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Disabilities Midterm Project.pptx

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PeA09qQa1j2_J_32BfksI2I28qGZXJUlEyA6Ol2YfL8/edit?usp=sharing

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In my experience, depictions of an autistic person looked like the following: a mechanical genius who could do calculations in a split second or was exceptionally talented in a niche interest considered profitable. Of course, this would be met with high praise. As long as they could operate within societal expectations, especially in the production of resources and knowledge, then at least this aspect of a person would be embraced. But what about stimming? Although not formally taught, at a young age, I soon learned that stimming and other aspects of disability were considered socially undesirable and must be "fixed" for the benefit of other people's comfort.

I really appreciated the videos and readings for class this week. I first learned more about stimming from an autistic creator on Tik Tok and other social media that I have come to really love. I wanted to share some of her work with you all: https://www.nicoleparishart.org/works. She makes videos explaining stimming and showing some of the tools that she uses for self-reassurance and I would suggest looking into her work!  These are some of the ones that I really love: 

In my senior year of high school, my history course was taught by a former professor at a well-regarded liberal arts college. While everyone agreed he was a great teacher, his class was notoriously the hardest humanities class offered in the school. This was because he assigned readings by Foucault, Hume, Descartes – honestly just the most dense academic literature he could get his hands on. He would cold call us every class to break down each sentence and explain its meaning and context in depth. Needless to say, this model was not disability friendly. The literature was written in a language few of us could understand, we’d spend hours laboring over each and every word, desperately trying to make sense of gibberish. ADHD and/or dyslexia made it all the more painstaking.

Group Notes 

→ Independence is tied to accessibility 

→ Can lead to challenges in getting to places 

→ Physical barriers improving them and improving signage 

→ Division between physical and mental disabilities

→ Mental disabilities harder to diagnose, certify eg. 

Improvements in Academia 

I think it is not often touched on how ableist things like attendance policies can really be. Brisa touched on this in her Serendip post and I thought it would be good to bring up as well. Things like attendance policies directly bring down the grades of disabled/chronically ill students, directly targeting them for things out of their control. It as though we are constantly told as students in the American Education System we must make health sacrifices in order to succeed, or simply "stay healthy" (whatever that means). This create challenges for those with physical or mental disabilities, making doctors appointments or mental health days something unacceptable and unthinkable.

I really appreciated reading Mad At School for class. I became interested in disability studies because of my interest in education and this reading really spoke to the intersections in these subjects :). I have so many things I want to continute to think about from the reading this week! But I did want to highlight a few quotes that I really resonated with: 

"Academic discourse operates not just to omit, but to abhor mental disability -- reject it, to stifle and expel it" (8)

"What transformation would need to occur before those who pursue academic discourse can be "heard" (which I take to mean "respected"), not in spite of our mental disabilities, but with and through them" (8)

During the height of the pandemic, one thing that kept being brought up was that due to a weak healthcare system and the overall nation's unpreparedness to address such a wide-scale pandemic, hospitals would be forced to ration out ventilators and other medical resources. It begs the following question: What lives are considered more valuable than others? This week's readings address a frightening truth, which is that disabled lives are cast away in times of crisis. In the article "My Life is more 'Disposable' During this Pandemic," Elliot Kukla explains how the triage system is inherently biased toward disabled people. Kukla notes, "The rationale is twofold: We are less likely to survive, and caring for us may take more resources.

One of the themes that came up in several of the short essays/articles that we read is the idea of recognizing ableism. Specifically, the "Disability Justice Is an Essential Part of Abolishing Police and Prisons" article mentions that "most people in social justice movements are unable to recognize ableism". I found this to be a profound statement. Intersectionality between disability and other identities is becoming more recognizable intertwined in social movements, so it di not make sense to me that people would ignore the ableism component to disability. Yet, after reading the "Ten Principles of Disability Justice", it was made clear that cross-movement solidarity is not always present.