Argument - “Eliminating Ableism in Education” by Thomas Hehir

This author, Thomas Hehir, along with the Examined Life video argues that people with disabilities are constantly forced to overcome the percepition our society and educational system has placed upon them by having to mold and learn how to be more able bodied instead of educators learning ways to teach them properly and alongside abled bodied students. Disabled people usually are treated as just their disability, not as a person. The eduaction for the mentally disabled further exemplifies this by giving them lower expectations and less effort compared to abled students. They are not being properly educated for guaranteed success on daily living because society considers them slow, low intelligence, or not willing to understand them. These thoughts and assumptions people have of them are the main issue of why students with disabilities are at a disadvantage towards succeeding in our society. They should not feel the need to ensure they will be treated equally and that teachers will accomodate for them. All students should be offered the same things like any other ordinary student receiving an education and feel united with each other than divided.

Comments: Teachers need to give disabled students the help they need instead of complying with giving them less consideration and more hurdles to overcome in order to prove they are capable despite their disability. There should not be a need to to prove that a student have a disability by performing a test, but a need for the teachers to accommodate with it while teaching them. Hyperlink

Extended Comments - “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez

The Teaching Billinguals episodes 1,2, and 5 along with Aria by Richard Rodriguez discuss the importance of speaking different languages in a classroom. It would not only help students better communticate to other people by being bilingual, but also improve students', whose first language is not english, learning experiences by showing that we are making an effort to give them comfort and understanding them. Teacher must learn how to include these student into their lessons rather than excluding them and forcing them to convert to only English in the classroom. While reading Matt Belleavoine's blog post I have to appreciate him for using current examples and agree that bilingual students do bring valueable insite towards different cultures with students who have grown up in the same environment for most of their lives. Although it can be challenging to teachers who are not fluent in the bilingual students' native language, there are ways to incorperate it while teaching by simply asking the students the translation like in Matt's example. This makes the students and teachers work together along with feeling united. Students will also be more engaged in not only learning different languages and course material, but having a safe and comfortable environment to express themselves in.

Comments: Learning a different language is difficult with the differences in tone of voice and other anomolies. Breaking the language barrier also takes time and practice outside of a school classroom. Ensuring that all students feel connected and are learning about eachother instead of being a burden is a major hurdle teachers have to over come. There should not be a "public" and "private" language, but instead an acceptance and celebration of multilingual students for both educators and students. Hyperlink

Connections - “Literacy with an Attitude” by Patrick J. Finn

Following Patrick Finn when reading Literacy with an Attitude by telling us that schools should teach social justice through literacy and how "dangerous literacy" can help students challenge the status quo and discuss these difficult topics normally. It sparks conversation that need to be address in a safe space and by having a group with diverse ideas in an educational environment can lead to people understanding certain perspectives. We should also be aware of the differences in how students are being taught in schools based on their family's wealth and status. The working class receive domesticating education which brings the basic functional level of literacy while the upper class receive empowering education which is a better understanding of literacy that can bring students to their potential in brilliance and help shape the world. The working and middle class schools also have limited choices in creativity and freedom as well as have a set routine they have to follow with no mistakes. These are signs of bad classroom environment is what Alfie Kohn would perseve in the book What to Look for in a Classroom. The teachers asserted their dominance over the students by telling them to act a certain way and the students were waiting for the classroom to end in order to leave. This teaching style did not give students the skills and tools to better prepared themselves for real life and for the social disadvantages it will bring. A classroom has to make students feel motivated and engaged to help them reach their full potential. Teachers need to give students opportunities to learn from each other as well as be trusted, respected, and challenged in order to have an equal chance because, by giving students freedom and having great communication with them, they will have a well-rounded education to help shape the world too. Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit helps support this claim by acknowledging that students need to incorperate different perspectives from other diverse backgrounds because it gives smaller communities more power and is useful into helping our society by shaping our world view. This is why we should not stereotype students base on races, wealth, and academic grade because it leads students of diverse backgrounds further away from having an mutal realationship with each other.

Comment: The students have to undrstand how to listen to other people and not feel superior in any form of knowledge they come across in order better climb up the social ladder. It is the teachers' responsibility to help students be a paticipant in our society and help minimalize the social injustices by letting them know about the dominant cultures rules and customs. Hyperlink