Self Evaluation and Reflection

Just like how Jordan shifted her consciousness from race and class and gender, I’ve never stop finding who I am, but from different aspects.I’ve always wondered if there’s somebody on earth that share the same thoughts and interest and characteristic of mine. If there’s really an another ‘you’ on the planet, what should you say when the encounter happens, like a miracle? Without being aware of that question, I said ‘I like your dress’ when I first met Jing, at my age of 12.

Link to portfolio:

/oneworld/eportfolio/Chewy%20Charis

http://meeraj2.wix.com/empoweringlearners

Our placement at CCW was, by far, the most meaningful part of this course for me, and the site of my most profound learning experiences. I usually struggle to situate myself in placements for classes, grappling with what it really means to have a “real life example” of the theories brought up in class. I hate feeling like I have to study people, to seek out which theories apply to which people I meet. For some reason--maybe because we spent very little time studying institutions like CCW, and maybe because we structured our time at the center around unique and complex projects unrelated to the course’s topic itself--I didn’t find myself having to face this struggle at all.

My understadning of disability has changed drastically since I began the semester because the only understanding I had was personal. My sister, my mother and I have each had experience with disability in our lives, so I have always lived in the cure-model. The idea that disability was socially constructed was crazy to me. Simi Linton's two hand model, showing the closed fist as disability and the open one as society, showed me that our focus has been completely wrong. We don't need to 'fix' the disabled population so they fit the mold of society, it is the other way around. This fact, honestly, has changed me as a learner, thinker, writer, and person and I will carry it with me throughout the rest of my academic and personal life.

 Grace in my Heart, Flowers in my Hair, a Mouthful of Shooting Stars: 

A final personal reflection on Critical Disability Studies: Theory & Practice

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

-Mumford & Sons, "After the Storm"