E-Community Activity: Working Hard

Send this message to the e-community of protégés and mentors.

Subject: Working hard

Individuals with disabilities can expect at times to work harder to reach the same goals as their peers without disabilities. As reported by a successful high school student who is blind:

• I accepted the fact that I must work harder than other students to get the same grade. My grades started to grow gradually to an A average.

Learning to work hard can be an asset in life, as expressed by one successful high school student who is blind:

• Sometimes I think that all of us with disabilities have an advantage over those who have things come easier to them. Whatever it is we want, we have to want it and then work for it. That necessary desire promotes drive to accomplish, succeed, or achieve. Others around us may be content to float or do the minimum most of the time, but not us. For us, having what everybody else has is an accomplishment, and having tasted success we want to keep succeeding.

How would you explain to a child with a disability that they might have to work harder than other children to reach the same goals without making them feel discouraged?