- ". . . 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 matters of ability, gender, ethnicity, and race . . . and endorse an elaborate process of sorting by perceived ability and behavior." The author is taking about children with down syndrome and their right/need to be able to participate in school and the community. If we separate them and devalue them we will not get to know what they can bring to the community. Other children will not get the benefit of getting to know and have meaningful relationships with them. He goes on to say this is not setting up our children for the real world in which they must get to know how to work with everyone. So by separating them its unfair and hurting all in the end. This is soo similar to what we talked about in de-tracking. When all students get to work together it comes out to their benefit. We all learn is different way and have different opinions.
- "Schools have traditionally taken a narrow position when defining and judging students intellect." The author gives examples of teacher who have inclusive classrooms. They do not label any of the students, they realize all students learn in different ways so they change the way they teach to them. The brake out of the traditional methods, which enriches the lives of all the students. This directly relates to last weeks readings (and most of the course for that matter). We need to change that way students are taught and break these barriers of "intellect". All have the ability to learn...just in different ways.
- "perceived" This is a powerful word. Loaded with all sorts of connotations caused by our dominate cultural. It means to become aware of something -to realize-to understand. How can we believe we understand or know something or someone that we have not had personal contact with? It is our society that gives us the guidelines on how to judge this. We "perceive" things the way the dominate culture wants us to. If this is not a perfect word for this class to dissect I don't know what is. Perception is all relative. It is laced with cultural meaning. What we think we know may not actually come from us..... we are just primed to think that way. As in the way people think about down syndrome. This article shows that our perception of this is wrong.
Comments:
This article had some great points. It was a little dry but poignant. Children with disabilities are often lost in the system. They are labeled and thought of as their label. Everyone can learn. Everyone can be a productive member of his/her community -----if given the right opportunities. I loved how Shayne taught her classroom. She threw out the old curriculum which was one size fit all and tailored it to her students. Why don't more teachers do this???
The sense of community is a very important thing. I think all students need to be instilled with this. If they all had a more active role with the community and with the people in it I believe there would be more cohesiveness. Everyone would learn how to work together to better themselves and their community.
This article echoed the de-tracking debate. Integrated classrooms with all types of learners.
I think that students, not only those with disabilities, but all of them, should be judged by their individual intellect and their ability to learn, not by their standout qualities. I think that the problem with these students, especially those with down syndrome, is that people have a sort of outdated outlook. If your child had down syndrome, in say, the 1930's, they would be institutionalize; no one gave these kids a chance. I think that it is important to individualize the system, rather than group children by their, as I said previously, stand out qualities.
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