MEET SHANON
As soon as I was born in 1977 I was transferred from Paddington Womens’ Hospital to the Prince of Wales Hospital because I had spina bifida. This was overwhelming for my parents, who were first time parents. My dad was met by a doctor at POW who said something along the lines of “Your son has been born with a disability called spina bifida and he’s in a bad way. You have two choices, we can make him comfortable and he will most likely pass away from natural causes, or you can choose to allow us to operate on him, but we cannot guarantee he will survive the operation” – which went for 14 hours. Thankfully, my parents chose the latter option and I survived the operation, but was paralysed from the neck down after the surgery. Through constant rehabilitation over the next years, I gradually regained movement and even started walking by using callipers and crutches until the age of twelve. Because of my condition, I needed an operation to correct my walking when I was twelve, but the operation was unsuccessful and this meant that I would forever rely on a wheelchair for mobility.
My parents have always overlooked my disability and concentrated on my abilities, they believed in me and pushed me to take on new challenges. Initially, I went to Broderick House, a school for kids with disabilities until Year 3, but my parents felt that I needed to leave the shelter of a small school and so I was enrolled at a local Public School. I was the first and only student at that mainstream school with a disability. During my mainstream primary school years I was subjected to a lot of physical and verbal bullying from the other students. Throughout the three years of being at a mainstream primary school, I was glad to see the back of it. I found it difficult to deal with the constant verbal abuse in the playground; some of the students would call me “cripple”, tell me “you’re nothing”. On one occasion I was physically assaulted by a group of boys in the afternoon when I was leaving school. My friends would only associate with me outside of school hours, at school they would join in with the bullies because they were too afraid of the repercussions.
The school suspended the children for the worst of the assaults, but that was their only tool for managing the problem. I did have some older children in Year 6 who were protective of me and made sure I could arrive at and leave the school safely. My parents wanted me to leave the school because they could see what I was going through, but I was determined to stay. I had seen how hard it was for them to convince the Department of Education that I should attend a mainstream school and I wanted the opportunity to go to a mainstream high school.
I began playing soccer with my local club when I was eight but that didn’t last long because I was barred by the St George Soccer Association in the same year after the parents of other players lodged formal complaints about my inclusion in the team. They felt I was a danger to their children on the field because of my calipers and crutches. So we had to look for another avenue for some sort of recreational activity for me to join in on. My parents took me to a wheelchair sports clinic at Cumberland University where a lady by the name of Yvonne Talbert was the first person to encourage me to have a go at wheelchair sports. Sport soon became my refuge, and in Year 6 I represented the state in wheelchair racing the Pacific School Games in 1988. Sport allowed me to associate with people outside of school who I could relate to, it gave me a sense of achievement and boosted my self-esteem.
I had found something that I could naturally excel at. I had tried a variety of sports such as tennis, basketball, swimming, discus, javelin and shot put, fencing, table tennis, but really enjoyed racing wheelchairs which allowed me to spend the coming years representing my state and country. In 1989 I started at Peakhurst High School and those years were the best years of my life, I made loads of friends (some of whom I still see today) and I was able to participate in all sorts of sports and extra curricula activities because my wheelchair wasn’t perceived as a barrier to anything. I was the first child with a disability to receive a CHS Blue, I represented my country for the first time in 1992 at the United States Nationals in Florida, I got 98% in my Tech Drawing exam (my best ever exam result!). I have pondered over the years, what made the difference in my experiences between primary school and high school?
I believe that there were many factors that directly influenced the attitude of the principal and the teaching staff towards accepting and embracing students with disabilities: inclusion was an expectation, not a chore, the facilities at the school were appropriate, bullying was not tolerated and they ran a compulsory disability awareness program that all of the Year 7 students were required to complete. The staff also had the opportunity to participate in training that helped them to modify their practices to make them more inclusive, and therefore, making them feel empowered and capable. It was a whole school approach that was embedded in the school’s mission statement and policies.
Since then, I have worked in a variety of industries, everything from customer service, excavation, personal training, call centres, hospitality, spinal cord industry Australia as an educator, concierge and government departments NDIA as a planner, public speaker and now PWC.
I believe acceptance starts in the home and is carried forward into preschool and the later years of schooling ahead. I am choosing to Push the Limits to teach young children about the capabilities of people with impairments, to create an understanding which will, hopefully, help prevent bullying and to save other children from going through what I did in my primary school years. The bullying affected me in many ways, I became anxious and fearful of going to school everyday, I suffered from depression. I struggled because I had to constantly worry about how I was going to make it through each day. That is an awful burden for a person to carry, especially a young child.
Through education comes understanding and empathy. I want change the way we view people with disabilities and there is no better place to start than with our youngest generation.
ACHIEVEMENTS
1994 CHS Blue Recipient
3 time Australian representation in wheelchair racing
2012 NSW Pride of Australia Award