Talking Points on "Schooling Children with Down Syndrome," by Christopher Kliewer

"Humility, Friere (1993) agrees, is central to democracy. 'How can I dialogue,' Friere asks, 'if I always project ignorance onto others and never perceive my own? How can I dialogue if I regard myself as a case apart from others--mere 'its' in whom I cannot recognize other 'I's' (p. 71)' (73)."

I think this is an important question to ask for the "reflective practitioner."  As teachers, sure, the traditional model of education suggests that we are the ones with the knowledge, but I believe we will be more effective teachers if we recognize that we can learn from students as well.  It can be very valuable to think of the relationship between the teacher and the student as a dialogue rather than as a one-way information transfer.

This sort of dialogue is what the teacher's in these integrated classrooms described by Kliewer seemed to be understanding and engaging in.  They did not see their Down syndrome students as "its" but rather as other "I's."

"Those students who exhibit the canonical mind are credited with understanding, even when real understanding is limited or absent; many people . . . can pass the test but fail other, perhaps more appropriate or probing measures of understanding.  Less happily, many who are capable of exhibiting significant understanding appear deficient, simply because they cannot readily traffic in the commonly accepted coin of the educational realm. (Gardner, 1991, pp. 12-13) (80)."

Thomas Gardner's quotation given in this text is one of many examples by Kliewer that points towards how the movement to educate children with "intellectual disabilities" follows much in the same lines as similar movements about how to be effective in educating any children with some form of cultural disadvantage.  The term "coin" is used where often one hears or reads this referred to as either Cultural "capital" or "currency."  Of course, these all mean the same thing.

I find it  interesting that the acquisition of cultural tools that allow for greater inclusion into the realm of knowledge and power is so often referred to in monetary terms.  To extend the metaphor, money is really nothing more than a means for acquisition.  It is not something that holds any inherent value on its own.  Without the power to acquire goods or services, money is afterall nothing more than printed paper.

In the same way, cultural currency has no inherent value. However, within the larger context of society, this "coin" does allow children access to a system of personal power that traditionally has not been extended to everyone.  Teachers like Shayne Robbins are trying to share the means of that access to those who have previously been denied it.

"Vygotsky found that the culture of segregation surrounding people with disabilities actually teaches underdevelopment of thinking through the isolation of children from socially valued opportunities (83)."

In reading this, I thought of the large mental health institutions which were the norm for people with severe learning disabilities up until the 1970s.  I spent a couple of years working in a group home for developmentally delayed adults.  Most of the people who lived in the home had grown up in such institutions.  The conditions in these places were described as grim, prison-like, dehumanizing settings.  I couldn't help but feel that the clients I was working for may have had much happier, fulfilled lives if they had not spent the better part of their childhoods in such an oppressive setting.

I enjoyed how this reading used a lot of the language and ideas that have been used to describe other marginalized groups and applied it to the discussion of children with developmental delays.  

I was filled with admiration for teachers like Shayne Robbins.   I feel that the work she does with the children she teaches represents a level kindness and understanding of social justice that is uncommon.  It also seems that her talent for finding strengths where others are unable to constitutes a truly remarkable talent for teaching.