“What is Normal, Anyway?” is a free, four-part film series about the challenges facing students with disabilities that begins Jan. 8 at Newman Elementary School.
Needham’s Jenn Scheck-Kahn said she used to volunteer at the Eliot School teaching students about disabilities. “Parents would tell me that ‘my kids are better educated on these subjects than I am.’”
This film series is an attempt to address that gap. Scheck-Kahn and three other parents of students with disabilities received a grant from the Needham Education Foundation to fund the series.
“The goal is to reach the wider community, including business owners and people who are creating policies and allocating funding for our town,” she said.
The first film, “The Ride Ahead,” is told from the perspective of Samuel Habib, who has GNAO1 Neurodevelopmental Disorder, a rare genetic disorder that caused his cerebral palsy, epilepsy and speech challenges. “One minute, I can be getting dressed for the day, and the next minute I’m racing to the ER,” Habib says. He describes a childhood that was “pretty awesome,” and the award-nominated film finds him ready to move out and go to college. “It’s freaking complicated,” he said.
“The films are very human, very accessible stories,” Scheck-Kahn said. The second film focuses on Donald Triplett, the first person in the world diagnosed with autism. Triplett, who died in 2023 at the age of 90, was from a small Mississippi town. He was fortunate to have a community who supported him in spite of his differences. “At the time, individuals like him were institutionalized. His parents refused to do that,” Scheck-Kahn said.
In a larger community such as Needham, neurodiverse individuals are more likely to run afoul of expectations. “Neighbors have called the police on kids because they don’t understand they’re behaving in a certain way,” Scheck-Kahn said.
“The third film is a bit of an outlier,” Scheck-Kahn said. Rather than focusing on a specific disability, it discusses how current reading instruction techniques often fail children. “It seemed like the perfect time for this film because the schools are evaluating this right now,” she said.
The final film examines attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a condition that has seen a 43% rise in diagnoses in 10 years. “To me, ADHD is the most misunderstood disability,” Scheck-Kahn said. “People with ADHD are often treated like they have behavioral problems.”
Each film is feature-length and is followed by a panel discussion and audience questions. The panels will include representatives from the disability community, parents of children with disabilities and educators. “Our hope is to discuss topics that were raised in the film through a local lens,” Scheck-Kahn said. “What are our resources? What are the barriers?”
The films and panel discussions take place Jan. 8, Feb. 11, March 12 and April 3 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Although the event is free, attendees are asked to register with Needham Community Education.
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