My Problem With “The Buddy System"
I found myself thinking of my friendships recently — in particular my elementary to high school days and how earnestly my educational support team would want me to make friends with other children and “develop socially” or “learn social skills.” Many things were put in place, such as being told I couldn’t stick around the outside of the school building, having my books taken away, being put in resource groups with other disabled children. But my least favourite was the buddy system.
The buddy system took many forms, from having students in the older grades volunteer and sign up for each lunch and recess to hang out with me to students from my grade signing up for slots. In theory I understood where my support team was coming from. After all, they just wanted me to have friends and be included along side my peers, but this delivery method was anything short of helpful. Instead, it made me feel like a chore—an item to be checked off on a list. I felt like a “charity case”.
Sometimes, students would even receive candy from my Grade 6 teacher when they would bring me back to the classroom, which only reaffirmed feeling like a charity cause as a student with a disability. If you are friends with someone (true authentic friends based on similarities and one that is solidified through laughter and secrets), would an adult thank one of them with a treat for simply being friends with the other person?
One of my friends I made at university was once walking with me out of class (we enjoyed doing that like other friends do), and our instructor at the time thanked her for walking with me. Her response of confusion demonstrated to me that she was doing this as a friend not as a favour. So when these “buddies” would accept praise and candy it automatically made me further myself from the social development my support team wanted me to have. I shut myself out even more and acted hostile towards my peers, as I felt used because it wasn’t just feeling like an act of service, but there was also a power imbalance.
It wasn’t only because some of the students who were buddied up with me were from older grades, but the fact that they could obtain volunteer hours or perks for being my friend or assisting me with activities such as gym class. In Grades 7 and 8, I was discouraged from participating in the conventional physical education activities that my peers did during gym class. I would either sit on the sidelines or hang out with a classmate and do low energy activities like playing pass or walking around the field. The grass is really greener on the other side because for me this was quite boring and insulting as I was deemed a safety risk or unable to be as physically active as my sighted counterparts. However, to the students who would be paired up with me it was an opportunity to get out of gym class and do something easy. I remember several girls fighting over who would volunteer to help me in gym class, all because they didn’t want to run laps which again made me feel as if I was simply being used and they were volunteering to obtain a perk of some sort. Friendship is not based on what one can gain from the other, but a mutual want of give and take in a relationship. This forced me even further to isolate myself from socially interacting with my peers and moving further from making friends. This volunteering in gym class continued in high school and that is where more of the power imbalance became evident.
Students were responsible for telling me what to do for activities and would even keep track of my weight and food intake which I felt uncomfortable with my peers doing. We could not just be silly with one another and goof off as friends did, but instead my own peers could reprimand me and determine what I was and was not to do. True friendship is not that, but rather two people watching out for one another and being on the same level so that one person is not dominating the relationship.
Even though people like myself wish to be included and have healthy friendships and social interactions, they simply cannot be forced. The intentions behind something like the buddy system are purely well meaning, but we cannot force those who are temporarily able-bodied to be friends with those of us with disabilities. We cannot tell them that they should invite the disabled student in the class to their birthday party as well because it is the “right thing to do.”
So, what can we do, then?
We can educate and lead by example and hope that people become friends of their own accord and their own genuine interest to get to know a person. Rather than telling a class to include the blind student, we can teach about the importance of diversity in the world and opening ourselves up to those with different races, sexualities, disabilities, and more. We can teach about the different ways in which people navigate the world—that every person is human with interests and hobbies that just might be carried out slightly differently. We let them learn about our diverse world and the different people in it so that they can form their own authentic friendships based on common interests, curiosities, and human connections.
Even though I didn’t form true social connections during my school days, I did develop socially, because what I learned was what true friendship should look like regardless of my disability -- and I think that is just as great of a thing to learn.
by Harjinder “Jinnie” Saran