This is an account of the socialisation of Andrew David Short (Me writing
as if I am someone else).
The first major institution to affect Mr Short was his family. His parents
were brought up in the Seventh Day Adventist church. His family were
warm and loving. In fact they left the Seventh Day Adventist church and
just joined mainline Christian churches. Mr Short was born with a disability
and that made life interesting. The education (school) system did not look
too kindly on him until he entered high school. He started in a normal
preschool, but in a country town in those days they thought that people with
a physical disability would also have an intellectual disability. So he was
sent to the local disabled school. In 1987 he and his family moved to
Canberra and again he went to a special school, which went well.
In the year of 1989 the teacher thought that he would not be able to do well
in a normal school so he went to Woden Special school. In 1990 things
were not going too easy and things were tough. In 1991 he joined Boys
Brigade and that was not the best move in the world, again there was the
problem of a poor social life because of bullying. So his follow students
weren't all that accepting of him. Life back at Woden Special school was
going down hill. In 1993 he finally went to a normal high school.
In 1992 he also joined a youth group at church. When he got to Lyneham
things began to pick up - a lot. A mainstream maths teacher, Mr Brown,
helped him to do well in mainstream maths classes. He later joined other
mainstream classes. In 1994 mainstream life also improved and things went
well in school life as well. 1996 saw a big improvement in school work. In
1997 he went to Hawker College which was good, but it took a while to
get over the culture shock. It took him a while to work out the balance
between study life and social life. At this time his spiritual life went up. In
August of that year he forgave the boys for bullying him in Sydney the year
before. In 1998 he joined a Baptist Church youth group. In 1999 he started
to get interested in working with people with disabilities.
Last Updated - 20/09/2003
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