Citizenship in School by Kliewer (reflection)

The “citizenship in school” that Kliewer is referring is the integration in school between the non-disable students and Down syndrome students. Kliewer argues that by having special classes for these kids we are harming them mental and emotionally instead of helping them. I don’t know much about Down syndrome disability but if they can participate and learn like any other student why segregate them. All this would do is hurt them by putting down their self-esteem, making them feel distanced from everyone else and unable to participate with the other students, which they can. The “help” Down syndrome students get from these special ed classes are seem as negative judgments by them because the segregation is notneeded. 

“Anybody who know Lee knows, and this includes all the kids, they know he’s gifted- in how he solves problems, cares about others, reads, reads, loves math. So I guess what I’m arguing is that if you did pick Lee out, you wouldn’t be seeing Lee. It’s not Lee you’re picking out. It’s your stereotype, your mind-set. Its you, and its has nothing to do with Lee.”

This teacher makes a great point about his Down syndrome student. Its like someone walking into a class looking for the kid that been interrupting and causing problems most likely the person would think is the black or Hispanic kid in the class because those just are stereotypes that are set up in America. The same way the stereotypes of Hispanic and black kids occurs, same way the assumptions of Down syndrome kids being unable to work on the same speed and do the same assignments as the rest. This article can connect to USA land of Limitations by Kristof. The same way Kristof talks about how low income family are limit to better things in the US, same way kids with Down syndrome are being limited in their education and a better life. 

Literacy with an Attitude by Finn (hyperlinks)

This reading reminds me of the reading Land of Limitation, how through education in America we are being limit to reach higher level of education and becoming successful in our society. Finn explains in details the inequality between the urban schools’ and rich schools’ curriculum. He describes how in urban school the work students do are easy going, not as challenging and not as helpful to get students equipped for higher educations like college and striving for success.

In this YouTube clip Dr. George White talks about transforming urban schools using a system approach and a few ways education can be improved. In his presentation he states “the kids that are struggling the most we have to challenge the most instead of giving them the easy reading.” Finn and White are in the same page about how a more challenging curriculum would be more effective in improving inner city kids’ education. The high school I went to has a lower class education system how Finn would say. The assignments given by teachers are really easy in the way that they don’t require any kind of thinking which teachers look for a specific answer. Teachers don’t really demand a lot from the students, expectations are low; knowing obvious details about readings, no thinking outside the box, no personal thoughts or connections. “we can teach kids in elementary schools higher order math” White states that teachers can teach higher level math but I believe there’s still other factors that have to add to that. For example in high school I took Calculus  (college level class), it was a whole year around class and with all that time in hands we didn’t even covered half of what my professor in college covered when I took it.

American Episodes 562 and 563 connect to this reading in the way that integration works because it gives the low class kids access to rich-curriculum and the codes of power that Delpit describes