Reading Heather Hollingsworth’s Huffington Post article on college students with intellectual disabilities left me thinking about the nature of elite colleges—their purpose, their symbolic function, and their role in perpetuating dangerous notions of intelligence and normalcy. This was not something that I had considered much before—I had so fully bought into the liberal arts experience that I had never stopped to question the nature of this system or its potential to do serious harm.

I was just looking over some highlights from the Grammy Awards and came across this video segment of Stevie Wonder, so I thought I'd post it here! http://www.nytimes.com/live/grammys-2016/ed-sheeran-wins-song-of-the-year/

• Shock. Confusion. Denial. More shock. That was how I felt as I was reading the introduction on Normalcy. As a math lover, I have never thought that eugenics movement was in any way linked to math. I’ve never known that terms I am so familiar with, such as “normal curve,” “standard deviation,” “quartile,” and “ogive,” can be interpreted from a disability study’s point of view. Right after I read it, my initial response was something like “This person must be deliberately looking at math from a harsh angle; this is not the designer’s intention.” The fact this is my automatic response scares me—it’s like I’ve been programmed to think this way. Even when facts were pointed out to me, I refused to accept it. This makes me wonder: what happens to those who are never aware of this?

“It’s not a matter of the right choice of the wrong choice, but simply that we are often presented with a dilemma about bringing together the inspirations of the teachings with what they mean to us on the spot. There is a perplexing tension between our aspirations and the reality of feeling tired, hungry, stressed-out, afraid, bored, angry, or whatever we experience in any given moment in our life” – Pema Chodron, “Three Methods for Working with Chaos”

• I found it interesting that the two news articles used the experience of "white" American people. Although that these articles are useful in exploring how disability is discussed in society I think that it is important to not the racial concerns in disability. There are many other races/ethnicities with people with disabilities, but I don't think is discussed as much. There seems to be a racial disaparity in disabilities.

In looking at the readings for this week, I'm constantly reminded of what makes for a "suitable" member of the academy or not--and just how many prominent people in the history of the academy might be considered mad. Look even at so many of the Greek philosophers upon whose philosophies we rely were considered mad or "slandered" as being mad even in their own lifetimes!

Although I am obviously in favor of the revamped policies that inspired the 2010 Huffington Post article "More Intellectually Disabled Youths Go to College," I took issue with how little attention the article actually gave to Zach Neff, as well as the particular aspects of his persona that it did focus on. The article opens: "Zach Neff is all high-fives as he walks through his college campus in western Missouri. The 27-year-old with Down syndrome hugs most everybody, repeatedly. He tells teachers he loves them." Even though we are only one paragraph in, the stereotype of individuals with Down syndrome being overly loving (and unfailingly lovable) is already engrained into the mindsets of the readers.

"This book contains stories about my own experience, because I believe stories are one way of accessing theory [. . .] I hope that you, as the reader, will pick and choose the parts of this book that are meaningful to you. I want to offer it as a kind of smorgasbord, not a single sustained argument that must be read from beginning to end" (Price 21).

Hey everyone! 

Just came across this article in my Facebook news feed, which discusses some interesting terminology like we've discussed in class. We've talked a lot about how we name ourselves, and this blog post discusses it in the context of the #CripTheVote movement. http://www.twothirdsoftheplanet.com/cripthevote-if-you-arent-crippled/?utm_content=buffer87a19&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Ed 200 Spring 2016 Guidelines for Class Community (created by our class)

Allow people scope to change their minds -- something a person says isn’t necessarily their last word -- ideas can be revised

On the other hand, hold yourself accountable for what you say if you make a mistake -- work to re-establish trust

Before you say something, see about saying where it is coming from (“based on my understanding of X” or “at my old school, we . . . “) -- on the other hand, hard to quickly boil down complexity.  

Get to know where everyone is coming from to have context behind what people are saying -- follow up one people’s comments with questions about their context.