SALN and What is Normal

So, here's a pic of Larry, Erik, and John who came and presented to my Core Discovery class on Thursday of last week. They did a great job and all of the students seemed to respond positively to their perspectives on living life with a disability and striving to be a more vocal self advocate. Thanks guys...you were outstanding and we appreciated your candor and honesty. Keep on Rockin'.

A Way, Way Belated Update...

Well, I’m finally home and many of you are probably wondering what happened to my promised postings. Well, despite my best intentions I found internet access to be very elusive in London. The wi-fi hotspot at the RGS went down on Thursday afternoon and never was fixed. I then searched high and low for another place to access the internet, but found that internet café’s wanted to charge me 10 pounds per hour to use their computers or to access their wi-fi; this is equivalent to $20 and being on a very tight budget left me with no choice but to be frugal and leave my loyal readership hanging. All I can say is I’m sorry….which is more than I’ve heard from British Airways…

Yes, BA still hasn’t found my bag and is completely unapologetic about it. I’ve spent about 15 hours on the phone with them, trying to achieve some resolution and they have been less than forthcoming and far from helpful. I think that part of the problem is that the BA call center in the UK is in Scotland. Now the Scots are a folk who are used to suffering and are terse, to say the least, every time I got through to a thickly accented highland lassie I usually had to have her repeat what she said multiple times until I understood it, and I usually got the silent treatment when it came to my complaints. The standard reply was (insert your own thick Scottish accent here): “Just go out and by the necessities, then send us the receipts and we’ll see what we can do.” When I pressed them about what they considered necessities the standard response was (again, insert thick Scottish accent here): “Necessities are the things you need”; a less than helpful rejoinder that usually signaled the nigh end of the conversation. So, I have figured that just between the time I spent in the airport and on the phone with BA, the near $20 pounds I spent on phone cards to talk to them they owe me at least $350 in time and phone charges, to say nothing of reimbursing me for the time it took to find shops that sold razors, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, socks, underwear etc. Central London is very good at catering to the impractical material desires of tourists, but makes little provision for helping them find the “necessities”.

On my way home yesterday I did make quite a scene in Heathrow trying to ensure that the cheap little backpack I’d bought to bring home the gifts I had bought for my kids was checked, double checked, and insured. I then demanded that BA upgrade me to first class for my pain and suffering. I ended up going through four levels of management and was a great poster boy for the stereotypical “rude American”, but I was at the end of my rope by that time and wanted, at least, some acknowledgment of my suffering. My antics didn’t work as effectively as I would have liked, but I did get upgraded to business class which meant that I had two more inches of leg room, two more inches of elbow room, and a little fuzzier blanket; all cold comfort for losing my luggage.

So after my ticket counter antics I had to endure the Heathrow security gauntlet which must be almost as daunting as the security procedures in Israeli airports. They go through all of your bags and make you take off almost everything except your pants and shirt (the necessities?). Everything has to be placed in different bins, so shoes, belt, coat, wallet, computer, etc are all in different bins, which means that you are pushing a line of bins 5-7 long. It’s quite the juggle. Once I was through and re-dressed, someone decided to pull the fire alarm in the airport and we were all evacuated. If you can imagine trying to evacuate the Seattle Airport or O’Hare then multiplying that in scale by 2 then you can imagine how chaotic that process was. The great thing was that after we’d been evacuated into our little holding pens, that were strikingly familiar to feed lot pens, we all had the privilege of going through security again! It was quite the morning….

But my trip was not all drama and frustration and I imagine that at some point I will be asked what part of London I most enjoyed. Before I answer that I have to qualify my response by saying that I didn’t go visit some of the sites that most people would consider essential, and I also didn’t visit some of the sites that I initially wanted to. Everyone has said that I had to go to the Tower of London, but the tales of horrid crowds and endless lines scared me away since I really only had Friday and Saturday for some sightseeing. I also didn’t go to Buckingham palace to see the changing of the guards, nor did I brave the long lines to ride the London Eye. I also wanted to go to see the manuscript collections at the British Library, but it was too far out of the way and the Tube line to that part of town was closed over the weekend. But despite the sites that I didn’t see, I did see some sites that absolutely blew my mind. I think that the most moving site was Westminster Abbey, followed by Westminster Castle and the Halls of Parliament, the British Museum, and the Imperial War Cabinet.

Perhaps my favorite thing was just wandering around the street and alleyways of London. I really enjoyed the time I spent walking through the quintessential London suburb of Highgate, the tightly packed streets and alleys of Holborn with its old restaurants and book stores, the gentrified rowhouses of Kensington, and the circuitous alleys around St. Paul’s and Temple Bar. Back in 1997 when I went to Montreal I learned that walking through neighborhoods and the places where the city lives is infinitely more fascinating than visiting the “must see” attractions. There is nothing more satisfying than finding a small, local restaurant in a back alley that caters to residents and not tourists. This is where you really get to know a city and the people who live there. Certainly London is in her monuments and museums, but the day to day pulse of life is in the streets and neighborhoods. This is where you meet people, can sit and watch life pass at a normal pace, and really get to know a place.

I’ll never forget the wonderful little family owned Italian restaurant I ate in in Holborn following my presentation. I wanted to eat somewhere nice and quiet as a reward and decided to wander the alleys until I found the restaurant that smelled the best as I walked past. This tiny Italian place was in an alley about 4 blocks from the British Museum and was full of Italian families eating their midday meal. I was the only English speaker in the restaurant. I had a lovely lunch of prosciutto, melon, and penne a l’arrabiata across the alley from the apartment where philosopher and peace activist Bertrand Russell used to live. I sat there eating this meal alone and imagined Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, and T.S. Eliot walking this alley or even eating in this same restaurant discussing the weighty issues of the day, reading drafts of each other’s work, and forming plans to shake up the philosophical and literary vanguard of early twentieth century London.

Although London is most famous for her monuments and museums most of these have been civilized and overinterpreted. There’s nothing surprising to discover in these sites. If there’s a surprise they’ll tell you about it before you get there and then try to sell you overpriced souvenirs at the end to help you remember how much fun you had not being surprised. There’s nothing to discover in these tourist draws. You enter and they set you on a predetermined path that you must follow until you reach the end. It’s almost like a pilgrimage or traveling the Stations of the Cross; you know what you’re going to see and have built it up so much in your mind that it can’t help but be somewhat of a letdown when you realize that it is exactly what you expected it to be.

Well, with that said, after eating in the Italian restaurant is Holborn I headed to the British Museum, the first real tourist site of my trip. I’ve always wanted to go to the British museum, so I was surprised at my reaction. As I walked through the halls that covered the ancient cultures of Babylon, Egypt and Greece my first though was: “Holy crap…all of this stuff is stolen!” All of the placards on the artifacts told of the glorious exploits of the grave robbers, collectors, and army men who stole these artifacts, primarily during the Victorian era. Many seemed blatantly jingoistic and were somewhat distasteful in my opinion…but then I had to reconsider. Given the history of many of the parts of the world where these artifacts were taken from they would have, most likely, been destroyed or at least damaged in the wars and upheavals of the past several hundred years. So, I went through these exhibits experiencing a mix of emotions that left me intellectually confused and emotionally exhausted. The British Museum houses so many icons of Western civilization that one cannot help but be overwhelmed in their presence.

So I have much more to tell, but that will have to come tomorrow. I’ll post a few pics here and leave you with a list of my impressions of London gathered over the week. This is only a partial list and I will add more as I get time…

Thoughts on London

Flat green patchwork land cut through with threads of jet black canals and rivers;

The River Thames is the same color as the Tanana except it carries 40 million pounds of trash to the sea each year instead of silt;

Bishops on bikes in black robes with black, slip on Vans;

From the top of St. Paul’s a northern city skyline with 49 tower cranes building layer, upon layer;

Perfume follows everyone;

The patina of several thousand years from grease and grime from several hundred thousand hands;

Everyone pronounces my surname correctly! Everyone!;

Lead feet and crossing friendly;

Blast furnace of the Tube;

Monuments with names worn off from hundreds of years of kneeling and touching...there are actually deep troughs in the floor in front of the tomb of Edward the Confessor where people have kneeled over the centuries;

Trains preceded 30 seconds by a mechanical grease flavoured column of syringed air;

Halls that smell like industrial antiseptic;

Salty unsmoked bacon, sawdust sausages, watery eggs, baked beans, stewed tomatoes, hash browns, and other unrecognizable breakfast comestibles;

Late night meals and parties every evening; no one sleeps;

Dead city streets until 10 in the morning, I suspect from too much partying the night before;

Lines, lots and lots of lines (or queues, to be British about it);

Americans are big and unmistakable; they stand out like their bellies;

Homeless men wearing ties, having an early morning “cuppa” on their cardboard beds;

The sky is light all night and they never see stars, just the brightest ones on clear nights;

Narrow alleys with no discernible beginning or end;

The “hub and thrub” of British “process”;

A culture built around the “honored” dead…everyone even remotely great is mythologized;

Everyone walks and those who don’t drive cars that cost more than the average house;

Different languages are spoken around every corner and in every train car…English is only a symbolic national tongue;

Dark skinned people serve, white skinned people supervise;

Musty church’s that smell like thousands of years of death;

Surprisingly clean air above ground, indisputably toxic air below the ground;

Tight pants and terribly stylish but wholly impractical shoes;

Alleyway granite cobbles polished smooth……

A major realization I came to in London: the foreign exchange rate. It’s not that prices in London are inflated; in fact, prices are the same, but the value of the dollar is too low to achieve equivalency. For example, a cheap lunch is about 10 pounds, which is what I’d expect to pay for a decent lunch in Moscow, but the dollar is only worth 2.1:1 so a reasonable 10 pound lunch is actually equivalent to a $20 extravagance. So, if anything, this trip has at least clarified the mystery of the monetary exchange system…somewhat. I still don’t understand why the U.S. dollar is valued so low against the pound, but that’s a question for another day.

Here's some pics:

The front of the British MuseumA panorama of the interior "courtyard" of the British Museum. It's as big as 5 football fields!

The iconic lions of Babylon

A pharaoh, of course!

A completely stolen and reconstructed minor temple from the Acropolis

A mummy, for my daughter

A HUGE Buddha...I have no idea how they got this thing in here!

The Anglo-Saxon helmet from Sutton Hoo

Maitreya, life size

How about this...put that in your pita and eat it!

The Presentation and more Ideas to consider...

So, my presentation is done. The session was in a huge lecture theater on the Imperial College campus (see pictures). I got there early so I got some shots of the large empty room. It wasn't ever filled to capacity, but there were quite a few people there and it went well. Although the session was entitled "The Geographies of Youth", the other presenters and I decided that it would have been more appropriate to have entitled it "Discourses of Exclusion and Space". We all focused on the intertwined notions of discursive space and how it defines and it, in turn, defined by physical space (here's a copy of my presentation, if you're interested). I looked at the discourse of disability/normality, Dan from Edinburgh discussed the racialized discourse of post-Apartheid South Africa, and Wael from Cairo discussed the deconstruction and redefining of physical space through virtual discourse. It was all very fascinating and introduced me to some new ideas and people. I am especially fascinated by Wael's notion of "heterotopia's" and the distinction between the heterogeneous space where individuation is acceptable under certain socially defined norms, versus the traditional concept of utopia where all subscribe to similar beliefs, ideals, and modes of interaction.

So, now that's done with I have to chair a session and then I have the day free. I imagine I'll head down to Westminster to see the seat of Anglo-Saxon cultural hegemony, and to appreciate the history of the area in a less politicized way. I imagine that Marx isn't the most politically appropriate draw for an American tourist, so I'll try to play the part of the ogling and awestruck American more appropriately today. I'll try and post more pictures this evening.

As an update on my luggage: I made the daily call to BA this morning. They still have no idea where my bag is. I'm going to try and get by on what I have but it's not easy, nor is it convenient. But this is all part of the adventure....right?

Tired, Luggageless, and Loving It...

So, here's some new pics from today. I'll update you with the details of the hilarity of the day later...needless to say I've had to spend a bit of time shopping to keep myself looking decent, smelling civil, and generally comfortable. My initial foray into shopping in London has taught me two things: first, I have no style, or at least no Euro-style, and couldn't wear the clothes they wear here; second, this place is terribly expensive. I initially went to Harrod's, the closest clothing store, and immediately recognized that I was WAY out of my element. The clothes were flimsy, polyester, and skin tight; all things that I do not values in my clothing...especially the skin tight part. I'm sure that most others would also prefer to not see me in skin tight polyester pants, so I guess I'm doing the public a service by not adapting the London "style". Even the jeans here are worn skin tight...really tight...which would likely explain the declining birth rate in England. I eventually bought a pair of pants, a shirt, and underwear at the Gap and it cost 130 pounds...that's $260! The same ensemble in the States would probably have been $100 at the most.

After attending sessions at the RGS conference this morning and shopping during lunch, I decided to take this afternoon and head out to Highgate Cemetery to see the grave of Karl Marx. Of course, if you know me, it shouldn't be a surprise that this was a "must see" of this trip. I ended up getting there as they were closing the cemetery gates and had to bribe the guard to let me in. So 2 pounds bought me 5 minutes at Karl's grave. There were also a bunch of Chinese tourists admiring Karl's monument and I blew their minds when I asked them if they'd take my picture in Chinese. You'd have thought they just saw a ghost...I guess they don't hear a lot of tall Westerners speak Mandarin. I'm glad they understood me, because I could barely understand them. They had really thick Shantung accents.

Well, they want to kick me out of here. I'm writing this under an original map made by Captain Cook and another map made my a Dutch explorer in 1050! The earliest known, relatively accurate, map of the world. This place is amazing. So here's some pics of today's adventures...

The Albert Monument...Queen Victoria's monument to the love of her life.
Another one...look at the little guy at the bottom. This thing is huge.

The Royal Geographic Society Buildings

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"

Shackleton, the man

The classic double decker bus (for my kids!)

A workhouse in Highgate. This one was built in 1722. This is where they'd send society's "undesirables" to be "rehabilitated" through slave labor. Surprisingly, the poor, sick, disabled, elderly and others didn't respond to treatment...what a shock!

A nice residential area in Kentish Town

The Road to Marx's Tomb (that sounds like the title to a book...perhaps I should write it)

Me and Marx!

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Now playing: The White Stripes - I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman
via FoxyTunes

Day One: The Journey and Not the Destination

Well, I'm here in London....finally. I'm sitting in the first session of the Royal Geographic Society conference and in awe of my surroundings. I've walked down these hallowed corridors past pictures and statues of Darwin, Livingstone, Stanley, Shackleton, Scott, Peary, Cook , Amundsen, Hillary, and more. Me, an educator and amateur adventurer, prowling these corridors that have helped map and define our modern world and the frontiers of our knowledge. It's almost laughable...how can this, the oldest scholarly society in the world, have an interest in my research? I'm still amazed that I'm here and in this building...but, after my travel experience yesterday, perhaps not....

Although I'd like to say that my journey was uneventful, I'm afraid to say that it wasn't. So, I'm trying to keep in mind the sage advice that it's important to enjoy the adventure and process of the journey rather than see the destination as an end in, and of, itself. Let me explain...

Yesterday in Spokane I debated about whether I should check my bag. In the interest of keeping light, I went ahead and let them take it; although I did throw some medicine and a change of clothes into my carry-on backpack. Well, I made it to Seattle uneventfully and then made it on the British Air flight with time to spare. After we had boarded the BA flight in Seattle we ended up sitting on the tarmack for 1.5 hours while they reconciled a "baggage discrepancy". At the moment they made the announcement I thought: "Wouldn't it be funny if they lost my bag?" Ha, ha, ha....they did!

After arriving at Heathrow after a brutally long 10 hour flight, I was relieved to get off the plane and was looking forward to getting on the Tube, getting to my accommodations and taking a rest. Instead I ended up waiting in lines to file baggage claims, sorting through mountains of lost bags, and generally getting more and more frustrated with BA. I spent four hours in the bowels of Heathrow trying to track down my luggage and, after officially registering my dissatisfaction with their service, I headed for Imperial College, where I am staying.

The Tube ride was long and crowded. I had a brutally vicious headache from exhaustion and frustration and felt like I was going to be sick. It took an hour to reach Kensington and then another 30 minutes of negotiating the various interconnected tunnels, entrances, and exits before I found where I was supposed to go. As I walked down Prince's Consort Way toward Beit Hall at the Imperial College, I passed Royal Albert Hall and the Royal College of Music which are right next to my accommodations. There was music coming out of all the windows at the Royal College of Music and I was serenaded on my way by a cacophony of divine operatic sound.

I checked into the dorms which are like...well, they're like dorms. I have a room the size of a walk in closet, a bed that is 5 feet long (which is a problem since I'm 6'2") and a small bathroom. All of this luxury for 65 pounds a night, that's $120 in U.S. dollars! Unreal! Still, it's nice enough and right next to Hyde Park and the RGS, so I guess I'm paying for convenience. Here's a couple pics of my room and environs...the first is of Trinity Church and Beit Hall where I am staying. Then there's a pic of my room and then the Royal Albert Hall which is on the other side of Beit Hall.


I walked out last night to get dinner, buy a phone card to call home, and to get some basic toiletries. I took some pics of the neighborhood I'm in and will post them here.

So, I need to wrap up for now, but needless to say I'm wearing the same clothes I traveled in today. I washed my underwear last night, so that's clean, but otherwise I'm pretty grungy. I'm unshaven, uncombed, and generally feel pretty scummy. BA said this morning that they have no idea where my luggage is. The last time it was scanned was when it came into Seattle, so it may still be in Seattle or in some BA netherworld. They say that I probably won't get it for a couple days...unfortunately I'm only here for 5 days and need to look decent for my presentation tomorrow. They said that I can go out and buy any essentials, including clothes, toiletries, etc., save the receipts, and then send the receipts to them for reimbursement, so I imagine that I will have to do that at some point today. I wanted to spend my time at the conference and seeing few sights, not shopping. I'm not a good shopper and find no joy in buying clothing...especially in a foreign country where they don't have my style of clothing...canvas, denim, and flannel. Everything here is so urban and dressy that I stick out like a sore thumb...perhaps I should try to blend in. Buy a nice suit and charge it to BA. What do you think?

Okay, so here's some pics...more to come...

Belated Update

It's been a month since I've updated things here, but my life's been a flurry of chaos since mid-July. Between travels to Boise for the DD Council, camping with the family, getting courses prepared and online, finishing papers and presentations...not the least of which is my presentation to the Royal Geographic Society this Thursday. I am currently sitting in the international terminal of the Seattle airport waiting to board British Air flight 48 to London's Heathrow airport. I have a 12 hour flight ahead of me...and I'm a little nervous about that...I'm not a good sitter, I need to move. I hope there is space to spread out and move...

Besides presenting at the RGS, I've been asked to chair a session so that should be interesting. The session I'm chairing has presenters from Egypt, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Scotland. It promises to be an exciting and multicultural experience while I'm there. I just hope I can find my accommodations...I'm going to try and take the Tube from Heathrow instead of paying $80 for the cab ride. The Tube only costs $8, so in the interest of saving money I'm going to take a chance...

The paper for the RGS conference is coming together nicely. I'm finishing edits and references now. The last section has been a challenge and needs more space, but that paper is already at 35 pages and I'm loath to let it grow anymore. It's probably unpublishable at it's current length, so I'll have to cut it back anyway. Kathryn has been a great help in editing and firming up a lot of the ideas. I think that this paper will form a good outline for the book on the same topic that we're working on. Once this is done and the paper off for publication , we can turn our attention to the book in earnest. Part of the problem with getting some real substantive work done on the book however, is both of our teaching loads this semester. We're both teaching new classes that we haven't taught in the past, so it requires more time and effort than courses which we have taught and refined in the past.

Speaking of which, I'm loving my new classes. The students seem to be engaged and interested in learning, so that's always a good sign. Now the instructor just needs to keep the momentum up and enthusiasm high so learning can take place...no problem, right? It really is fun to teach these undergraduate seminar type courses because they are flexible and allow for more creativity.

Okay, I need to get dinner before I get on the plane. BA is notorious for their crappy food and exploding microwaves, so I'm going to grab my last burger for the week and head to the gate. Here's a quick taste of the paper I'll be presenting....let me know what you think....

Within the past decade there has been increasing interest in examining the geography of disability and the “barriered and bounded lives” of people with disabilities (Imrie, 2001). However, a large portion of this recent work has merely focused on the interaction between the individual with a disability and, so-called, “disabling space” that defines and reinforces individuals with disabilities’ outsider status. As Gregson points out so astutely: “Conceptually, what this means is that such research ends up reinstating the very oppositions which it seeks to challenge, and that ‘the excluded’ are defined by, and remain trapped within, their representation as specific instances of exclusion” (Gregson, 2003). This approach to analyzing the inhabited space of those considered “disabled” fails to address the continuing oppression and inequality that defines the day to day life of individuals with disabilities by couching analyses in the rhetoric of difference rather than addressing the role of geography in perpetuating inequality. Indeed there is a further need to look beyond the geography of lived experience and to shift the focus to organizations and discursive systems that produce the spaces that define our perceptions of reality, ability, and inequality (Jackson, 2003). We must look at the material and discursive systems of power that perpetuate the societal tendency to look at individuals with disabilities and say: “We are here; we are this happy breed of men. They are there; they are not fully human and they live in that place” (Tuan, 1977, p. 50).

This paper shifts the unit of analysis from the geographic space that defines the existence of individuals with disabilities to looking at the “materialized discursive” (Gregson, 2003) of teacher education. This paper examines how discursive power works through colleges of education and how the built environment in these colleges work together to perpetuate attitudes, structures, and spaces that continue to reinforce the unequal status of individuals with disabilities in society. This paper considers how the material space exemplified in teacher education buildings and the separate discursive space exemplified in inclusion literature and in programmatic structures reinforces the separation of general and special education and introduces constraints in achieving effective training on inclusive educational practice and reifies categorical notions of disability and typicality. Separation is so naturalized that the segregated nature of the built environment of teacher education is seldom questioned. The following sections provides data that illustrate how underlying material structures and processes function to (re)construct disability as separate from “typicality” or “normality” in teacher education programs in the U.S.

I'm going to try and regularly post things here this week so friends and family can stay up to date...we'll see how internet access is in London. Peace and Good Happiness Stuff....Matt

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Now playing: Biosphere - Botanical dimensions
via FoxyTunes

Educational Technology and my Unwillingness to Evolve

I was going through some old papers that I wrote in grad school and came across this gem. This is only a section, but it still expresses some of my concern with the "idolatry" of the computer that seems to have taken over the educational enterprise in America, and indeed the world. I wish I could say that I have evolved since I wrote this, but I'm afraid I haven't. I'm just too damn critical.

Here you go:

"One of the most prevalent and powerful forces in education today is the view of technology as panacea. Since computers were first introduced into schools technology has been touted as a panacea for the ills and ineffectiveness of modern education (Harper, 1996). This particular mindset pervades all of society, not just education however. Society generally follows technological trends and assumes that newer and more recent technology is better; this creates a “technocentric” mindset in which we place all of our hopes and faith in technology (Papert, 1987). This “technocentric” attitude is the driving force behind the belief that technology is a panacea for the ills of modern education.

Unfortunately, if we look at this mindset through a more rational lens, we see that we have merely succeeded in alienating all of our fears and desires from ourselves, placing them on the altar of technology. Eric Fromm, the prominent psychoanalyst and social critic, defines this type of blind faith as a type of “idolatry”(Fromm, 1994). Instead of taking a more rational and analytic approach to problem solving, we often place our hope for a solution in technology. The perfect example of this blind, idolatrous faith in technology can be seen in the field of medicine. If a patient is unable to be cured of his/her particular ailment we often feel that it is because we do not have sufficient technology to cure them. Education suffers from a similar mindset in which we assume that if students are not learning a certain idea or lesson then perhaps we need to use more technology or technological methods. We assume that if a teacher can’t teach a particular concept then surely a computer can.

This idolatrous shift from “praxis” to “techne”, signals a shift away from the rational to the irrational (Marshall, 1999). Instead of relying upon rational, reflective reasoning process we are too hasty to jump to the conclusion that technology can solve any of the problems that we are faced with. We skip the entire reflective process that constitutes the backbone of constructivist, problem-solving pedagogy and assume that the answer must be technology. In a way we have mythologized technology—it is the ultimate answer if all else fails. This focus away from “praxis” presents an easy excuse for schools that are turning in sub-par performances. Instead of pointing to poor teaching, administration, or a host of other factors, schools are able to use this technocentric attitude to blame the lack of adequate technological resources for poor student or teacher performance. This abrogation of responsibility is quite attractive for mediocre schools that often receive a tremendous amount of criticism. Thus, once again, technology has given the individual, or in this case the school, a way to alienate themselves from any responsibility by pointing to lack of resources as the cause of lackluster student performance.

The Nature of Technology in Schools

Technology is presented to schools as a “value neutral hardware, software and science”(Lauzon, 1999). In fact, the majority of society believes that technology is a value-neutral tool. This claim of technical objectivity stands in direct contrast to the subjective philosophy of constructivism. In fact, according to constructivist thought, it is virtually impossible to claim objectivity of any kind because of the individual nature of knowledge. Yet, one may ask whether or not an object that does not construct knowledge of its own is also subject to this same constructivist assumption? The answer to this query can be found in the work of Herbert Marcuse who says that while technology exists “in itself” rather than “for itself”, technology has taken on a certain schlechte Unmittelbarkeit or bad immediacy in which the technology assumed the values and goals of its users (Marcuse, 1989). This means that if a particular company uses computers, they assume the corporate values of that company. Likewise, if computers or other technology is used by schools it assumes the cultural values of the school. Thus, if we assume that schools are engaged in the work of social reproduction, then computers within that school are also engaged in that selfsame work.

Marcuse’s bad immediacy takes on a whole other facet if computers are donated or bought for the school through corporate or government initiatives. This is an interesting avenue of inquiry because of the numerous technology corporations who donate technology to schools. The bottom line of a post-industrial capitalist corporation is to make money. While some corporations may have extensive philanthropic arms, they are still engaged in the process of acquiring capital. Donating computers to schools does not make good business sense—by donating computers that could have been sold elsewhere corporations seem to be defying the motivations of capitalist society; or are they? By donating computers to schools, corporations are familiarizing thousands of students with their product. By doing so they are creating a future consumer base of individuals who will buy a certain type of computer because that is what they are familiar with. Corporations also create a future labor force by familiarizing students with their particular type of technology—a person who is familiar with a particular type of computer can be seen as a future employee of the technology corporations. Thus the computer, while not blatantly advertising these selfish motives of the economic sector of society, works as a tool to create future consumers and workers—taking on the exploitative values of our economic system.

This ability to mirror the values of its users takes computers out of the realm of the neutral device and into the realm of a tool. Just as a gun cannot be seen as a neutral device, neither can a computer. Thus, if technology takes on the values and aims of its users it then has the ability to become an oppressor. The technocentric orientation of schools combined with the hegemonic curriculum makes computers a valuable tool to further social reproduction and homogenization. By taking on this hegemonic authority, the computer becomes an authority that is to be unchallenged or questioned. In fact, the computer is an authority that cannot be questioned or challenged because of its inability to reflectively respond to any challenge or query. Barry Sanders has pointed out that the one-way flow if information, perpetuated by technology, stifles self-reflection and metacognition (Sanders, 1994). Herbert Marcuse supplements Sanders more recent observations by stating that “technical progress is identical with the increasing elimination of personal initiative”(Marcuse, 1967). Thus, the authority and uni-directional capabilities of technology work in direct opposition to the metacognitive focus of constructivist thought and pedagogy.

This loss of personal initiative may seem to be an extreme prediction of the effects of technological advance, yet its effects are already evident. For example, prior to the invention of computers and the Internet I would have had to go to a library to get resources for my research. I would have had to spend hours going through card catalogs and sifting through shelves and shelves of book to find what I needed. With the advent of computers and the Internet I can do the same amount of work in less time. While I am doing the same amount of work, or maybe even more with the help of the technology resources that are available today, I am not having to go out and exert any effort to get the information that I need. If I have a question I am not forced to go out and search for the answer or problem solve, I can just type my problem into an internet search engine and have the answer within five minutes or less. With access to the bank of information that is available on the Internet a person does not need to be self-motivated to go discover the solution to a problem. With just the touch of a few keys a computer can provide hundreds, if not thousands, of websites that may answer your questions. Certainly there is a significantly increased level of convenience with technology but it also has the capability to stifle problem solving, an integral part of constructivist pedagogy. This ability to effortlessly spew out great masses of information gives the computer tremendous power; the computer has the potential to easily assume a position of oppressive authority that we readily accept because of the ease and convenience it offers.

Learner Control and Computers

Within the constructivist paradigm the learner is the center of the educational phenomenon. The learner builds upon existing knowledge or adds to prior knowledge by metacognitively monitoring the flow of information; the learner personalizes real-world experiences in an attempt to construct meaning. The bounds of the constructivist-learning phenomenon are only limited by the curiosity and motivation of the student. This curiosity and control of the student, while practical in the traditional classroom setting, has limited practicability when applied to computerized instruction or software.

Computer programs present the student with pre-conceived and pre-constructed realities. These realities are based upon the reality of the programmer(s), the limits of the software, and the limits of the hardware. These pre-constructed realities limit the extent to which a student can exercise their curiosity and motivation—there have been prespecified limits placed upon the learning event. In other words, because there is a prespecified telos in all computer programs they limit the extent to which a student can exercise his/her own personal initiative in the context of the computer program. In a sense, the programmer has structured the reality of the student for them limiting the extent to which a student can project his/her own understandings onto the program (Sanders, 1994), thus negating the primary tenet of constructivism—the individual construction of knowledge. Certainly each student constructs the information they receive from the computer in different ways but there is a certain homogenization of experience as the reality presented by a computer is insufficiently accessible or complex to allow for individualized exploration. Thus, while the computer may present a façade of individual control for each student, the real extent of that control has been limited through the medium of the technology.

There are those who would refute this past argument by pointing to the World Wide Web as a limitless field of information and experience. While this may be true to some minor extent, content on the WWW is still limited by the programming languages that make it possible. There are only so many accessibility options that a web page can provide given the limits of technology. The programming language (HTML, XML, Java, etc), transactional shells (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.), and hardware (RAM, Mbps, Multimedia capabilities) all place severe constraints on what can be explored and found within the great expanse of the WWW. The WWW could easily be seen as an ill-structured learning environment as defined by Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, and Coulson and thus an ineffective learning or teaching tool (1991?). The human mind has finite capabilities in terms of the amount of information that it is able to absorb in a certain period of time. The WWW usually presents the student with what I call the “firehose phenomenon”. A student who goes to the WWW to do research may only be looking for one specific bit of information yet most search engines will return upwards of 1000 sites that are relevant to a particular topic. This is similar to a person going to get a small drink of water to quench their thirst, yet instead of drinking from a glass they choose to use a firehose: there is just simply too much to swallow at one time. Thus, while it may seem that the WWW presents a reasonable alternative, it also presents an unrealistic and often overwhelming experience for most students.

Technology places limits on the learner and the learning experience by virtue of its filtering influence. Learner interaction with technology is controlled by the predetermined limits that the computer or software presents. The learner has symbolic control over what occurs while they are using technology, but the real controlling influence has already been built into the machine or the software; the learner can only do that which the computer will allow him/her to do. Thus, the learner is “objectified” or “alienated” from the learning experience. In other words the learner has ceased to be the controlling locus of the educational phenomenon or experience, instead the learner is acted upon by the technology. Technology presents a filter that makes this subtle control unnoticeable and acceptable while presenting the student with a virtual learning experience.[i] This “virtual” learning experience stands in sharp contrast to the multimodal, action oriented pedagogy espoused by constructivists. Unfortunately, our technology has not yet reached a state in which it can even partially replace authentic experience and activity.

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[i] Within this context I prefer to use the virtual vs. authentic dichotomy. Technology presents a filtered or mediated learning experience that is significantly limited in interaction and control. An authentic learning experience is what we think of in the more traditional sense. An authentic learning experience presents the student with real-life activities in which the student may be actively engaged in the learning and control process. A virtual learning experience presents the student with information in two possible modes—sight and sound—whereas an authentic learning experience can engage more of the students’ senses.

UI Disability Studies Program Update

Just wanted to provide a brief update on the disability studies program I'm working on developing. I presented the proposed structure and sequence of the certificates to our Community Advisory Council a couple of weeks ago and they were all supportive and, actually, very enthusiastic about getting this program off the ground.

We then went to meet with the Dean of the College of Ed to ask about getting a separate course prefix for the CDHD. I'm quite adamant that these courses and the DS program not be stuck under the Special Education program. DS is not Special Ed, and in fact is almost antithetical to many of the traditional premises in SPED. So, I have insisted that these courses have their own course prefix or else be offered through an appropriate program like Sociology or Interdisciplinary Studies.

During our meeting with the Dean , he actually took my proposal one step further than I did and suggested that we just develop an undergraduate minor instead of a certificate program...so that was pretty cool. We're just waiting to hear back on the course prefix before we proceed with the next steps, which include filing a Notice of Intent to develop a new program with the University Curriculum Committee and then the State Board of Education. There's still those two hurdles to cross, but I'm optimistic.

I thought I'd just post my proposed structure for the three proposed programs here and see what feedback I receive:

Proposed Structure and Sequence for Undergraduate Minor in Disability Studies

Credits Required for Certificate: 12 credits (6 cr. DS Core Courses; 6 cr. DS Electives)

Required Courses:

1. Core Discovery 122 (4 cr.) What is Normal Anyway?: Disability, Difference, and Society OR Introduction to Disability Studies (3 cr.)
2. Core Discovery 172 (3 cr.) What is Normal Anyway?: Disability, Difference, and Society OR Disability in the Humanities (3 cr.)

Elective Courses:

1. The History of Disability (3 cr.)
2. Disability Policy in the U.S. and the World (3 cr.)
3. Disability Studies in Education (3 cr.)
4. Practicum in Applied Disability Studies (1-3 cr.)
5. Interior Design 343 Universal Design (3 cr.)
6. American Studies 201 Introduction to Ethnic Studies (3 cr.)
7. Anthropology J462/J562 Human Issues in International Development (3 cr.)
8. Core Discovery 103/153 Race,Ethnicity, and Identity (7 credits)
9. Core Discovery 120/170 Art, Artists, and Madness: An exploration of the linkages between creativity and mental illness (7 credits)
10. Family and Consumer Sciences 462 Eating Disorders (2 cr)
11. Journalism and Mass Media 340 Cultural Diversity and the Media (3 cr)
12. Physical Education 424 Physical Education for Special Populations (2 cr)
13. Philosophy 365 Biomedical Ethics (3 cr)
14. Philosophy 472 Social and Political Philosophy (3 cr)
15. Psychology 470/570 Introduction to Chemical Addictions (3 cr)
16. Recreation 110 Recreation for People with Disabilities (3 cr)
17. Recreation 467/567 Recreational Therapy for People with Developmental Disabilities (3 cr)
18. Sociology 240 Introduction to Social Services (3 cr)
19. Sociology 301 Introduction to Diversity and Stratification (3 cr.)
    
20. Sociology 314 Society and Self (3 cr.)
    
21. Sociology 320 Sociology of Substance Abuse (3 cr)
22. Sociology 423 Social Stratification (3 cr.)
    
23. Sociology 424 Sociology of Gender (3 cr.)
    
24. Soc 431 Personal and Social Issues in Aging (3 cr)
25. Special Education 351 Family and Community Involvement (2 cr).
26. Womens Studies 201 Women, Culture, and Society: Introduction to Women's Studies (3 cr)

Proposed Structure and Sequence for Graduate Certificate in Disability Studies

Credits Required for Certificate: 15 credits (9 cr. DS Core Courses; 3 cr. DS Elective Courses)

Required Courses:

1. Introduction to Disability Studies (3 cr.)
   
2. The History of Disability (3 cr.) OR Disability Policy in the U.S. and the World (3 cr.)
3. Disability in the Humanities (3 cr.) OR Disability Studies in Education (3 cr.)
   

Elective Courses:

1. Practicum in Applied Disability Studies (1-3 cr.)
2. Disability Studies in Context: Creating Effective Inclusive Classrooms (3 cr.)
   
3. Anthropology 462/562 Human Issues in International Development (3 cr)
4. Counseling and School Psychology 519 Social and Cultural Foundations (3 cr.)
   
5. Counseling and School Psychology 531 Psycho-social Aspects of Disability (3 cr)
6. Recreation 467/567 Recreational Therapy for People with Developmental Disabilities (3 cr)
7. Special Education 542 Families: Issues of Disability and Culture (3 cr)
8. Special Education Consulting Teacher (3 cr)
9. Psychology J470/J570 Introduction to Chemical Addictions (3 cr)

Proposed Structure and Sequence for Certificate in Disability Studies in Education

Credits Required for Certificate: 9 credits of required coursework

Required Courses:

1. Introduction to Disability Studies (3 cr.)
   
2. Disability Studies in Education (3 cr.)
3. Disability Studies in Context: Creating Effective Inclusive Classrooms (3 cr.)

Capitalism and Disability

This week I want to touch my toes into some waters that are very uncertain. The more I read McLaren, Marx, and other "free thinkers" I am reminded of the larger picture of societal forces that perpetuate the subjugated status of individuals with disabilities. Although I've been touching on these issues for the past few weeks I think I'm ready to dive in with more gusto. You'll have to let me know what you think...but these issues are all related to eugenics, abortion, and modern bioethics and have become the political currency of today’s medical marketplace; and I mean marketplace quite literally. Let me explain....

Individuals with disabilities are classified as “market failures” within free market economic theory. Free market economic theory dictates that all members of a society, with the exception of the “unproductive units”, will have all of their needs met through the fair exchange of goods and services; individuals who do not have their basic needs met through the fair exchange process, or who produce more demand than supply in a trade exchange are classified as “market failures”. Free market theory goes on to state that the only role for government to play in a free market society is that of a safety net for distinct classes of people who are market failures. That’s at least how many traditional economists would describe the evolution of the government as the welfare provider to equalize the market outcomes for all members of a society. But you knew this already. Right?

Now this particular perspective on the role of the government is not necessarily positive. It assigns an inherently negative connotation to individuals with disabilities and other vulnerable social groups. A humanist might try to put a different spin on the role of government by saying that the government has a responsibility to protect it’s most vulnerable citizens, but it still assumes that “vulnerable” citizens are weak or helpless. So, what does this have to do with healthcare, abortion, and ethics? Well, every time that a child is born with a severe disability or some other chronic condition that requires ongoing and intensive medical care it usually falls to the government to pay for the care that the child requires. But why does the government pay for them, you may ask…

Well, the government pays for the care of most individuals with disabilities because our health insurance system in the United States will not. In the U.S. insurance and medical coverage is tied to an individual’s productivity, or potential productivity; meaning that, as a general rule, you must be employed full time and be healthy to be eligible for insurance coverage. This is a great example of classic free market theory in practice. An individual has to show that he or she can productively participate in the marketplace in order to qualify for coverage that will protect their health. Health insurance protects the healthy, able-bodied productive units in our society, but shuns those who are sick, disabled, or have any other pre-existing condition that could potentially jeopardize their “productive status”. Therefore, because health insurance won’t provide assistance for individuals with disabilities, the government has to assume this responsibility.

Now, when the government has to assume the responsibility for protecting or caring for individuals with disabilities someone eventually has to pay the bill. The bills are paid by taxes which are, for the most part, equally assessed across the populace to ensure that we are all helping to share the burden of caring for the vulnerable and helpless members of society. Therefore, whenever a child with a disability is born or an individual acquires a significant disability, the overall tax burden across the populace increases accordingly.

For example, over the past twenty years, technology has allowed us to keep many children alive who previously would have died as a result of premature birth or a particular disabling condition. In fact, just last fall, I sat in a lecture by an eminent doctor from the UMass-Boston Medical School who has shown a direct correlation between technology, infant survival rates, increased federal healthcare expenditures, and increased tax burden. One of his points was that given the spiraling increases in healthcare costs in the U.S., the federal government should develop a protocol for determining when a child should or should not be saved. This would entail a list of “acceptable” conditions, and a list of “unacceptable” conditions. Children born with “acceptable” conditions would be given the care required to survive; children born with “unacceptable” conditions would be cared for, although no extraordinary measures would be used to prolong or enhance the quality of their life, however short it may be. Many countries with socialized healthcare have already adopted similar protocols, with the Netherlands having the longest standing and most comprehensive example of such a system.

Although this is a morbid and terribly utilitarian way to view the burden of disability on society, it is a large reason why eugenics, genetic testing, and abortion continue to be especially important issues for individuals with disabilities and their families. Ultimately, it comes down to the question of who has the right to choose whether a child with a disability is so impaired that they are better off dead. All of this is somewhat depressing, but they are current and highly relevant issues.

Next post, I'll discuss why simply supporting individuals with disabilities through social welfare programs is merely redistribution of capital and why that doesn't address the real issues that continue to keep individuals with disabilities as a reified underclass...

Great Article on How the Media Perpetuates Disability Stereotypes

Wow! Two interesting articles in a single morning. The link to this article is in the title of this post. It's a great article that discusses the harm that our language does when we're not careful. It also highlights the impact of the media on shaping our language and attitudes.

Let me know what you think....

Advocate Dened Admission on Two Airlines

Although this happened in India (link is in the post title), it's still relevant to us here in the U.S. I've seen the same thing happen to people I know on several airlines here in the States.

That's all for now...more thoughts to come. I'll be checking out Marx's Das Kapital this afternoon and then posting a follow-up to my previous post for those of you who are anxiously awaiting my re-descent into the world of radical Marxist thought and pedagogy. But don't hold your breath too long...

Marxism, Social Justice, and Critical Pedagogy

So, as some of you know, I am anxiously engaged in developing a new Core Discovery class in Disability Studies. For those of you who don't know, a Core Discovery class is a yearlong course for first year students that introduces them to critical thinking and the university culture through specific content areas. My specific content area is --GASP-- Disability Studies!

Okay, sarcasm aside, I've been really wrestling with how to make this course meaningful to my students. I want it to be something that they remember and that shapes the rest of their academic career at the University of Idaho. Am I asking too much? I don't think so...but in the process I've gone back to my roots in critical pedagogy and Marxist thought. It's been terribly exciting, but it has also caused me to do a lot of soul searching about how I approach my scholarship and teaching.

I've specifically been re-reading Paulo Freire and some of Peter McLaren's recent thought about Freire and the root of injustice and how pedagogy can bring about conscientization and overcome injustice. McLaren's recent thought has taken him out of the classroom however and more into the realm of classic Marxist thought regarding the "true" root of injustice: economic disparities. McLaren argues that the recent push for courses about social justice and diversity in the university setting don't do anything to actually address injustice. Instead they merely describe a particular group's subjugated status, speculate about some of the reasons this group might be oppressed, and then leave it at that. These classes are more about teaching students "this is the way it is and here's some of the reasons, so try and be nice to these folks". This type of pedagogy leaves off one of the most important elements of critical pedagogy: informed social action.

This notion of combining theory and practice is the exact Freirean notion of praxis: a critically informed theory-based practice. I started here during my student teaching in 1997 and was highly discouraged by my instructors and the administrators at the school I taught at. There is always a fear among the administration when a teacher's students threaten to "do something"; but it is a vital step to the learning process. Especially when we talk about disability and other marginalized groupings.

McLaren also discusses some other very interesting ideas about the economic roots of oppression. I think he's right, but his analysis is usually tied only to minority groups or the LGBT crowd. He hasn't extended his thinking to include people with disabilities who, I think, are a model group for applying the model of economic oppression as formulated in traditional Marxist thought. So, in short, I guess this means that I need to go back to Das Kapital and get current. I can see a whole body of scholarship arising from this line of thinking; I just need to find the time to articulate it clearly. I wonder who funds Marxist scholarship?

Okay, so I've got that off my chest and now I can hit the sack with a semi-clear conscience that I got these ideas out of my brain and into words. Now let's see how they develop...

An Interesting News Story from National Geographic

Okay, before I get to the meat of this post, I have to admit that I have been a National Geographic afficionado since I was a young child. There, I've said it.

So, being a National Geographic afficionado I regularly download several podcasts from NG including National Geographic News. In the news this morning was this story about some archaeologists from Italy who have uncovered evidence of people with physical disabilities being offered as human sacrifice all over Europe. The link to the full story is in the title of this post. Just click on it and you'll get to the original article.

BUT BEFORE YOU GO...I have several observations to make about this discovery. First of all, offering individuals with disabilities as human sacrifice is much different than straight out euthanasia of the sort that was regularly practiced by the Spartans and other warrior cultures. Human sacrifice seems to indicate a certain social status or role for individuals with disabilities, whether it was positive or negative we can't be sure, but the fact is that they were allowed to live and were central to the spiritual life of the different cultures these archaeologists have uncovered. Were the disabilities feared as a sign of the gods displeasure? Were the disabilities revered?

Does that seem odd that an individual with a disability might be revered? It shouldn't...many indigenous cultures have given status and high social rank to individuals with disabilities. Individuals with physical disabilities were often elevated to leadership positions within a tribal group because they could not hunt or gather, therefore as a result they had time to devote to the "administrative" and social elements of maintaining a cohesive cultural group. The tribal group provided for the leader and leader provided a stable social atmosphere.

Individuals with mental illness who would be considered "crazy" today were often revered as shamen in American Indian and Alaska Native cultures. It was believed that these individuals could communicate with spirits from other worlds and were therefore central to the spiritual life of the tribe. Today we take people who "hear voices" and lock them up in institutions and psychiatric wards. One culture respected the skill to "hear voices", another culture demonizes it as an illness.

Interesting ideas to consider. What do you think?

The Moral Model of Disability Still Prevalent

Well, I end up posting these things while I'm away from the office for some reason. Maybe it's because I have more time or because I'm more focused, I don't know. Right now I'm sitting in the Boise airport getting ready to head home to Moscow after two long days of meetings. At my meeting earlier today there was a parent of a child with a disability sitting by me and I overheard her talking about another family in their community who had a daughter with epilepsy and mild mental retardation caused by the epilepsy. Now, before I get to the point, I would like to point out that as a general rule, I don't usually eavesdrop but I couldn't help but be chagrined when this woman said that this other family was convinced that their daughter was possessed by a devil and that if they could just exorcise the devil their daughter would be normal again. They were going to have a preacher who specialized in exorcisms come over and try to "cure" their daughter. How freaky is that?

It always seems that when I feel the world is getting better, I hear a story like this and it depresses me again. What's wrong with these people? Of course the same could be said for society in general and academia especially. Why do we persist in holding onto arcane and damaging models of disability?

Let me illustrate what I mean:

Traditionally academia has approached the study of disability by conceptualizing it as a deviation from the “norm”; or, something to be remedied, rehabilitated, or cured. This is a very elitist and disempowering approach to understanding disability because it assumes that individuals with disabilities are passive subjects who are sitting around and waiting for the, generally, able-bodied medical and rehabilitation professionals to develop cures, therapies, and other treatments that will allow individuals with disabilities to enter the “mainstream” and participate as a full-member of society. But the origins of these attitudes began much earlier.

In the Western world we can trace the origins of our attitudes towards disability all the way back to the first literate cultures: the Greeks, Romans, and Jews. In the Old Testament and in Greek and Roman mythology we see the beginnings of the “first” model of disability: the “moral” model of disability. The moral model of disability is based upon the assumption that disability, deformity, or any deviant appearance or behavior is a direct manifestation of the displeasure of God/the Gods. The moral model of disability usually interpreted this deviance as a sign from the God/Gods that the parents or the individual had committed some sin or other act of transgression. Indeed, beginning in the New Testament and through the Middle Ages as superstition ran rampant among the population there was a widespread belief that cognitive disabilities and mental illness were the direct result of demonic possession. For example look at how these individuals with disabilities are portrayed in the New Testament:

• Matthew Chapter 8 verses 28 & 33-- “(28) And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. (33) And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils.”
• Matthew Chapter 9 verse 32-- “As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil.”
• Matthew Chapter 12 verse 22-- “Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.”

Now, it’s difficult to determine whether these attitudes were the actual attitudes of Jesus and his disciples because the majority of English translations of the Bible came through the pens of medieval monks and scholars who were steeped in the superstition of their day. But, we do have to give credence to the fact that these translations of the Bible have been some of the most influential writings in Western culture and have formed the backbone of social attitudes that continue up through today. Indeed, it is easy to look at the moral model of disability as an outdated understanding of disability that has gone out of fashion, but the fact is that remnants of it are still evident today… as the conversation I overheard earlier today seems to indicate.

So, although I could go on and on about the origin of attitudes towards individuals with disabilities I'd better leave it at this. I still need material for a later posting.

Keep on keepin' on...

Matt

AAPD Article on the "New Eugenics" and my thoughts on the UN Convention

This is a great piece by the folks at the American Association of People with Disabilities from the Washington Post. You must check it out...

"In its preamble, the recently unveiled U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities recognizes "the inherent dignity and worth and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."

We wonder what Oliver Wendell Holmes would have said about that.

This month marked the 80th anniversary of the disgraceful Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell, which upheld Virginia's involuntary sterilization laws. In his majority opinion, Holmes declared: "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles is enough."

Although eugenics was eventually dismissed as "junk science," it didn't happen before states authorized more than 60,000 forcible sterilizations and segregated, institutionalized, and denied marriage and parental rights to those deemed "genetically unfit."...

The rest of the article is here: http://www.aapd.com/News/aapdinthe/070519wp.htm

Before you leave however, I am still confused as to why the U.S. refuses to sign the newly ratified UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Well, I'm not really that confused...the UN Convention elaborates protections for individuals with disabilities that go well beyond the protections available in the U.S. under ADA, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, IDEA and other disability rights policies. I would imagine that the U.S. is reticent to agree to abide by the UN Convention because it will require some pretty dramatic shifts in the policies currently in place in the U.S. But, is that such a bad thing? A costly thing perhaps, but definitely not a bad thing.

I still think that it's ironic that we "advertise" our country as the bastion of freedom, liberty, and democracy, but we have some of the most backwards disability rights, immigration, healthcare, and education policies in the world........(I'd better stop before I get in trouble).