Disabilities in Higher Education
In last weeks class Julian informed us on how to write a paper in APA style. He explained to us the common mistakes students make when they write their paper this way we would be aware for when we have to write our papers. I thought this was very helpful because this is the first time I will be using APA. In one of my other classes our teacher gave us a crash course in APA which was also helpful because now I feel a little bit more confident when I write. After we talked about the difference and similarities in the Hurtado and Torres articles. Then we numbered off and got into small groups to talk about our experiences in relation to the questions. In my group all of us were Latino so many of our experiences were similar. It made me very happy to have people understand the experiences I’ve been through and to hear the experiences they’ve been through.
In the GAO Report article it talked about what they found which was that disability students were represented as the 11% of all post secondary students in 2008. They later talked about the challenges of having students with disabilities who are unaware of their rights. There are accommodations that are provided for them that students need to know about that way they know there are resources that can help them. Different support systems were shared in the article as well as a lot of background of students with disabilities and how it was handled before. A lot of the information I read about in the article was a refresher because I took a special education course in my community college. This article I felt went very in depth with the information which I enjoyed because it gave me more of insight on the problem.
The Ableism article I found very interesting especially the Disability Oppression Theory. When I first read the title ableism I was not exactly sure what it meant but when I read that ableism derives from a set of rigid cultural norms that promote specific and narrow standards of beauty, rules of logic, and conceptions of value it really helped me understand the article better. The Disability Oppression Theory advocate for people with disabilities and are opposed to “fixing” or “correcting” people. I absolutely agree that there is no need to “fix” people because there is nothing wrong with them they can do everything everyone else can do they just need special assistance.
The McCune and Bryan and Myers article I thought were similar because they talked more about different scenarios of students with disabilities and tied it back to diversity. I was talking to a friend about this article and he told me that even though his diabetes is not a disability he sometimes feels isolated from others because he is treated differently. I have two roommates who have disabilities and you would never know that they have disabilities if you did not know them well because on the outside they look perfectly fine but there are things they struggle with. I think there needs to be more awareness of the different types of disabilities that way we can educate ourselves and make policies to help others that need it.
The reason I chose this image is because its true IT STILL WORKS just because it works differently does not mean we throw it away. As the fork seen above it still functions its just missing a part.
