different numbers. I thought to myself, why couldn’t it simply point to words or pictures instead, and we could come up with a way for Ron and Ruth to stop the second hand when it reached the letter or picture that corresponded with what they wanted to say? That was the big aha moment for me. “And you know the rest of the story,” as the radio commentator Paul Harvey used to say.

I describe in the book my long ride from home to visit with Ron for the last time, near the end of his life. During that drive, I tried to recall the salient events that shaped our collective experiences. It was a fifty-year timeline, and there were plenty of memories not only from our days at Belchertown but subsequent years of events in the community. But the most memorable and most heartbreaking was my final visit with Ron and his family just a day before he passed away.

When I arrived to visit him, I was escorted back to Ron’s room where he was sleeping, propped up in his bed. He woke up after a moment, as if he’d sensed me standing by his bedside, and with the help of his modern communication device, he thanked me for everything. I had to pause for a moment and wipe away a few tears before I could say what had been on my mind: “I should be the one thanking you.” Ron was the one who kickstarted my entire professional life—everyone I’ve been able to help, it was really because of the experiences I had working with Ron and his classmates. I was so glad that, during our last visit together, I was able to communicate that to him.

I believe it was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who wrote: “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” If we don’t pay attention to where we’ve been, we run the risk of making the same mistakes in the future. Hopefully, educators who read this memoir as part of their undergraduate work will better understand that we must never go back to an institutional model—rather, we must appreciate how far we have come as educators and clinicians and keep moving forward toward greater inclusion and equity for people with disabilities.

In the late 1970s, I recall reading “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to my then five-year-old daughter. After discovering Snow White cleaning their cottage in exchange for a place to live, the starstruck little persons introduce themselves. Grumpy, Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Sleepy all happily introduce themselves, but then the six go on to say in unison, “And he’s Dopey, he never speaks.” Unfortunately, that’s an accurate reflection of the beliefs that the majority of people once held about people who couldn’t communicate in traditional ways. We’ve made some great strides since the 70s, but some people still make assumptions about the intelligence and capabilities of individuals who can’t speak. It is my hope that readers of Unsilenced learn not to instinctively equate those who are non-speaking or minimally verbal with being intellectually impaired.

Remarkably, it’s a fifty-year timeline from the start of the deinstitutionalization movement to the gradual and still-uncompleted acceptance of inclusion. Today, more typically developing school-age children are being educated with children having myriad developmental disabilities. The fact that people with differences are being seen and accepted as a natural part of everyday life gives me the most hope that we will eventually be an integrated society. Part of that acceptance will also occur because of the tools and opportunities that assistive technologies and ingenious medical breakthroughs will engender.

Given my long interest in applying and developing technology, I remain optimistic that leading-edge technologies will have a profound influence on the future of education for learners with special needs. For example, virtual and augmented reality will lead to clearer learner paths; wearable devices and artificial intelligence will better monitor physiological states (which will lead to better participation in inclusive classrooms); AAC devices will read brain activity, which will enable more instinctive and faster message creation; and so much more. But the future is not just about high-tech devices. I also foresee an educational and clinical workforce more willing to accept and more able to apply such advancements within the inclusive classrooms of the future.