Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

redmink's picture

For LD’s, my previous

For LD’s, my previous thought was that something was wrong with their certain gene, and yet they should not be degraded.  I now think my thought was too one-dimensional after reading the part where it says “all the people in his class, the teachers are involved at various tiems in recognizing, identifying, isplaying, mitigating, and even hiding what Adam is unable to do; if we include his tutors, …, the number of people found contributing to Adam being highlighted as LD grows large.” The LD culture is not defined only by people with LD’s but also by people who contribute to them being as LD’s. 

This week’s reading was so practical.  It was eye-opening to encounter three ways of thinking about culture and disability.  “Being in a culture is a great occasion for developing disabilities.”  The following to demonstrate the fact that “without a culture we would not know what our problems are” was striking to me:

without a money system, there is no debt; without a kinship system, no orphans; wihtout a class system, no deprivation;without schools, no learning disabilities; without a working concept of truth, no liars; without eloquence, no inarticulateness.

Yes, I hear peple pitying on North Korean children.  They pick up anything eatable in garbage, and steal foods in market.  They don’t know what democracy is.  I felt bad for them, too.  However, despite all those physical sufferings, they still admire their dictator and look in the frame of his portrait hung up in wall.  Reading the story of the blind and deaf, I felt it was not a right idea to pity them(North Korean children) as if we were priviledged because it is possible they would pity us in return.  In their culture where democracy is not tuned, that ideal which dominates our culture would be unnecessary…

This reading was a start of my change in perception and attitude.  It striked me who once was thinking one-dimensionally. 

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
2 + 9 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.