Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome
- Jennifer
1)"Community requires a willingness to see people as they are-different perhaps in their minds and in their bodies, but not different in their spirits or in their willingness and ability to contribute to the mosaic of society."
1. This is my favorite quote. I know plenty of people that claim they are scared of people with special needs and just do not like to be around them. The best moments for me in the last two years have been when i was around people with special needs. Being around them has gave me a different out look on many things in life. They are not given as much respect as they deserve. The battle obstacles and judgement every day, which i find completely unfair that they have to go through as much as they do because of the special needs clients that i know at my job are some of the most amazing people i have ever met.
2) "“How absurd to be judged by others at all, especially by those who have never experienced a disability or who are unwillingly providing us with support or who don’t listen to the voices we have.”
1. I completely agree with this quote. I work with people with special needs and nothing annoys me more than when me and the other staff at my job will take them out to eat and to do other activities and waitresses and other people act like they do not have opinions and can not do anything for themselves. I do understand how some people do not know how to act when they are around people with special needs, but people do need to understand that they have their own thoughts, feelings and most of them are capable of doing plenty of daily activities on their own.
3) "If you came into the room and were told there was a retarded child in the class, a child with special needs, I don't think you would pick Lee out. The kids really agree that he's as capable as they are. Intellectually the same."
1. I really like this quote because there are many people with special needs that are extremely smart and many people do not think that some people with special needs are smarter than most people without special needs.
This reading was by far my favorite reading. I can relate to this reading more than the others and it is also a topic that i feel strongly about.
3) "If you came into the room and were told there was a retarded child in the class, a child with special needs, I don't think you would pick Lee out. The kids really agree that he's as capable as they are. Intellectually the same."
1. I really like this quote because there are many people with special needs that are extremely smart and many people do not think that some people with special needs are smarter than most people without special needs.
This reading was by far my favorite reading. I can relate to this reading more than the others and it is also a topic that i feel strongly about.
I liked your explanation of your first quote. Most people do not know how to act around special needs people, which is wrong because they are human beings too. How terrible that the waitresses won't talk to your clients! They are treating them more like animals then people. I also liked how your third quote distinguishes how special needs children sometimes cannot be picked out of a crowd. They are just as smart, if not more, than their classmates and have a lot to contribute to society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you talked about how people with special needs are actually really smart. Some people don't know how to act around them and it's terrible and rude.
ReplyDeleteI really loved you're explanation of your first quote. I agree that people shouldn't have a need to be afraid of people with special needs and I agree that they are not given the respect that they deserve.
ReplyDeleteJen,
ReplyDeleteI really love your second quote, because we really don't know what it's like to be them, or what it's like to be anyone really. And how someone looks does not reflect who they truly are. We focus too much on how people look in society that we never have the motivation to get to know who they are. Special needs people are people; they have emotions, feelings, etc.