Group Post - Confronting Ableism

"An ableist perspective asserts that it is preferable for a child to read print rather than Braille, walk rather than use a wheelchair..."

- Focus on the disability rather than accepting the disability and accommodating it. This prejudice may cause their learning to be stifled.

- Blind woman & cerebral palsy examples

- Parents fighting for equal accommodations under the law (blind & iron lung/polio example). Changing b/c of IDEA and other legislation, but is it fair for families?

- Recognizing importance of diagnosis (declining vision/impairment or seems steady?)

- When modifying instruction, such as teaching life skills, make sure it's an area that they need (student not needing instruction with cooking, parents already taught)

- Don't focus instruction on preferences, so what will give the child with a disability the most opportunity to succeed. 

- Minimize the effect of the disability.


Discussion Questions

How comfortable are you in terms of working with and educating students who have disabilities? 

Do you feel that all students who have disabilities can be placed in general education classes with their peers? 

How might you modify your lesson plans for students with disabilities? 

Do you think that with the increase in technology that you will be better able to assist students with disabilities, i.e., with the increasing prevalence of technology such as Smartboards,  will it be easier for you as a teacher to allow more students with disabilities inside of your classroom (LREs).








Note: Kalee and Elizabeth may have their own posts as well.

Confronting Ableism - Individual Response

In the article "Confronting Ableism" by Thomas Hehir, much discussion is given as to how equal access for students with disabilities should function within education. Should deaf students be instructed solely through visual means? Should those with dyslexia not be given extra time to take tests? Clearly, these situations seem a little bit paradoxically, and luckily, with IDEA and other such legislation, the American Education system has made some progress in this regard by allowing students with disabilities to have appropriate accommodations. However, the author points out some problems, particularly one with family. If a student has a disability, they may not be able to receive appropriate services in their regional area, and to get appropriate services, they must be sent to a residential school, thereby disrupting normal family functioning. This doesn't seem quite fair, and to do something about it, perhaps something in legislation should change.

But more important these things, is how we not only confront, but approach out perspectives for children/students with disabilities. If a student is blind, we should accept this as a fact, not try to fix it. If a student has residual vision, then we should utilize that as best as possible to teach them to read. However, if their vision is diagnosed as getting progressively worse, then we should teach this student Braille as soon as possible so they can cope. In essence, don't try to make students with disabilities function the exact same as normally developing peers, sometimes it's more important to accommodate.

Ladsen-Billings Article. Institutional Racism?

                As I'm sure many of my peers will point to, this article really denotatively discusses the achievement gap and the analogy made by the author that there is quite the national deficit in education as well as monetarily. For example, she points to the American Indian education system and how those who did graduate from the poorly instituted system were only allowed into the historically African American universities. She even discusses the debt in more economic means, with unequal spending per pupil in richer areas and the tendency for black males to make less than their white counterparts. The statistics, these correlations, seems to still exude in society today, although some, and I do mean some, strides have been made in these areas.

                But how can this be with efforts like affirmative action? The author discusses the topic briefly, and predominantly white women have benefited from such policies. The numerous analogies she provides about historically oppressed groups having a gap and being left to themselves to fend and improve upon themselves really strikes a chord for me [EX: "You cannot take a man who has been in chains for 300 years, remove the chains, take him to the starting line and tell him to run the race, and think you are being fair" 8]. If you've been left out of the loop for generations, how would anyone expect for that group to rebound immediately? However, except for the small exception of affirmative action and some successful legislation like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I think we're predominantly seeing some institutional racism here when it comes to the achievement gap.

                For clarity purposes, by institutional racism, I mean covertly (although it certainly may be overt) racist procedures, attitudes, or actions taken by an organization that unfairly targets a racial minority. In my mind, the education system can qualify as such an organization that could perpetrate such acts. I think I have already laid out some examples above, particularly the expenditures for school districts per pupil (6). The schools that have these sorts of expenditures are generally highly segregated, with predominantly white students attending (9). Is this unequal funding fair? Should schools be more ethnically diverse, so as to serve a wider population? These are big questions, and perhaps I'll be able to bring up these topics in class discussion, but my gut says that something is wrong with the system as it is. We cannot continue to only serve such a homogeneous population when in reality there is such a diversity. 

Ch 3 - Bloom's

1). How might Erik Erikson's proposition of how people view themselves with age affect the students you interpret for, especially from the stages of childhood and mid-to-late adolescence? (70-71) [Analyze]

2). As an educational interpreter, how would you handle acts of aggression, i.e., bullying, while on duty. Keep in mind, the teacher may not be aware of it. Would it matter why the student is in the altercation? [Evaluate]

Ch 2 Bloom's Questions

1).In what specific ways can informal conversations be used to convey information and concepts to children? Perhaps think about this from an interpreting perspective. (39) [Apply]

2). Do apprenticeships apply to an educational interpreting setting? If so, what might that look like? (47). [Analyze]

Field Trip - Girl Rising

     On the 23rd of October, I watched Girl Rising in the UC auditorium. Wow, such a long time ago. Guess when there's so much going on you put certain things off.

     Girl Rising really, as I have taken it, is truly a movie about showing the world that young women and girls around the world still struggle to get the simplest education possible. While the film covers 9 different young ladies, I'll detail the case I found most interesting, Wadley.

     When we are introduced to Wadley, she's pretty happy with her schooling. Her life is in cramped corners, but she's motivated to go to the school her mother works so hard to pay for. However, when the earthquake in Haiti strikes, all is awry. We see her and her mother all right but the neighborhood is not the same. It's a city full of tent houses. Her mother asks her to retrieve water every day and Wadley wonders why she cannot got to school. Why must she get water? Her mother says they cannot afford it, but while on this water fetching trip she spots a tent where the school is holding a class session. Wadley tries sitting in. However, the teacher, who was Wadley's teacher before the earthquake, kicks her out. The next day, Wadley returns, threatening to come back every day until the teacher lets her stay. It is then that her assertion allows Wadley to sit in on class.

     What would make a girl so motivated? I don't think she has the foresight to know it may be good for her future, unless perhaps that's been instilled in her. In fact, I think I'll go for that point. We didn't really see much in detail how Wadley performed in school before the earthquake, except that she was was able to recite a piece of literature much better than the rest of the class. An activity such as this would correlate with a high self-efficacy for Wadley, as she can perform the task well (Ormrod, 2011, 336). This high self-efficacy, in my mind, lead her to develop some goals for herself and to be persistent in attaining these goals, in that she's always tried hard, so why not continue to try to develop those skills? In a way, her frame for success is in school, whereas her other options seemed bleak.

Chapter 5- Bloom's

1).What sorts of tools can we use to enhance our student's ability to think intelligently? (145-46). [Analyze]

2). Why are IQ tests and actual achievement not a perfect corollary? How might it look if we have a low achiever in the class that has a high IQ? (143). [Evaluate]