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The Reality of School Closures for Students with Disabilities
W ith school closures around the world, administrators, teachers, and students have been thrust into a situation for which they were not prepared. While home learning has begun to settle into more of a routine, although imperfect, for many students, that is not necessarily the case for students with disabilities. What we have learned is that special education is often considered a system somewhat separate from the general curriculum classroom. In the second month of school closures, there are still students with special needs who have not received even the bare minimum of support from their academic communities, putting parents in a seemingly helpless situation. There have been comments made that parents of SPED students should stop complaining and start learning how to teach their children. Such comments underscore the pervasive disdain for special education and the belief that students with disabilities are a burden rather than children entitled to an education. Parenting a child...
The Scoop on Identity-First Language
We all do it. When talking about individuals within our society, we have a habit of framing them within a defining characteristic. Our behaviors, whether intentional or unintentional, may actually be pushing forward stereotypes and associations that impede our efforts to make diversity awareness a pillar in our society. Identify-first language is when we see a person as an individual before we see their attributes. For example, if we see a girl and she has brown hair, we wouldn't call her the brown-haired girl. We would say, in identity-first language, the girl with brown hair. The former implies that the girl is a part of her hair, but the latter makes the girl the focus of our attention and we can identify her attributes. When it comes to individuals with disabilities, the same protocol should be followed, as their status as human beings is primary to their disability category. Here are a few examples: YES : Boy with autism NO : Autistic boy YES : Baby with Down Synd...
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