Kliewer, McDermott and Varenne

Reflection:

Kliewer's article: Citizenship in Schools: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome discusses the importance of children with disabilities being included in the public atmosphere. The article showcases different students that would have benefited being with other children instead of feeling like outcasts. Children with disabilities are looked at differently by students and teachers to the point where it's hard to make them feel normal. No child should feel like they are on the outside. The opportunities given to each child should be the same regardless of disability or not.

McDermott and Varenne's article: Culture as Disability, discusses the relation between our culture and how it views people with disabilities. They make it known that it is the culture that decides if people are disabled or not and treats them accordingly. People who are disabled will not feel as though they are until the culture around them decides that they are. The focus of education is shifting from victim-blaming to how we can improve how things are viewed around the individual. It is important to understand that the individual did not ask to have a disability and should not be treated as though they had a say in it. Along these lines is that separating children with disabilities from mainstream culture does not help them learn and actually prohibits them from integrating into society. There is a way to help them and guide them without creating a separate path for them.

Both of these articles were easily understood because of how they related to my life personally. My uncle has a physical disability but didn't always. So growing up he lived a normal life. Now that he is older and in a wheel chair he has certain things that he can not do alone. Even though he has these handicaps we do not treat him any differently. This also goes for the students in my elementary with learning disabilities. They learn at a different rate than the other children but that does not mean they aren't just as cable of achieving the same goals as the other students. If children are treated differently at a young age they will perform worse over time because they think that they cannot achieve as much or as well as other students. I believe that it is important to help them understand that this is not the case and that they are just as capable as others.
 This link describes what our cultures definition of a disability is. https://adata.org/faq/what-definition-disability-under-ada