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EDEX 523
Reflection Paper
April 20, 2015
Coming into this class I feel like I knew very little about students with
disabilities. Growing up, in my school district, students with disabilities were
almost always confined to special education classes so I had very little
contact with them with the exception of seeing them at lunch. Throughout
this semester I have learned so much about students with disabilities that I
hope will make me even more successful as a future educator such as ways
to effectively incorporate students with disabilities into my classroom,
legislation like the ADA, and the importance of disability awareness into my
curriculum, among other things.
To begin, I feel as though I learned a lot about the ADA and other
legislation that pertains to equal rights for those with disabilities. I have
always associated the civil rights movement with African Americans and then
women, completely overpassing the importance the movement had on
Americans with disabilities. The activity we completed that required my
group to investigate and evaluate the accessibility of Wardlaw really taught
me a lot about ADA regulations and the struggles students with disabilities
must encounter when trying to get around our campus. The list of
regulations included the smallest things that I have never thought about
before such as being able to open a classroom door handle if I dont have a
hand or being able to fit through the doorways if I were in a wheelchair. Since
this class, I always take notice of the accessibility of building and classrooms
individuals with disabilities. Prior to taking this class, I had never even heard
of disability-first language, however, the necessity of putting the person
first in front of their disability makes so much sense to me now and I intend
on using this in my everyday life as well as in my future classroom.
Moreover, I learned the importance of treating students with disabilities the
same as I treat any other student in my future classroom. One class
discussion we had that really impacted me was when Dr. Pettus discussed
several students with disabilities who got to college and were overwhelmed
with the work load expected of them because their high school teachers
never required them to do the same work as everyone else. If I have a
student with a disability in my high school social studies class, it means that
they are most likely at the same grade level as the rest of the students in my
class. Because of what Ive learned in this class, it will be important for me to
require my students with disabilities do the same amount of work as
everyone else in order to best prepare them for the future.