Kliewer, "Citizenship in School", - Extended Comments.

 In Kliewer’s chapter, "Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome" he brings up a self-advocacy newsletter piece by Mia. In Kerri’s blog, she chooses to highlight Mia’s story to effectively prove that people with Down syndrome deserve an equal education.  In her blog, she uses hyperlinks as examples. I think the videos get the message across and are insightful. Down syndrome is difficulty for people to understand, unless they have met or heard of someone affected by it. I think that Kerri did a really great job using quotes and explaining that Mia is high functioning and that there are different levels of severity. I think that educating any student is a case-by-case scenario and an equal education is the objective. The highlight of Kerri’s blog post was the video explaining what Down syndrome is and how it affects babies and children. I also liked how she added in her experience with the Special Olympics.

            I agree that all students deserve an education and I cannot imagine being told I could not take classes that interest me if I felt I had the potential of any other student. I do not think it is right to put students into sorting machines and based on a label on their transcripts they are defined and are not free to learn as much as they would like. If we want our future to get brighter, we need to understand and allow students to foster a love of learning that comes when they have a say in their education. Kerri’s blog helped me understand and process my thoughts on this reading.

Thoughts to share: I wonder if anyone had a Down syndrome student in their class (not a special ed class)? Did it seem this article is accurate? I feel that although I have not been exposed to many people affected with down syndrome, those I have would succeed in anything they would want to do.