“Citizenship in Schools: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome"

Christopher Kliewer

Talking Points #8

Premise: Down Syndrome, community, communication, parents, teachers, students, individuality, judgments

Argument: This piece by Kliewer was taken from an article called “Schooling Children with Down Syndrome”. The lesson that this author is teaching is that community involvement is extremely important for children to learn. A child with learning disabilities, specifically Down Syndrome in this article, can flourish with the support of the community.

My Thoughts: This article, I liked. I had more interest in this one because I knew something about Downs Syndrome. I learned about this specific syndrome in high school Health classes, Psychology, and even Science. This disease is also known as Trisonomy 21. The physical characteristics of Down Syndrome typically involve low muscle tone, flat appearance of the face, upward slanting eye creases, small ears, single skin crease in the palm, extremely flexible joints, and having a large tongue. I think that it is important to know these basics before I started writing this paper. It’s not fair to write something down if you do not know about it first. Most people with Down Syndrome, as said in the article, can live independently. They are able to work and do a job well. They are actually pretty smart people. The more support any person gets, not just the disabled, the better the chances for success. Getting support from the community and being accepted into that community is a wonderful thing. One thing in the article that gave a wake up call is what can occur when we become teachers in a classroom. The teacher’s name in this paper was Shayne. Shayne saw wonderful things in her kids. What we would think as misbehaving and being rude, she saw the child as just wanting to express himself. Shayne wanted to let him be and let him learn in his own way. That was wonderful. But, let’s face it, a teacher as sensitive and accepting as Shayne is not usual. Most teachers are under stress to teach certain things by a certain date. They don’t have time for such special teaching. It’s sad. There was a quote by Kozol saying that this example of expression carries a burden of “intellectual, emotional, and spirituality” for the student, and the teacher was able to see this. Plus, there was a quote by Douglas Biklen, “society itself is hurt when schools act as cultural sorting machines—by perceived ability and behavior”. In other words, students shouldn’t be segregated by their disabilities. They should be put into a regular classroom and get support from that class community. Another student found community support by moving to another city. It’s too bad he had to do that. It’s too bad, people can’t always find support when they need it. Everyone has their own opinions about any situation, may it be in a school or in society. But there should be no judging contests. This is just one syndrome this article talks about, but it holds true for many disabilities. If someone has a syndrome, people label them as being a “downer”, and that he or she isn’t good enough and not perfect. Hey, nobody’s perfect. People who do not have this syndrome do not have the right to judge quickly about the person who does. They eat, breath, and sleep like you and me.