Sunday, April 17, 2011

Schooling Children With Down Syndrome

Reflection

As I read this, I started to think about how my high school's inclusion program was set up.  I came up with the fact that if a student had a mild to moderate disability, they were included in standard or the lowest level learning classes.  If the student had a severe case of disability, they were put into the special needs classroom.  There was always other students in that classroom doing work with them and even when they went to phys. ed they had another student without disabilities there helping them do the activities.

As for the discrimination aspect of this reading, there wasnt much in my high school that i know about. There were chances for the disabled students to play sports if they wanted.  There was always the opportunity for them to participate in the Special Olympics.  This also makes me think of when i was younger and in girl scouts.  We did something called Mini Camp. This camp was always during the school vacation weeks and it was in the morning so that parents had an almost built in babysitter for them during that week.  There were a few girls that attended the camp that had down syndrome. We always made sure that we incorporated them into the activities, most of the time it was having them sit at the same table with the other girls and having one of the "leaders" helping them with the projects.

In class i would like to talk about anyone else's experiences.  Were they good or bad?  If they were bad, how do you think the school or the people that made that situation bad could have changed it?

3 comments:

  1. I think that it was really cool that your highschool had an inclusion policy. I know my school did not and think it would have been better off it it did have a policy like this so all kids can feel included.

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  2. I totally agree with Luke. I wish that my high school had had an inclusion policy. I feel like I would have liked it better because from not having an inclusion policy I was always afraid to talk to special needs students because I was not sure what to expect. If there was inclusion, I don't think I would have much of a problem.

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  3. Like Luke and Mariah, I also agree with the importance of an inclusion policy within any level of schools. I think it is crucial for students to be involved in teh regular classroom activities even if they do have someone along with them to help. Being included with the other students in their class, it may very well help them not feel so "different" from everyone else and encourage them to stay positive. Not only do the students with any type of disability benefit from this, but also the able-bodied students around them. This helps the students become knowledgeable of the different disabilities while also learning to accept them as any other one of their friends. Also benefiting them in society, as it is very common to see people with a disability anywhere in public.

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