Whole Earth Curriculum WEC

Lesson 06 — Diverse Bodies, Diverse Experiences

Learners analyze how disability, illness, and diverse bodies shape experience by contrasting the medical model (which locates the problem in the person) with the social model (which locates it in barriers that can be removed), and practice finding those barriers in their own environment.

D03 P2: Physical & Somatic Awareness D03.S1 50 minutes Draft

Objectives

Essential question

How do disability, illness, and diverse bodies shape experience — and where does the 'problem' really live: in the person or in the environment?

disabilitychronic illnesssocial modelmedical modelbarrieraccessibilityableism

Materials

Standard materials

Low-tech / no-cost

Enriched / lab & device

Works in different contexts

Two panels — a figure stopped at the bottom of stairs labeled "the person is the problem," and the same figure reaching the top via a ramp labeled "the design is the problem" — showing where barriers really live
Two panels — a figure stopped at the bottom of stairs labeled "the person is the problem," and the same figure reaching the top via a ramp labeled "the design is the problem" — showing where barriers really live

Lesson 6 — Diverse Bodies, Diverse Experiences

Summary

Learners analyze how disability, illness, and diverse bodies shape experience by learning two ways of seeing the “problem”: the medical model, which locates it in the person, and the social model, which locates it in barriers — steps, attitudes, designs — that can be removed. They hunt for those barriers in their own space, so that “accessibility” becomes concrete rather than abstract.

Objectives

  • Analyze how disability, illness, and diverse bodies shape experience. (D03.S1.11.02)

Connection

Imagine you use a wheelchair and the only way into a building is three steps. Or you are Deaf and a lesson is spoken with no captions. Or you have a chronic illness and every activity assumes you have endless energy. In each case, the difficulty is not “in” you — it is in the environment that was built for only some bodies. Millions of people live this every day, everywhere on Earth. Seeing it clearly is the first step to changing it.

Materials

  • Social-model chart
  • Practice log

Preparation

  • Prepare the two-panel chart.
  • Identify a few barriers in the room or nearby to use as examples.

Facilitator note

This is the unit’s anti-ableism core. Teach it with care and precision. The medical model frames disability or illness as a problem inside the individual to be fixed or cured. The social model — developed by disabled people themselves — frames disability as the gap between a person and an environment that does not accommodate them; the barrier is the problem, and barriers can be removed. Both models describe real experiences; the social model is a tool for justice, not a claim that impairment or pain does not exist.

Never ask learners to disclose. Do not call on anyone to name their own condition, and do not use any learner as an example. Ground everything in the environment and in respected, first-person accounts from disabled and chronically ill people. Avoid “inspiration” framing (praising disabled people for living) — it is patronizing. Avoid deficit language (“suffers from,” “confined to a wheelchair”): say “uses a wheelchair,” “lives with,” “has.”

The ethics lens: dignity means designing for everyone, not expecting people to overcome avoidable barriers. The egalitarian lens: who does a space include, and who does it quietly leave out? The global lens: the social model travels — every society builds environments that include some bodies and exclude others. The technology lens: technology can remove barriers (captions, ramps, screen readers, prosthetics) or create new ones (an app that only works for people who can see a screen).

Procedure

  1. Recall (5 min). You now have three regulation tools. From memory, name them and one reason each works. Then check your log.
  2. Meet two models (10 min). Study the chart. Left panel: “the person is the problem” — a figure at the bottom of stairs, asked to change. Right panel: “the design is the problem” — the same figure reaching the top because a ramp was built. Discuss: in each panel, who is asked to change?
  3. Words that respect (5 min). Notice the language: a person uses a wheelchair (not is “confined to” one); a person lives with a condition (not “suffers from” it). Why do words carry respect — or its absence?
  4. Barrier hunt (15 min). In pairs, find three barriers in your room or nearby: a step, a narrow doorway, a high shelf, a message only in one form, an activity that assumes one kind of body. For each, write what kind of body it leaves out.
  5. Flip it (10 min). Choose one barrier. Write one sentence describing how it could be removed or redesigned so more people can take part. Share one idea.
  6. Close (5 min). Reflect: where have you seen a space already made more accessible — a ramp, a caption, a quiet room? Accessibility is ordinary, and it is everyone’s work.

Differentiation

  • Support: Provide a picture-based barrier checklist; allow drawing the barrier and the fix.
  • Extension: Ask learners to write a short social-model analysis of one everyday product or space, naming the barrier and the removal.

Assessment

  • Formative (self + peer + observation): Can the learner distinguish the medical and social models and identify a concrete barrier and its removal?
  • Artifact (portfolio): The barrier-and-flip note in the practice log.

Home connection

At home or in your neighborhood, notice one barrier (a step, a sign, a surface, a missing cue) and one example of access already built in. Write or tell someone about both. Change begins with noticing.

Resources