Park View students learn about life with a disability

Jen Cowart
Posted 7/16/15

The students in Diane Caprichio’s class at Park View Middle School recently had the chance to learn about what it’s like to live with a disability, when former Park View student Kristen Calabro …

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Park View students learn about life with a disability

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The students in Diane Caprichio’s class at Park View Middle School recently had the chance to learn about what it’s like to live with a disability, when former Park View student Kristen Calabro returned to the school to share her experiences.

The presentation took place in the library and coincided with the students’ reading of “El Deafo,” by Cece Bell. The story is a graphic memoir about a girl who becomes deaf after contracting meningitis, and rather than letting it continue to bring her down, decides to view her disability as a superpower.

Calabro became deaf at the age of eight after being diagnosed with an AD malformation in her lung.

“Usually, this happens in your brain,” Calabro said. “The doctors thought I had air pockets in my lungs but it was actually an infection, and it got worse and worse, I had my lung removed in the second grade, and they put me on heavy doses of penicillin. It saved my life, but it took away my hearing.”

Calabro went on to say that the tube in her throat also scratched her vocal chords and distorted her voice.

“My third-grade teacher noticed that I didn’t seem to be hearing properly, and suggested my parents take me to an audiologist. I received my first pair of hearing aids in the third grade, and I cried. I really hated it,” Calabro said. “They were bulky and heavy, and I didn’t want to be different.”

She said that at first, everyone was supportive, and her friends were happy to have her back at school.

At Park View, Calabro began using her first FM, or personal frequency modulation, system, which would help her hear the teachers speaking, which was also the same system she was using to hear the students’ questions.

“The FM system was uncool, it was awkward, awful, and I was embarrassed. If the system didn’t work, I didn’t tell the teachers that I couldn’t hear them until after class was over,” she said.

High school led to a variety of challenges for Calabro, and she was quite honest about them with the students.

“I got made fun of a couple of times. I had an assistant teacher, but I wasn’t used to all of the help. It was very different, and I was treated very differently because of all the extra help,” she said. “My friends stood up for me when I got made fun of, but looking back now, I should’ve stood up for myself. In sports I was usually picked second to last, until they realized that I’m actually really good at sports.”

Calabro recounted her high school years, telling of the times she acted out, skipped school, and spent years battling migraines and depression.

“I was a teenager who felt very different, and I felt the whole world was against me. I thought I’d never get a boyfriend, I thought everyone hated me, and that my mom didn’t care about me. I even quit softball, my favorite sport,” she said. “I know now that’s not true. My mom is my best friend. I have had a boyfriend for eight years now, but then my judgment was clouded.”

Calabro tried counseling, going to four or five different counselors, none of them a good fit for her, until she finally stopped going.

“I gave up. I didn’t want to be medicated, it wasn’t for me,” she said. “I had to go to truancy court and explain why I was late all the time. I started hurting myself and tried to cover it up. Eventually I started going to the high school psychologist once a week. It took me a long time to open up.”

During her senior year, Calabro started softball again, joining both the Edgewood team and playing fast-pitch softball for her high school.

“During my senior year I started to mature and accept help,” she said. “I didn’t want to have an aide, but she was always there in the back of the room, taking notes, in case I needed her.”

One area of her life that Calabro said has been particularly challenging is the job market.

“It took forever, three or four years, to get a job. I felt like it was how I introduced myself. I can’t hear on the phone, things like that work against me,” she said. “Discrimination is against the law, but it still happens.”

Calabro noticed that even when she did get a job, once the employers realized she was deaf, they would pass over her for higher positions, moving others up instead.

“Everyone else would get trained but not me,” she said. “Eventually another manager trained me and they realized, ‘Wow, she’s good,’ and that they’d underestimated me.”

Calabro spent five years at CCRI, navigating college on her own without guidance.

“After five years, I had no degree. I wanted to be a cardiac surgeon, but that wasn’t really a realistic goal. I wanted to be a respiratory technician, but that wasn’t realistic either,” she said. “I wished that I’d gone to high school more, I would’ve gotten into a university. I kept thinking, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t do that. What can I do?’”

Calabro tried cooking in a restaurant, and felt that she was really good at it as she moved up to be one of the top cooks, but didn’t love the 57-hour workweek.

“I finally enrolled in the medical laboratory technician program at New England Tech. Finally, a job I could do, and it feels good to know I won’t be cooking for the rest of my life,” she said.

Looking back, Calabro wishes she’d done things differently.

“Things took longer than they needed to. I faced a lot of difficulties and I had a lot of fears that were silly,” she said. “I’m happy with technology now. It’s come a really long way, and it’s amazing.”

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