Learning Disabilities

This week, I watched several of the videos that were posted on ILearn and really enjoyed them! One story stood out to me in particular because a young woman with cerebral palsy got married and was having a baby. In the video, her husband is interviewed and he talks about how people would stare at them while they went around campus together, judging them for having a baby together. It made me really sad that society likes to decide who is capable of loving someone and of having a family together. In this same film, a psychologist spoke about how the first extermination camp during WWII was in a hospital for people with disabilities. I feel like these two themes run together. Ethnic cleansing and deciding who is "allowed" to have children in society.

While it was hard for the mother to care for her child, it showed great love to see that she was willing to try and take care of the needs of a baby while still relying heavily on help from her husband. To me, it was the ultimate story of true love. Her husband cared for her each day, cared for their baby, and still managed to go to work. He saw past all of her physical limitations and loved her as a person.

This is now what I am working towards adding to my philosophy of education. I want to be better at seeing past the limitations of my students and look instead to their potential and to their areas of success.

In class, the Learning Disabilities group presented. Before their presentation, I was unclear as to what disabilities fall into this category. Brother Cloward talks a lot about cochlear  implants while the group focused on the over arching theme of learning disabilities.

Three members of my essay group met with me to finalize our paper for our first test. I was grateful to have the input of these group members as we formulated ideas and pieced together our essay. Collaboration is an effective tool but to have things run smoothly, everyone has to be willing to participate. A couple of members from our team essay group never responded to the google doc until an hour before we printed the essay off. Their ideas weren't really a part of our paper because of that and they missed out on the opportunity to take a part in our final product. They basically left their grade in our hands. This can be related to IEP meetings. If I am a member of an IEP team or MDT, it is my responsibility to speak up with the information that I have and to be a contributing member of the team. If I happen to be a parent on an IEP team, it will be important for me to not leave my child's education plan in the hands of someone else. Each member must contribute.