Ask and Listen Well
Jane Grillo, a ConnectAbility friend, Parent Mentor in White County Schools and mom to the awesome Joe on the Go, shared a really cool story on Facebook last week.
She attended a Salesforce conference recently – “Southeast Dreamin'” and heard speaker Mary Scotton present about Inclusion in Technology. Her examples were including Blacks, Latinos/as and women. The focus was to encourage people to widen their circles and diversify who they have coffee with. After the talk, Jane approached Mary and asked “Why didn’t you mention anything about including people with disabilities?”
Mary has a 20-something son with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) so she is certainly no stranger to the world of disabilities. In fact, she knows more about living with disabilities than I do!
But here’s the thing – even though she wasn’t including people with disabilities in her talk about inclusion, she asked Jane some really great questions.
By the end of the conversation, both Jane and Mary had a chance to listen, consider and learn about inclusion from another perspective.
Thank you Jane for being willing to ask the question and thank you Mary for answering Jane’s question and asking several other great ones!
For anyone wondering how you can include people with disabilities in any area of your life – just ask! Learning to ask well AND listen well is the key to making our communities more inclusive to all members.