"Citizenship in school; Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome" By Christopher Kliewer

Reflection;

This week’s reading was by far my favorite because it talks about a topic that even though it is very present in our daily life some people tend to ignore. This week’s article was written by Christopher Kluwer. He argues that children with Down syndrome should be allow to participate in the same classroom with children that have no disability. Even though a child with Down syndrome may learn differently than the rest of the children.  I agree with Kliewer, because not only Down syndrome children have different way of learning but every children learn different even though they might not have a learning disability.

 One point that caught my attention from the article is a statement made by Jason Kinsley “now we know that people with disability can learn and have a full, rich life. The challenge is to erase negative attitude about people with developmental disabilities, get rid of the stereotypes and break the barriers for people with disability” I feel that there are several ways we can change the negativism towards children with Down syndrome or towards any other children with disability. First one, is to stop segregating classrooms, I don’t know if any of you remember when we were in high school or even in grammar school, where they had the “regular kids” classes on one side of the school and the classes for children with disabilities at the other side of the building or even in the school basement like they were some contagious creatures. Keeping children with disabilities apart from the rest had created a sense that children with disability are being kept apart because somethings is wrong with them, that the rest of the children should feel afraid if god forbid they come in contact with each other something “bad” is going to happen to them. Society need to remember that precious quote by Nelson Mandela “no one is born hating another person they are taught” if children with disability attend the same classroom as children with no disability we will see a change on society’s negative attitude towards people with developmental disabilities. 

Another way to change the negativism towards children with disability is to stop treating them like they are less human, they can do the same things that other people can for example; I been working as a school bus driver for the past four years, I had driven different type of children; from behavior problems, special needs to children with no disability. I would like to share something that happened to me last year with a Down syndrome child who I would name “Bobby”. Normally children with special needs gets drop off as close as possible of their classroom. Their teacher or the teacher’s aide are always waiting for them at the door. But the rest of the children get drop off at assigned spot next to the cafeteria. One morning “Bobby” who become friends with another child from the bus, wanted to be drop off at the same spot as his friend. Bobby‘s new friend assured that he was going to walk him to his classroom. I didn’t see no problem with that because Bobby was a very smart and capable boy. When I finished my bus run I was called in to the manager’s office and I was suspended for a day because I didn’t drop Bobby off were I was supposed to and that I could have put him in danger. I couldn’t comprehend why this very capable child wasn’t allowed to socialize with the rest of the children? To me he was another pre-teen boy that wanted to hang out with his friends, but the school saw him as a defenseless human being. In this article I saw a lot of the article “safe spaces” by August because schools should be a safe place where children feel that the can be themselves. “Classroom lay the foundations for an inclusive and safe society: a just community where common interest and individual differences coexist.” By August

Point to share; I want to ask my classmates if I did something wrong by letting “Bobby” walk with his friends. Give your opinion on this because that incident still bothers me.