A Different Side of Me

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome - Kliewer (Reflection)

          This article was complicated at first, but it really helped me understand a topic that I've never really been exposed to.  In my high school, the "self contained" students (as they were called), would have a class together, in the basement, where they wouldn't do much work.  I can say truthfully, that I have never been in the room or worked with the students in a classroom setting, but I know for a fact that they would constantly have breakfasts and treats throughout the day.  From the limited view of these students, I would guess that they were not being treated in the way that Kliewer would support.  These students in my high school would only interact with non-disabled students when they had lunch or during gym.  As I was graduating I noticed that there was some incorporation of disabled and non-disabled students into the regular classroom setting, and I hope that my school continued on that path.  

          One quote that really struck me was from Judith Snow (an advocate in the disability rights movement) who explains, "how absurd to be judged by others at all, especially by those who have never experienced a disability or who are unwillingly providing us with support or who don't listen to the voices we have".  Why is it that we think we know everything?  As humans, we wrongly judge people every day.  There is no way to know exactly what a person is going through just by looking at them or briefly interacting with them.  To go back to the GLSEN information, you might not be able to tell if a person identifies themselves as LGBT.  I would never want someone to think they knew everything about me and my family life, friends, education and workplace.  Unless you have a personal relationship with a person, you might not be seeing the whole picture.  The whole act of judging makes me think of a quote (see picture):

The fact is, you never know the whole story, you never know what it might do to that person, and there is more to that person than whatever you assume you know about them.

          To go on with my last point, that there is more to a person than just what you see, Kliever explains a similar question.  When one of the teachers in the article, Colleen talks about her disabled student Lee, she explains that he is labeled as "retarded" or "self contained" or whatever other people may perceive, only when people don't take the time to truly meet him.  "They see mental challenge, retardation, whatever you want to call it.  That's what they see, but they wouldn't be seeing him".  There is a lot of discrimination in today's society that is successful by dehumanizing the person or group that is in question.  This has been done through every war we have ever encountered (dehumanizing the enemy), this was done to African Americans (which "allowed" them to become slaves), and it is clearly happening in regards to disabled students.  We need to break this barrier and dehumanization of students, and realize that they are people like you and me.  There are a number of personal accounts in the article that explain how real and normal disabled students are.  This is something new in the eyes of society, which decided to shun them into separate classrooms in the basement of the school.  

          In many ways, this article made me think of the novel, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.  The main character, Hazel is a teenage girl who has been diagnosed with cancer and refers to herself as a "ticking time bomb".  The reader understands things from her point of view and she explains that she is identified as her sickness.  People in the novel see Hazel as cancer, not a person. They are constantly trying to tell her she is okay, and even her best friend drifts away.  Hazel decides that her best friend only hangs out with her once in a while, but when it comes down to it, its because of the cancer.  This relates to the article, because the teachers present ways that their disabled students are seen as their disability, not as a person living through their disability.  

I found this "packet" online that gives teachers activities to use in the classroom that deals with thinking differently.  Much like our in class experiment Thursday, these activities are to help other students to become aware of disabilities as different, not bad or wrong.  There are activities that deal with blindness, leaning disabilities and mental retardation (and more). Although this may not be a packet you would use of there were disabled students in your class, it is a way to stop the discrimination and help students to accept others with disabilities.


Tell me what you think :)
Do you know anyone with any type of disability?  How has it impacted you?

What did you learn from this article?