I love Molly Burke. She’s a young, smart, and beautiful Youtuber who also happens to be blind. Ms. Burke’s candid conversations about blindness with curious non-blind Youtubers are always insightful. Molly is not the girl stereotyped blind person who see depicted on television. She comes up as a self-assured, intelligent, and ambitious young lady.

Therefore, Molly’s video “Meet My Eye Doctor” came into my mind when I was asked by my professor to write about the differences between social and medical models of disabilities. I think Molly’s candidness and her self-reflection can teach us a lot about how social and medical models can sometimes merge, good or bad.

According to Susan Baglieri’s “Perspectives on Disability,” the medical model of disability “makes meaning of disabled person’s experiences in terms of objective, innate conditions that limit their ability to participate in communities and learn in the general classroom” (Baglieri, 2017, pg. 18). The author justly argues that the medical model emphasizes the root of the disability and provides a “limited understanding of the individual itself” (Baglieri, 2017, pg. 20). This line of thinking is “based on the premise that being healthy is better than being sick” (Hardman, Drew, & Egan, 1996, pg.18). In the end, a person’s disability is categorized as “abnormal” and victimized. The victimization of people with disabilities is referred to as the “charity model of disability.” The charity model portrays people with disabilities as “victims of their circumstances who are deserving of pity” (Disabled World). The charity model is also known as the “tragedy model of disability,” and the medical model perspective supports it. It sees individuals with disabilities as clients.

In contrast, the history of children with disabilities in the United States shows that our society has held to the belief that “disability and dependency were closely related” (Shapiro, 2000, pg.188). Educators play a significant role in the experiences of students in educational institutions. Educators are tasked with educating students, meeting the demands of the state, and they are held liable for the performance of their students. Hence, educators are placed on the front lines and run the risk of becoming gatekeepers to just and fair education. According to the professional model of disability, “professionals follow a process of identifying the impairment and its limitations using the medical model and taking the necessary action to improve the position of the disabled person” (Disabled World). As a result, service providers and teachers are placed in a position of power in the classroom. Based on my experience in the classroom, I believe it is the job of educators to stay educated, to listen to their students, and to take responsibility for the role they play in the experiences of children in their schools. Educators should not only acknowledge dangers of sticking solely on the medical model of disability, but they should also recognize the cultural ideals of “normalcy” affecting the lives of students with disabilities inside and outside the classroom.

Baglieri, S. (2017). Perspectives on disability. In S. Baglieri, Disability studies and the inclusive classroom: Critical practices for embracing diversity in education (pp. 17-32). New York, NY: Routledge.

Shapiro, A. (2000). Early Attitudes and Their Legacies. Change Negative Attitudes Toward Classmates with Disabilities (pp. 145-265). Martha J. Larkin. Published May 1, 2002