Article Author name(s): None listed
Title of article: A Girls and a Word
Title of journal: Teaching Tolerance
Volume of the journal: Spring 2011
Issue number of the journal: 39
Intended audience: Everyone
http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-39-spring-2011/girl-and-word
Key Points: Rosa is a nine year old student who has been labeled “mentally retarded”. Although she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, she didn’t like be labeled that way and began to research her label. Rosa’s family ultimately became very proactive about the name of this label and began gathering petition signatures and pushing the Senate to take action against the school district condoning this label. In October 2010 President Obama signed Rosa’s Law, which keeps the phrase “mentally retarded” off official documents. Obama said “What you call people is how you treat them,” he said. “If we change the words, maybe it will be the start of a new attitude toward people with disabilities.”
Relevance: Although it is clear that we cannot prevent people from using hurtful language, we can encourage a more professional and progressive expectation within schools, and at least this is a significant place to start. Tim Schriver, CEO of the Special Olympics says, “Respect, value and dignity—everyone deserves to be treated this way, including people with intellectual disabilities”.
I remember in our ESOL class, we talked about how to define whether students have learning disability. ESL teachers should try to find someone to teach them in their fist language to see if students could understand and do well. Thus, teachers should be very concious and careful to decide if students need to be diagnosed. Otherwise, it would be not fair to students if they are labled with some deficiency.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to really know what labels do to the self=esteem, respect of inidviduals, but at some point, even if for purely administrative reasons we have to call students something if we insist on claiming that they are different than the norm somehow. Is a pc label better than another kind of label or no-label. The problem, I think, is less with the word, the label, and more with how we decide to integrate (or segregate) these students from mainstream education.
ReplyDeleteI like this article because treating people with respect and kindness is a universal law that some people struggle with more than others. Recently a very wonderful older man, the great grandson of a slave, stated to me that America just needs to love one another and work together in order to be the United States we desire to be.
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