Disability in New York City Schools and Preparing Teachers to Work in Them

In this essay, a teacher educator reflects on how the positioning of elementary schools in New York City influenced her early development as a special educator. She addresses issues of racial and income segregation in this context, focusing on the connections between those forms of segregation and the provision of special education services. She also considers how microaggressions that disabled people face daily can be geographically specific. She concludes by encouraging future educators of disabled youth to consider how the location of a school and movement of bodies to get to that school influence learning.