Ok- ok- here in the midwest, special education professors [let alone the down-in-the-trenches-teachers] do not make the kind of money quoted in this article. Still, the job description is pretty accurate, retention is high, stability good over the long haul and – if you can handle the pressures- special education is a very moral and rewarding experience.

there

that’s my speel. Special Education is not easy. It’s not candy apply red pretty or dripping with social status. It is one of the best uses of time and talent if you have to work for a living anyway. Gotta love puzzles, odd ducks, getting dirty and wearing green tennis shoes when your collegues are all dressed in matching outfits….

disABLEDperson Inc.  501 © 3 Public Charity  Spring 2010 National Scholarship Competition

Register for this scholarship
disABLEDperson, Inc. is excited to announce our Spring 2010 nationally based scholarship competition for college students with disabilities! This competition begins on January 11, 2010 and ends on March 1, 2010 for the award of $1000.00 (one thousand dollars)!
To participate, after clicking on http://www.disabledperson.com/scholarships/2 follow these simple steps: Write an essay with no more than 750 words (prompt can be found below). Click on the “Register Now” at the bottom of the page. Fill out the form completely and paste your essay into the form.
A few reminders: Important! You need to “Sign up now” on disABLEDperson.com as a community member!  Also, please keep in mind that the form must be filled out completely. We cannot accept incomplete or fraudulent forms. Spelling and grammar is imperative. Please submit carefully edited drafts only.
In order to qualify, the student must be enrolled in a 2 or 4 year accredited college or university in the United States of America. They must be a full-time student and U.S. citizen (minimum of 12 credits for undergraduate, 9 credits for graduate). Unfortunately, we are not able to award scholarships to high school students or college students who are not attending classes full-time. Upon winning, the student will prove disability through their Disability Student Services department. We define disability as: “A disadvantage or deficiency, especially a physical or mental impairment that interferes with or prevents normal achievement in a particular area, something that hinders or incapacitates.”

Be sure to submit your entry before the March 1, 2010 deadline. The winner will be announced on our website on March 15, 2010. All decisions made by disABLEDperson, Inc. are final.

Thank you and good luck!

Diana Corso

ok, I’m not at all sure I should be advertising for the US Air Force….it creates a value conflict for me….and, by the way, I don’t even want to touch on all the problems associated with hiring people with disabilities to do “war” labor… regardless of my hesitation, I am posting the announcement. You decide. In the end, we all gotta eat and many people with disabilities are way down at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy right now. We could all live out the “cap-in-hand” myth if communities don’t start to recognize how the economy issues are affecting those who live on “trinkle-down” income.

Air Force organizations have the opportunity to begin hiring students March 17 for temporary, funded positions as part of the 2010 Workforce Recruitment Program for College Students with Disabilities. Students who work in the temporary positions during the summer have their salaries paid by the Department of Defense with funding for the program running May 15 through Sept. 30. Air Force organizations interested in participating in the program should contact their local civilian personnel office for more information. For more information on the program, visit the Workforce Recruitment Program for College Students with Disabilities website at www.wrp.gov<http://www.wrp.gov>.

Take a few minutes of time over semester break and look at the following information going before Congress. There are a couple of things I want to point out-

1st- This problem belongs to every one of us, not just those who currently have a disability or loves someone who has one right now. Along with all the scientific advancements coming forth from disease prevention, birth defects, and war-related injuries ( didn’t know that was a product research market???) is the uncomfortable fact that each and every one of us will most likely die as a cyborg: a technically advanced disabled human.

2nd- human rights are modeled, taught,practiced and learned in school. nuff said.

3rd- I worked 16 years in lock-down facilities for kids considered a danger to self and others. I know what it’s like to be bit, spit on, punched, knocked down and more importantly, loved, hugged, cared for by a kid considered dangerous. I can tell you there are many ways to de-esculate a situation, stop a kid from hurting self and others and maintain a sense of community. There is only one way to do it wrong – and that is by implementing a heirarchy of power over human dignity….

Look over the Dec 9th article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/12/lawmakers_seek_halt_to_abuses.html

click all the links and take a deep look at the amount of physical abuse and death that occurs in school- then look at the personal story below that NPR posted earlier this year and tell me: WHAT VALUE SYSTEM IS MOST IMPORTANT AND HOW DO WE ALIGN OUR PRACTICE WITH WHAT WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO LEARN?

Heard on Morning Edition/ May 19, 2009 – STEVE INSKEEP, host: Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

It’s MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I’m Steve Inskeep. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: And I’m Renee Montagne.

As a means of discipline, children – usually kids in special education – are being tied, taped, handcuffed or pinned down by adults. At times they’re locked in secluded rooms and left for hours. And in some cases, children have died or been injured. Today, a congressional committee will be looking at what a new government report says is a widespread problem in schools. NPR’s Joseph Shapiro has more.

JOSEPH SHAPIRO: Annette Maldonado picked up the phone one day last February. The call was from her son’s middle school in San Antonio. Moses, a special education student who’s 11, was having a bad day and she needed to come to the school to pick him up. When she arrived, she passed by the office of the school’s security officer.

Ms. ANNETTE MALDONADO (Son is special education student): And the door was halfway open and I seen Moses handcuffed to the chair, a wooden chair, by one hand. And Moses was crying.

SHAPIRO: Maldonado told the school police officer to take the handcuffs off her child.

Ms. MALDONADO: It really crushed me, broke my heart, because he’s not an animal. He’s a human being.

SHAPIRO: Moses has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder. That day, he was removed from his special education classroom after he cursed a teacher and threw a pen that landed harmlessly. The security officer said Moses became agitated and started hitting his head on the door, so she handcuffed him.

The San Antonio independent school district says that’s the proper action for when a child becomes a danger to himself or to others. But Maldonado says she didn’t see her son banging his head and his only visible injury was bruising and bleeding caused by the tight handcuffs.

Ms. MALDONADO: He was really crying and he’s little for his – he’s real skinny. The way the handcuffs are they had them so tight that you could see, like, with the cuts and the bleeding.

SHAPIRO: This week, Moses is taking a bus across town to a new school. And this morning a congressional committee is taking a look at the practice of using restraints like handcuffs, as well as putting students in seclusion rooms.

Congressman George Miller is the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Representative GEORGE MILLER (Democrat, California): Well, I think what this hearing will show us is that, in fact, every year in schools in the United States, hundreds and hundreds of children are the victims of abuse, and in some cases I would say almost torture.

SHAPIRO: The California Democrat asked the Government Accountability Office to look at the extent of the problem. Its report, which will be released at today’s hearing, finds there are no federal laws that say when restraint and seclusion can be used and few state guidelines for teachers and administrators. But the report found the practice is widespread.

It looked at records in two states, Texas and California, that require schools to report when restraint and seclusion are used. In one school year in those two states alone there were more than 33,000 cases.

Representative MILLER: I was also stunned by how young some of these children were: four, five, six, seven, eight years old — some of whom had died. And really, this is a very sad, very tragic report.

SHAPIRO: There’ve been deaths when large adults pinned down agitated children to try to calm them down but, instead, accidentally suffocate them. One seven-year-old girl died that way in Wisconsin. She was restrained because she was fidgeting and blowing bubbles in her milk. In another case, a 13-year-old boy left alone in a seclusion room hung himself and died.

Miller wants Congress to consider passing federal restrictions on the use of restraint and seclusion. And that raises the question: When — if ever — should such discipline be used?

Reece Peterson is a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He’s looked at studies and says there’s almost no data to suggest whether secluding or restraining kids with autism, mental health issues or other disabilities does any good. But, he says, for the most part, educators agree that sometimes teachers need to seclude or restrain children who are at risk of hurting themselves or others.

Professor REECE PETERSON (University of Nebraska-Lincoln): We wouldn’t consider banning handcuffs altogether from the police department, I don’t suppose. But yet we know that they can also be abused, and they are occasionally. So I think the issue is trying to ensure that they’re only used to improve safety.

SHAPIRO: There are a growing number of school districts that have reported good success by using alternative ways of dealing with behavior problems. As a result, some groups that represent kids with disabilities and their parents are calling for a ban on the use of all restraints and seclusion.

“Rosa’s Law” honors young girl whose brother said, “… what you call people is how you treat them.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski today introduced “Rosa’s Law,” a bill that will eliminate the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” from the federal law books. U.S. Senator Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is the Republican sponsor of the bill.

Under Rosa’s Law, those terms would be replaced with “intellectual disability” and “individual with an intellectual disability” in federal education, health and labor law. The bill does not expand or diminish services, rights or educational opportunities. It simply makes the federal law language consistent with that used by the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and the President of the United States, through his Committee on Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities.

Rosa’s Law replicates a law recently adopted in Maryland. Senator Mikulski first heard about the state law from Rosa’s mother during a roundtable discussion about special education held in Edgewater, Maryland. Due to requirements in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), each student who receives special education services at public schools has an individualized education program (IEP) that describes the student’s disability and the special education and services that child will receive.
Rosa has an intellectual disability – Downs Syndrome – and so was designated as a student with “mental retardation” in her IEP, giving way to people at the school referring to Rosa as retarded. Senator Mikulski promised Rosa’s mother that if the bill became law in Maryland, she would take it to the floor of the United States Senate.

“This bill is driven by a passion for social justice and compassion for the human condition,” said Senator Mikulski, a senior member of the HELP Committee. “We’ve done a lot to come out of the dark ages of institutionalization and exclusion when it comes to people with intellectual disabilities. I urge my colleagues to join me to take a step further. The disability community deserves it. Rosa deserves it.” “Mental retardation”
and “mentally retarded” are terms commonly used in federal laws, including the Individual With Disabilities Education Act, the Higher Education Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

“We know now that words have meaning, sometimes far beyond what we intend,”
added Senator Enzi. “Therefore, we must be very careful about the way we describe the people we see every day, including those with disabilities, or those who are undergoing treatment for a variety of health issues.
Unfortunately, the federal government has not dropped this term from our laws and it still appears in the regulations and statutes that come before our legislative bodies and our courts. I am pleased to have this opportunity to join my colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski, in introducing Rosa’s law. I would like to thank her for her leadership and her commitment on this issue. Simply put, this legislation will make an important change in the words we use to refer to those with intellectual disabilities. It is a much needed change in the law that is fully deserving of our support.”

When Rosa’s Law was being considered by the Maryland General Assembly, Rosa’s 13-year-old brother, Nick, successfully testified on her behalf for a substitution of mentally retarded with intellectual disability. He explained, “Some people say they are just words, and it’s not going to make a difference if we just change the words. Some say we shouldn’t worry about the words, just the way we treat people. But when you think about it, what you call people is how you treat them! If we change the words, maybe it’ll be the start of a new attitude towards people with intellectual disabilities. They deserve it.”

“Senator Mikulski’s bill is a most welcome and necessary step in ending the pervasive discrimination against the 7 million people living with intellectual disabilities in this country,” stated Peter V. Berns, the Chief Executive Officer of The Arc of the U.S. “With federal adoption of the term ‘intellectual disability’ perhaps our society and others will begin to understand the legitimacy of the condition and treat those living with it in a more respectful fashion.”

The Arc is the world’s largest community based organization of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It provides an array of services and support for families and individuals and includes over 140,000 members affiliated through more than 780 state and local chapters across the nation. The Arc is devoted to promoting and improving supports and services for all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Rosa’s Law has garnered support from six additional cosponsors from both sides of the aisle, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Senator Benjamin L.
Cardin (D-Md.), Senator Lamar Alexander (R- Tenn.), Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Senator John Thune (R-S.D.), as well as more than 30 national organizations to date:

http://mikulski.senate.gov/_pdfs/Press/Organizations.pdf.

A copy of the Dear Colleague letter circulated by Senators Mikulski and Enzi is available here:

http://mikulski.senate.gov/_pdfs/Press/RosasLawDearColleageLetter.pdf.

Senator Mikulski’s full floor statement is here:

http://mikulski.senate.gov/Newsroom/PressReleases/record.cfm?id=319975.

Victimization Data

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics recently relased a report based on data from the 2007 National Crime Victimization Survey. The report found that people with disabilities experienced violent crime at a rate one and one-half times greater than people without disabilities. For females with disabilities, the rate was twice as high as women without disabilities. People with intellectual disabilities were most at risk. One in five people with disabilities who experienced violent crimes felt that they had become victims because of their disability. The report can be found at:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/capd07.htm

so,

ok,

I felt pretty good about me moral philosophizing in the last post on being a victim

and still think there is much to be learned about what happens when we compare ourselves to others

but

its not the whole story

I mean

what do we do with the empirical data that shows how many people with disabilites are victims of major crimes!

why is this?

Nel Noddings

I saw Nel Noddings speak last week at the national celebration of John Dewey’s birthday and conference in Chapel Hill North Carolina. She is an amazing speaker and advocate of children everywhere.

What has always facinated me about “ethics of care” research- studies that are largely influenced by Nell’s writing about her work in schools- is how caring can be so miscontrued. I think that is the base of Nell’s thought in the above quote. What I get out of her insight is how important it is to look under our thoughts and ask why do we think in such a way? From the victims point of view, Nell says we often take comfort by seeing ourselves as morally superior to our persecuters- a comparision we are bound to win which gives us a nice social justice pillow on which to rest our weary heads.

But she goes on to say that there is still more work to be done, that we must rise up and off the comfort of feeling morally superior to understand how any comparison of one thing ( my pain compared to the persecuter’s moral demise) brings forth the other ( It is possible that my feeling of moral superiority is the same feeling my persecuter has when he/she looks at me…which makes us more alike than different.)

So, I”m thinking about all the times lately when I have felt victimized and how easy it is to say “yeah, what you are doing makes me suffer somehow, but my suffering has limits and you are going to suffer for eternity”

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK- I LOVE THIS!

There’s lots to write about this journey where I learn to walk again and I’ll get some stories uploaded very soon. For the most part I’m without any pain and feel pretty good. Getting into the swing of this fall semester has been a chore but I’m not so sure that its “hip” related… it has felt more like being caught in a maze with odd twists and turns- no cheese in sight!

Before going into too many personal, although amazingly interesting stories, there are several “disability” related news items to bring to your attention. Look for more updates on Cyborg Teaching and Reflections in the near future. For now take a look under the “News” category