Former Brussels resident Dr. Aaron Richmond wants books to approach disabilities differently
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
Aaron Richmond - wait a minute, that’s Dr. Aaron Richmond to you, pal - recently found himself feted by his family at The Blyth Inn to celebrate his recent academic achievements, which have been years in the making.
The party for Richmond was of the surprise variety and it marked a bit of a homecoming to the area for the man who spent much of his life in the Brussels and Wingham areas before heading to the Toronto area to study at York University in the north end of the city.
There, he earned his Master’s of Education and a PHD. He majored in English, History and Religious Theology. His dissertation, which he presented and defended late last month, dealt with the roles of disabled first-person protagonists in children’s and young adult literature. In it, Richmond analyzed the presentation of disabled characters in 12 books, finding their representation to be lacking, to put it mildly, and offering alternatives that present disabled first-person protagonists in a much more humane and fleshed-out way.
This notion is one that Richmond has lived with his whole life. His premature birth led to visual and hearing impairments with which Richmond has lived his life. As a child, Richmond said many of his teachers struggled to reach him and didn’t know how to teach him effectively.
Richmond says his disabilities are part of who he is and aspects of himself that he lives with every day of his life and he doesn’t think of them as hindrances. Citing his research, he said that many disabled first-person protagonists are treated by others and embark on journeys in ways that suggest they need to “overcome” or be “cured” of their disabilities. The third option in days gone by that Richmond mentions is that a “solution” to someone’s disability would be killing them if they couldn’t be “cured” or “overcome” their disability.
That’s not how he has approached his life, of course, and he’s worked hard to be creative, learn as much as he can and put that education and knowledge towards helping the world see people like him in a new light.
Richmond lived in Brussels until he was 11 years old. That’s when his father, Gary, passed away after a bout with cancer, which was one of the formative events of Richmond’s life.
He and his family then moved to a farm outside of Brussels for a time before moving to Wingham for a time. That is where a young Citizen reporter named Shawn Loughlin, after just a month on the job, caught up with Richmond to discuss the poetry anthology, Night Song, he had just published. At the time of the article, published on Nov. 16, 2006, he had sold about half of the books and he was pretty happy with that result.
At the time, Richmond said the pillars of his life were hard work, dedication to his family and friends and a strong will to succeed. Also in that article, Richmond stated his wishes to attend Redeemer University in Ancaster, which he would do before continuing his education at York.
“It’s about becoming more than what the hardships in your life limit you to,” Richmond said in 2006. “Wanting to prove to this cold, harsh, uncaring world that people with disabilities can accomplish their goals too.”
All these years later, Richmond has continued working towards that goal. And it’s a goal he hopes to keep working towards, either as an academic, a consultant, an advisor or in any other capacity that will help him to spread his message.
He speaks about upholding the theoretical model of culturally relevant pedagogy in teaching, which pertains to race and heritage, but applying a similar idea to those with disabilities. This way, their differences can be incorporated into the way students are taught in a way that doesn’t treat a disability as something to be cured or something without which life would be better.
As mentioned, this is something that is at play in many of the books he studied and analyzed for his dissertation. It’s harmful not just for those with disabilities, who are then made to feel like they are lacking in one way or another, but also for everyone as the idea of “ableism” is pushed to all students. He says that disabled people in books often fall victim to stigmas and dehumanization as a result of how they’re written, but that can all change.
He has begun doing some consultation work for publishing houses on characters written with disabilities to ensure that their portrayal is accurate and not derogatory in any way. That’s something he feels he can return to in the future, but he’s really hoping to have a disability lens applied to writing classes. It would likely start as an elective, just as those about race and heritage did, but, over time, those have become much more common and popular among students and he hopes that his vision can perhaps follow that lineage.
Having said that, Richmond says there are books that present a first-person protagonist with a disability properly, but the challenge is getting those books into schools and in front of teachers and students in place of the ones that are doing it poorly.
Achieving his PHD has been a full-time job, he said, and he now views his life as an academic as a series of projects and, now that he’s completed this one, it’s onto the next project. He read over 300 books over the course of his research. He’s still living at York University and he’s not sure where he’ll go next, but the world is his oyster.
Getting here, however, has been a journey in its own right. Richmond says he received a lot of community support during his time in Brussels, with groups like the Brussels Lions Club and Optimist Club, which helped him to buy computers and learning aids in his younger days that helped him reach this point.
Richmond said he would love to teach remotely and return to Huron County, his home, but he realizes that may not be feasible. He much prefers rural Ontario to the city, but it will all come down to the opportunities that present themselves in regards to what he might do next.