Hehir - Toward Ending Ableism in Education - Argument

 In this article Hehir talks about ableist assumptions having negative impacts on the education of children with disabilities. My brother for example has autism. As a child my mom work extremely hard to make sure he had he services he needed while in school. While he was a kid it was easier for him to have the services he needed in school because he was in a group home where they had on sight schooling and it was an organization. As he got older and was placed back in home and then into another group home he needed to attend a regular high school. The high school let him take vocational classes for culinary until they decided it was too dangerous to have him around the knives and he didn't have the right motor skills to continue the program and asked him to pick another one. He eventually picked computer science but didn't finish because it wasn't the program he originally wanted. His handwriting was terrible and he used to have a keyboard to type everything for class and teachers would make a big fuss about him not writing on paper. My brother ended up not graduating he was depressed and blamed the school and bullying. Instead of my mom forcing him to stay in school she thought it was best for his mental health and safety to drop out. His case is extremely severe in how he dropped out but the school wouldn't work with him to better his education and help him finish. 

https://www.perkins.org/resource/tips-handling-academic-ableism-classroom/#:~:text=WHAT%20IS%20ACADEMIC%20ABLEISM%3F,Providing%20inaccessible%20classroom%20materials

Aria - Richard Rodrigues & Teaching Bilinguals Hyperlink

     In the reading Richard Rodrigues tells us about how he was a bilingual learner. He spoke Spanish at home with his family and was shy at school when speaking in English. The nuns went to his home and spoke with his parents about using English at home to make Richard more comfortable to speak at school. Richard explains that eventually he spoke up at school and became more confident but it came with a price. At home more English was spoken because his parents were told this was best for their children to succeed in school but it made him feel like his identity was being taken from him. He grew up speaking Spanish and when English was introduced his family dynamic changed. He would talk to his parents less and could see the change his siblings and parents went through to except this new culture. In the article I found on Harvards graduate school of education website is a story similar to his about a girl who is also a bilingual learner. Asia Yassine grew up in Texas and spoke Arabic. Growing up she was embarrassed in school because she struggled to learn English and needed extra help in class. She eventually learned to be comfortable in school and loved her environment until she grew up and realized that she had to change her identity to be successful in school. She felt stripped of her culture and explains that bilingual learners shouldn't have to loose there sense of identity to be bright in school and instead there culture should be celebrated and used as a tool to learn. 

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Literacy with an Attitude - Finn - Extended comment

 I looked at Megan's Blog and she made connections to both Delpit and Kohn. She first mentions how in Deplete it is said that teachers shouldn't be the only experts in the room. In the article the middle and working class teachers have similar styles of holding back the creativity of the students. In the working class kids are instructed to do exactly what the teacher does and that her way is the only way or even the "right way". In the middle class setting students are taught straight from the textbooks and are to gain the knowledge they are fed. While in the the upper classes kids are encouraged to be creative and are taught in a way that can have more room to grow. The second point she makes is that Kohn's "What to Look for in a Classroom" gives examples of how these classrooms are more worrisome than good. The middle class and working class again are the same where there is no freedom to learn and that there is a set routine and rules to follow. The kids are expected to have the right answers with little mistakes. Another example is the project the kids do where they made unique covers for their project but are not graded on the individuality but only on the information in the work itself. The middle and working class is taught in a way for no growth and this make the kids stuck in the same social classes. Where the upper class students are taught in a way to help them grow and expand on their learning to help them in the future. 

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-social-class-and-why-does-it-matter-3026375