Eliminating Ableism in Education

 For Blog #9, I will be reflecting on his writing and will be talking about my own experiences with ableism in education.

    In Thomas Heir's article, "Eliminating Ableism in Education", he talks about the attitude that is received from society and defines ablism as, "the devaluation of disability." I thought that this piece was very interesting and thought that reading this was not only beneficial to myself as a current student, but is helpful for myself as a future educator. 

    I would like to think of myself as a pretty open person and keep inclusivity in the front part of my mind. Last semester in FNED101, we were talking about ableism and inclusion among all students. We talked about multiple different scenarios in which how we could make it a more inclusive environment. Our Professor talked about how students learn about static electricity by rubbing a balloon on their hair and how it stands up. I was a little stumped by this because my hair would always stand straight up if a balloon was rubbed on my hair. What I was not aware of, was that this worked with typically white students with straight/wavy hair and excluded students with thicker and very curly hair. As someone with wavy/curly hair, I found myself unintentionally excluding others since that was not my experience. This was a very eye opening scenario for me and I constantly think about this. 

    For the next example, our Professor instructed us to do was to find ways to stack blocks. To me, this was simple. Put one block on top of the other. After a few minutes of confusion, she intervened and told us  to now picture it as if we had a student with only one arm, no hands, or with no arms, and to think to ourselves not, "how can THEY adapt to ME", but "How can I adapt to THEM." This is another lesson that stuck with me. Just because I have two working arms and legs, does not mean that that is the case for everyone. 

    I am very aware that my experience in life and my privilage with education is nothing to take for granted. Both of these experiences were very interesting for me and made me even more engaged and eager to find and create an inclusive and welcoming space for my future students. 

How to Promote Inclusion in the Classroom

Aria

 For Blog #8, we read "Aria" by Richard Rodriquez. Rodriquez's writing talks about his childhood and how experienced language barriers. He connects the idea that because he spoke Spanish, he felt a closer connection to finishing his sense of belonging. He talks about the idea of being a native Spanish speaker in an English speaking school and how conversations differ among other things. 

Growing up as someone who only spoke English, I thought this piece of writing was a very interesting perspective that I have not yet explored. Reflecting on it, I thought that this writing was refreshing and gave me an insight as to what it would've been like in some one else's shoes and what is was like navigating all of that.

Being Bilingual In A Culture That Doesn't Understand It

For Rodriquez's article, I will be pulling quotes.

1. "At school, words were directed to a general audience of listeners... and the point was not self-expression alone but to make oneself understood by others." 

- I really liked this quote because he explains how he felt excluded and felt delayed because while his classmates were aware of what was going on, and he was blind trying to find his way.

2. "The family's quiet was partly due to the fact that, as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents. "

- I thought that this quote was important to include because I think it is crucial to talk about the barrier that is pushed and divides them. 

Video Analysis