Schooling Children with Down Syndrome By: Christopher Kliewer

This article is about:

• Community
• Challenges
• Disabilities
• Accommodation
• Society
• Perception
• Acceptance
• Understanding
• Incompetence
• Relationships
• Possibilities

Kliewer argues that children with disabilities should not be separated from the community. He says that those without a disability are incompetent when it comes to knowing what these children need and are able to accomplish. If they were to put students with all kinds of abilities together then we would all operate better as a community, instead of furthering the idea of individuality in a community.

Evidence:

• “The challenge is to erase negative attitudes about people with developmental disabilities, get rid of the stereotypes and break the barriers for people with disabilities”.
• “Community, then, serves the functional purpose of furthering individual efforts to accrue cultural capital”.
• “Those who appear not to make use of these conditions (supposedly open to all) or who appear to lack the potential to accrue privileges, are systematically devalued as less than full citizens—charges as they are with having the differences that matter”.
• “Society itself is hurt when schools act as cultural sorting machines—locations that justify a competitive ethic that marginalizes certain students or groups of students… [That] legitimize discrimination and devaluation on the basis of the dominant society’s preferences in natters of ability, gender, ethnicity, and race…”

I think this is a good article to read because there is never a real discussion about people with disabilities in the classroom. Like the author says this is due to the fact that those children are always separated from mainstream. When reading some of the personal stories it is apparent how frustrated they are because there are misunderstood and misrepresented. When I think about someone with a disability I try not to judge them but I think in a school situation society has made it so that all we can see is the disability and that is judgment in itself. When I was told there was a little girl in the class I volunteer in who has autism I wasn’t sure what her abilities were. I assumed that she would not do the same activities as the other students but it turns out that she is included in everything.

The author is so right when he says that there isn’t a strong sense of community in society and individualism is so prominent. We really do not learn how to listen to others or connect with those different from ourselves. We are placed in classrooms with people who have similar abilities and interests as ourselves. This really does promote competition and furthering of ones personal gain. In the article the kids with disabilities just want to be accepted and understood and we cannot do that if we do not interact with them. It is just like the article In the Service of What when they explain how the only way to educate yourself is to form relationships with people. Students also need to be able to reflect and talk about experiences so they can have a deeper understanding of how the people they are helping got into that position.

There were stories of schools that did not really have a curriculum and had students with and without disabilities in one classroom which worked out extremely well. The institution and factory model of education makes this near impossible in almost all areas. The teachers and students in these classrooms formed amazing bonds with students of all kinds and people who came from the outside had little understanding of how effective it was. I think it is so important to be exposed to as many different kinds of people possible when we are young. Then we will become so accustomed to everything that it will not phase us.

It is our job as educators and members of society to not judge people with disabilities. We cannot assume that they are unable to perform tasks or participate in all aspects of society. It is just like the little boy in Robert Lake’s piece who had so much knowledge of the Native American way of life. Just because he had a different thought process did not mean that he was not intelligent. Just because these kids have disabilities does not mean they should be marginalized. They need to be challenged and need to be given opportunities depending on their skills in certain areas. The only way that any of us can give them opportunities is to understand what they can and cannot do and not assume that they can’t do anything. Isolation is the worst thing that society can do for any child and they cannot reach their full potential without being exposed to different things. We cannot put a “defect blanket” over students with learning disabilities and because of our own misunderstanding we should be looking at the bias values of our own society.

"One More River to Cross" Recognizing the Real Injury in Brown: A Prerequisite to Shaping New Remedies By: Charles Lawrence

This article is about:
· Inequality
· Opportunity
· Misunderstanding
· Education
· Segregation
· Society
· Denial
· Action
· Status
· Inferiority
· Institution
· Rights
· Oppression

Lawrence argues that we cannot deny the reality of race in America. The continuing segregation of blacks in society promotes an inadequacy and inferiority complex that they continue to struggle with. I think he is trying to say that the institutions of whites need to admit that they are trying to make people feel inferior before any positive changes can take place.

Evidence:

· “That the purpose of the institution of segregation has always been to stigmatize and subordinate rather than to simply separate…”

· “In short, segregation American-style, like South African apartheid, has only one purpose to create and maintain a permanent lower class or subcaste defined as race”

· “Once it is understood that the injury results from the existence of the label of inferiority, it becomes clear the cure must involve the removal of that label”

· “State sanction of purposeful segregation that declares black children

· inferior in one district operates to stigmatize black children throughout the state”

When I first started reading this article I was not quite sure where the author was coming from. I thought the reading was going to be a lot about blame and such but it turned out to be a clear argument with a somewhat clear solution. At the end of the article it seemed like there was no hope and maybe blacks would have to keep struggling forever. Of course this is another article where my privilege as a white woman makes it hard for me to say anything. I do think it is hard to change the institution and that is probably what he is talking about. He mentions the word ingrained a lot and I think that it is true that a lot of these imbedded prejudices are locked up in our cultural blueprints. We don’t even know we are being prejudice half the time.

The author was talking about how segregation makes children in school feel inferior. They probably were not getting the high quality education that they needed and constantly were being reminded that they were different all the time. To me, the author was saying that this is what the system wanted and I don’t necessarily think that was the initial plan. I think the problem with whites in most cases is that we are afraid of people unlike us. The system was scared of integrating schools because they did not know enough about diversity and how it would affect their children. The problem with this is the children will always feel like how they are is wrong and that is such a problem. That is where we get the behavioral problems and the why try attitudes.

This is where the big picture clicked for me about oppression and everything else. White society fears all people that are unlike them so as the people in power we make those different from us, become the minority. So we segregate those minorities and give them fewer opportunities. This makes them less likely to learn the codes of power and less likely to thrive in society. The minorities began to hate the institution and the whites and power (for good reason) which make the issues of prejudice and race even worse. Without being able to learn the codes the minorities become impoverished (cycle of poverty). Now generations after slavery and such we are all still dealing with this ingrained issues of inequality. What I just said may be clearly obvious to some people but I just put it all together after reading all of these articles. I never quite understood where others were coming from until I got to read all of their points of view. What upsets me is how we end this viscous cycle?

I think it has already started with equal education and acknowledging the institution of segregation. The new generation of teachers can begin to change the system and prepare every student for the real world. The real world will still have those issues of segregation but with the credentials hopefully minorities will get more opportunities and if they do not get these opportunities legal actions can be taken. I was watching Remember the Titans the other night and it made me realize how far we have already come with changing the institution. I think future educators will become much more prepared to teach diverse classrooms and that will have lasting effects on the children’s outlook. We are slowly getting away from teaching inferiority to teaching optimism but we have to make sure that we do not teach the myths of education either.

*One thing that I did not like about this article was when the author said that if whites do not want affirmative action then they are refusing to acknowledge their superior status. I am keeping in mind how equal opportunity is still an issue in our society however I want to point out that sometimes a stigma is put on whites. I think there is a misconception that a lot whites in power are racists. I think a lot of us might disagree with affirmative action because in an ideal situation we want the person with the best qualifications to get the job. There are no hidden meanings or underlying issues in that statement and I am not ignoring my white privilege but now I wonder is that privilege the only reason I am successful? In my personal opinion I don’t think so.

Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route By: Jeannie Oakes

This article is about:
· Individuals
· Tracking
· Education
· Stereotypes
· Ability
· Programs
· Skills
· Variety
· Stimuli
· Encouragement
· Gaps
· Alternatives
· Achievement
· Pacing
· Curriculum
· Advantages
· Improvement
· Success

Evidence:

· “Many express particular concern about tracking’s effects on poor and minority students, who are placed in low-ability groups more often than other students and are less likely to be found in programs for gifted students”.

· “Moreover, the nature of these differences suggests that students who are placed in high-ability groups have access to far richer schooling experiences than other students”.

· “It seems that tracking is both a response to significant differences among students and an ongoing contribution to those differences”.

· “The achievement gaps we observe among students of different abilities are exacerbated by the failure of classrooms to provide all students with the time, opportunities, and resources they need to learn”.

I really liked this article and the way that the author spoke about the tracking controversy. However, I sometimes do not know what side to take in the argument. I most certainly believe that if tracking is not done right that it does not give some people, in this case minorities, the ability to move easily through different levels. The curriculum encourages all kids to be taught the same material in the same way. We already discussed the problems with public education in the last article and how it creates learning gaps. A lot of students go at different paces and have different need but how can we ensure that the slower students get quality educators and the same opportunities as those who are in the levels above them.

When tutoring at my first school it was so apparent that these lower level students were not analytical. They never know how to answer questions that they did not memorize and they cannot easily link things to the outside world. I think it is part of the teacher’s job to help the students analyze things and really think about their relevance. It will help them with the material that is at hand as well as material in upcoming lessons. It is kind of like the article about service learning and how the students understood more when there was a reflective component involved. I think teachers need to be better prepared to work with behavioral problems as well as disabilities, but how?

I also agree with the author and how she talks about how the classroom environment is important. If it is a positive classroom environment and the teacher shows enthusiasm then the students respond better. I think that would help with behavioral problems because it encourages rather than discourages them. The author also talks about apathy and how bad behavior always interrupts the students time to learn. I think kids are afraid of being wrong in some schools so they are afraid of trying. Teachers need to encourage students to answer questions and have them explain themselves. If the student is wrong then the teacher can reward them for thinking or trying. I feel like encouragement and a positive atmosphere would really help.

I think classes need to help prepare students for the real world. We need to change the institution and some of the fundamentals that do not help students succeed. Developmental education is so important because kids can retain so much more information when they are younger. If we can teach kids to think critically and be more analytical at a young age then it will positively affect them in the future. The author states “When curriculum is organized around the central themes of a subject area rather than around disconnected topics and skills, all students stand the greatest change of enhancing their intellectual development” and I totally agree. She also says how there should be “multiple right answers and multiple routes to success” but I think that this is very hard to do with the system the way that it is. I do not think that testing is an accurate way of measuring student’s worth and I also think that the overall problems with public education need to be fixed. I also think teachers need to be better prepared for teaching varying abilities better. There is so much that needs to be changed it almost seems an impossible task but if enough teachers get together in their school to change the curriculum I bet they will get somewhere.