Blog 6: Ableism

Hehir
I can relate a lot to the Hehir article. I have a twin sister who is severely disabled. When we were born her brain was not fully developed. When we were two months old, we both developed spinal meningitis; I was viral and she was bacterial. This did a lot of damage to her and is mostly to blame for the way she is today. She cannot walk, talk, and is not completely blind. We use a wheelchair to help get her around but she is able to crawl around and interact with things she finds. She loves swimming and listening to music, especially Kelly Clarkson. She is also very strong, and knows enough to laugh when someone says, "Ow." She basically has the mentality of a 1 year old and is likely to be that way for the rest of her life. About a year and a half ago we were able to place her in a residential facility where a therapist is working on getting her walking again. She is able to walk if people are holding her hands. In elementary school she was able to walk by herself; unfortunately she took a nasty fall where she bumped her head and was set  back significantly.

It really hit home for me when the article was talking about the fact that Penny needed to prepare herself to fight for her son's rights for the rest of his life. My sister and I are turning 22 today, actually, and the fight is far from over. My sister lived at home until we moved her into the facility she is at now, and we did not have nurses coming in to take care of her. It was all on my parents. My dad had a good enough job that my mom was able to stay home and do what needed to be done for my sister. But it has been exhausting. I remember going to Mass General Hospital (or perhaps Mass. Eye and Ear) several times throughout my childhood because my sister needed surgery on her eyes. Her retinas kept detaching and they were doing whatever they could to save her vision. Sadly it was not enough. We were there so much I was placed with a "babysitter" so to speak while my mom stayed with my sister in surgery. I spent so much time with some of the staff there they framed one of my silly drawings and put it on the wall in the hallway.

My parents fought the school system, went to court hearings, filled out endless paper work, fought insurance companies, met with specialists; the list goes on and on. And it's not over. My sister is still having some issues in the residential community she is in. She is on many medications, she is still having seizures, and sometimes has trouble sleeping. Her body is a very sensitive thing, and her immune system is weak. She gets sick a lot, which makes it even harder for her. We have known for a long time that she will never be employed or simply be an independent human being. It's a tough thing to grasp and hold on to.

Gardner
What I liked about this article was this little note: "There is not, and never can be, a single irrefutable and universally accepted list of human intelligences." This article was a great introduction to what we can expect when we look further into what the multiple intelligences is all about. I also liked when he mentioned, "We fall in the habit of labeling ourselves but that's not all there is to it." When I've learned about Gardner in the past, I generally take a little quiz that tells me what categories I fall under, therefore labeling myself. So I think this kind of shows a misuse of this theory.

Cohen
What I really took away from this article was how to be the most effective educator I can be. "Effective teaching rests on our capacity to empathize with the student." I couldn't agree more. This goes right along with how well we know our students. The past can, and does, affect the future and the present, and the classroom is not immune to this. What I had overlooked was how important social and emotional development was for everybody in the school building. Students need it to learn in general. Teachers need it to better communicate with their students. If there is poor communication with a teacher and his/her students, the capacity for learning is very small. We want this capacity to be as large as it can be.