Sunday, December 5, 2010

"Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome" Christopher Kliewer

Connections

Christopher Kliewer's article is about how children with down syndrome and with other disabilities are treated differently and most of the time kept seperate from the rest of the class. In class we watched a video showing that full inclusion classrooms can work. Some of the "traditional" students even said it helped them to know more about students with disabilities. The first connection I made was to Finn and Oakes and tracking. These students are tracked because of a disability. They are put in "special education" classes because they have a disability. Some of the students in the classes only have a physical disability but because of tracking, are kept in this class. I feel this is completely wrong. These students are denied oppurtunities because of their handicap. This leads me to my next connection. McIntosh. Before doing my SL project I may not have made this connection but Peggy McIntosh has other articles on priveleges besides being white. I saw a connection when reading Sarah's blog. She quotes a part in the reading about not knowing what it's like to have a disability and I think Peggy McIntosh would agree with this. Just as I don't know what its like to walk through the mall and get followed for my race, I don't know what it is like to be placed in a lower level class or denied an opputunity because of a disability. The last connection I saw was to Dennis Carlson. Carlson talks about everyone becing treated equally requardless of their sexuality. I think the point of Kliewers article that Carlson would like is that we are all people. Some are straight, some are gay, some are white, some are black, and some have a disability.

Here is a link to a webpage about being a childs advoacate that I found very interesting.

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