Lav's LD Blog: The unedited version of a dyslexic's mind

Disability and pregnancy

2012-01-10T00:24:00.000-05:00

So disability and pregnancy, as part of my job I check out news articles on google about LGBT and women and have read a lot of different things. I also love when women and LGBT and disability are intersecting. Many of you know this about me. So the above article looks at disability and women and pregnancy.

I don't know how I feel about this. I think pregnancy should be covered under multiple laws that I think should exist that currently don't. I also think it is interesting that people in the comments section have no idea what ADA is. ADA is not about social security or getting money from the government, in fact ADA is probably the exact opposite of this because it is main goal is to get people with disability to be able to have access to the world and inturn a job. ADA is that people should not discriminate against people because of disability or precieved disability and that not accommodating people because of disability is discrimination. Now you maybe asking what is an accomodation, an accomodation is having access it is not being successful, it means giving the tools to the world and it has to be resnoble. An accomodation is about making someone do a test with the same questions but those questions might be asked orally, on a computer, be answered not using a bubble sheet, in braille, in large print, answered with a scribe, or answered through a microphone on a computer. The questions however are the same, it isn't about changing what you need to do in a job or at school but how you do it. If with reasonable accomodations you can not do your job, you can not do your job. So now you know more about how I see ADA.

So the other thing about ADA is it says that a disability affects a major like function which can include eating, drinking, seeing, learning, or multiple other things OR a disability is something to be prieceved as a disability. So there is a good argument that pregnancy could at times affect a major life function and I think that a lot of people can precieve it as a disability. Let's not even look at the term disability but at this definition. I have been hearing on my listservs of pregnant students going to the disability office to request accomodations for classes such as having classes closer together, being able to eat or drink in class, or other things. So some students are precieving that they should be going to disability services versus say a women's center or some other office. Now being precieved as having a disability does not mean you get accomodations it does however mean you can't be fired for instance for being precieved as having a disbaility.

Another argument is that pregnancy at times can be a disabling conditions so sometimes pregnancy falls under ADA and sometimes it doesn't it depends on the pregnancy. This also would be inline that a disability diagnosis like for instant having bad vision is a diagnosis but because I am wearing glasses I don't need any accomodations.

A lot of the reasons that people are bring up for why it isn't a disability is because it is saying being a woman is having a disability. Being a woman is a different classification and that should be protected as well as disability, so women wouldn't have to use this example. I agree being a woman is not being a person with disability, how most people define disability is uniquely different then being a woman and as being someone who is both I see how these two idenities as affecting me as very differnt. What I find annoying is how the people responding to this article make their response to this as being a woman or being pregnant isn't bad and being someone with a disability is soooo they can't be the same thing. This also in some of these comments can lead to very ablist statements.

However I wonder a lot about the statement about people will use their ablism to discriminate against women more. I see this argument, but shouldn't we be trying to fight both these stigmas together? So what do you think?

Wicked and disability

2012-01-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

So as some of you know I love the Wizard of Oz, have as long as I can remember. During this break I saw Wicked, which in many ways was an awsome musical. I loved the songs, I loved the sets, the actresses were very good who played the leads, and I thought it was closer to the real Oz books and character then the Wicked book was.

However, I don't know if I was just so angry at the book in general that I forgot how bad it was disability wise or if the play was worse. I have always been intriged by the Oz books because they have all these creatures with mutations, adaptations, and different ways of doing things. So I always thought the Oz books themselves were pretty disability friendly in general. The entire character of the Tin Woodsman is about aputation and creating tin prostetics to keep him alive. It asks the basic question of if someone is adapted are they still a person and comes with the answer of yes. So in general on the Val scale of disability good books it has always been pretty much in the good colum.

When i saw wicked however I thought it was in the bad colum on disability for multiple reasons. The sister of the wicked witch is in a wheelchair and is taken care of by her sister. The chair is seen as the bad thing and she is treated with pity. Then the sister Narcissa controls a munckin and eventual kills him and is shown to be evil because she is a wheelchair. They also have the tin man get more upset about the adaption of using tin versus what would of been his death for lack of tin. I find this to be odd based on more positive view of disability in a book created in the 1900 versus a musical created in the 2000s. I find this wierd, specifically since I always thought it was a cool part of the book.

Rereading the Book that Changed my Life

2011-12-19T01:45:00.000-05:00

Last time I went to my favorite bookstore, I found an old copy of the book that I read in 7th grade that helped me understand Dyslexia. It is called To Read or Not to Read by Daphne M. Hurford, I was currious if the book would still be good to someone who has read tons on disability and also on idenity and not just on the medical view of Disability. 14 years later it made me happy in most of the same ways. It talks about famous people with disabilties and about how different people with dyslexia work to achieve. It talks about discrimination, differences in laws and how special education can be different per school. It also talks about the differences between high school and college. Rereading it, it reads in many of the ways I think if I were to write a book it would sound. I think this probably means as well that this book has shaped most of how I view my dyslexia.

What also facisnates me about her book is how it is one big story. A story of the people who have dyslexia and how dyslexia affects them. I have routinely mentioned that at that point in my life and even today I am constantly looking for a disabiltiy community. For me that community of disability is important because the feeling of disability to me can be very issolating. The connection to this community or that feeling of being a part of a group for me is very important because it gives me hope and also allows me to feel like I am not alone.

Comments on writing and spelling

2011-12-17T23:40:00.001-05:00

I have been overhearing a lot of comments lately that make me really pissed off. I address them each time and they still piss me off. I think the people who say them don't realize how they sound or maybe they do. I think because I am with more and more smart people the more they take for grant it people can spell. This is something that is wierd becuase I know I can not infact I write this blog unspellchecked partially to prove a pont that I have come very far even with out help from where i was. I also do it to prove just because you can't spell means nothing.

I have never really been able to understand why spelling if it is close to write matters cause I can not catch spelling mistakes on my own and I know it. So after all that comments that say people who can't spell are dumb really piss me off cause I guess i know if that is the case that makes me dumb. I know at this point in my life that I am not dumb.

So comments I have heard lately are: If you can't spell something right then I don't have to pay attention to what you say, if you have extended time you are probably going to fail anyways, and multiple times lately if you can't spell you are dumb. I don't get these points. As someone who is dyselxic I think one of the first things you learn is that everything about writing and reading and education in general is differnent. I know for instant I am usually better at spelling longer words then shorter words. I know that if two vowels are close together in a word I am almost always going to spell it wrong. The more constants a word has I am going to spell it better. I know reading for me and spelling are very disconected since I don't read by the word but by the paragraph.

I find it wierd to discount people on something sooo small. Spelling to me is so igsignificant. I guess the idea of it is very important to some people. I know that being understood is important so if it is so bad you do not get it, I get why you would be upset. However, if you can understand it and it isn't for a grade why does it matter? Maybe you have an answer to that, but I find it wierd how much people put on it but maybe it isn't important cause I have always lived with out that skill. I also at this point strongly belive that if I do not have the technology to use to fix it that in handwriting it is what it is and it wont be better.

Magic powers, abilities, Wizards, disabilities,

2011-07-19T23:27:00.000-04:00

Almost everytime I see a movie or read a book about super power or magic, I always think disability. Maybe this is odd, I routinely wonder if it has to do with the first book I ever remember reading by myself was the Wizard of Oz series and the idea I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing was truely magical. To this day everytime I read a book there is a part of me that says HAHAHAHHAHA I am not supposed to be able to do this and in that there is a certain magic. That ability to both know you don't read how other people read, that when you describe your process people look at you like you are mad, but also that the fact that it is someways magic.

I have often felt that dyslexic/ADHD kids see things others don't maybe a magical world that one thing can take you on a new adventure.. I always talk about thinking in pictures or images that lead to another. I don't know how to describe it, it is kinda how the HBO movie Temple Gradin see how she says if you say door you see a billion doors in like a polarod, I instead see one so like you say door and I see my back door everytime you see door or if you say a persons name I see one picture of them that everytime you say that name I see that same pose and that leads to another picture. It is often in my head a sense of movement but stationary and that which is stationary I can see moveing. I find a lot of the difference I do and see cause of my disability to be a power of sorts... and I see like almost every movie with magic or powers has it comes with responsibility, strugles, pain and weaknesses. I would say there is definatly that I see much responsibility with being a successful LD professional a responsibility to show that you can do it but also to intigrate my disability as something that is importatnt ot me and part of my idenitiy. Also trying to explain it cause you are in a place of power to say, "you know what this person is reacting to and how incredably ableist you are being right now" There are struggles mainly when I get lost or can't type in the right password or get confused or pass out, those times your disability does something you can't control other then the way you react to it. Pain I am not going to lie there is a certain pain that comes from bad disability days or an ableist society that says you are stupid and dumb. There are weeknesses one of mine is spelling, sometimes I think it is the thing that shows that I am not faking, sometimes I think the weekness is I just don't care about it cause I don't think it is important and don't take the time to understand why it can be sooo important exspecially to people who use speech to text software.

Anyways back to the wizard of Oz, Ozma was being kept by a witch for who she was downtroden and sad, those emotions of lose and desperation and a sense of something more was something I was feeling about myself when I was reading it. The fact that she could use the same things that were making her a prisoner to make her a powerful ruler. What I will say good books and movies don't talk about losing pain sometimes the books like Terry Goodkind or Mercedes Lackey talk about a price you pay for magic a price you pay for power or in percy jackson the power makes you also bad at things not a price but that there is sorta an evening out. I routinely see that imagery of bad a supercrip is a bad image in disability culture, because it is showing that you are completely overcoming something and now that cripness isn't a part of you. Cripness as much as I can pass is always a part of me it oozes out from me sometimes when least expected both good and bad most of everything good and bad comes from it. If we look at that idea that price, that death and destruction that comes from some kind of power why wouldn't there always be two sides of the coin. I for as long as I can remember have loved those types of books and movies the one that at the end of it makes you feel you can save the world. Also for me reading the book the act of reading always tells me with figuring your way around, through and new you can do it. I routinely say disability was my entrence into a world of social justice I might have other oppressed idenities but disability is something I have to think of constantly cause I am constantly aware of the ways I see the world is different then others and in that I think comes my biggest strength.

RFBD to Learning Ally

2011-04-11T02:03:00.000-04:00

http://www.learningally.org/About-Us/19/

So Reading for the Blind ad Dyslexic have a new name which is more abigous Learning Ally. If you area dyslexic kid like me I would guess most of you have heard about RFBD. In their recent change they made some good points one which is RFBD is a hard acronym for dyslexics to remember I have to a test that I am always trying to get this correct and specifically with the B and D right next to each other not the easiest to do. They also said they do more then work with Blind and Dyslexics again totally agree good idea to switch. So mainly I am not attached to the name RFBD at all. No warm fuzies just well there.

I am confused with the Learning Ally as the thing to switch to mainly cause there is nothing to connect it to reading or disabilities. I am okay with not being attached to one or the other but I would say most people think of them with print disabilities. So Reading Ally would be better. However I think everyone on this site knows my love for acknowledging that things are for people with disabilities and that doesn't affect me at all it annoys me when people try not to acknowledge it. I did always get annoyed with the free shipping for blind and handicaped wierd envelops they always came in. However considering now they are mostly MP3s I doubt this is a curent issue.

I will say I have always enjoyed the service and if you haven't checked them out before, you should because they are a very useful service and I think the best national org specifically focusing on print disabilities. So check them out, I know that they got me through science cause there is something about reading opposed to listening to sciene that just can't quiet work.

Pretty Little Liars

2011-03-09T19:47:00.000-05:00

So I watch this show on a fairly regular basis, mainly because I think it has one of the most honest potrayls of lesbians on tv. I think the coming out process is very honest. Each week I find Emily becoming a stronger more independent more sure of herself person. I enjoy the mystery of the show and all the main characters, but is it just me or is this one of the worst potrayls of disability I have seen in awhile maybe since million dollar baby.

They continue on the old steryotype of people with disabilities being evil and do it so intensly. She isn't just blind she is forcing her brother to have sex with her. They keep showing this girl as this sooo intensly evil person that just by looking at her the main charcters are so obviously frightened. They not only show her as intensely evil but also push this idea of pittying her for her disability. I keep hoping the show will some how stop the way she is potrayed but they never do.

So my delema has been I love watching this show for one of my idenities they do a great job with lesbians but in the same way they are horible to people with disabilities. I continue to wonder how can I watch this. Is it okay to have blinders on, do I have to be disability girl all the time? Does acknowledging how bad it is make it better if everytime watching it it makes me squirm.

Spelling

2011-03-03T00:20:00.000-05:00

Mark Twain once said something upon the lines of if you can only think of one way to spell a word you are very dull. I have recently seen a complate on someone's facebook for the lack of spelling currently used. Saying if you can get to high school you should be able to spell. Clearly I can't, I have worked my butt off to be able to spell as good as I can. For me there are very few times spelling really matters. I usually state when I do a presentation that I can't spell so don't expect it.

I spent hours upon hours learning to spell in a way I know very few people do, however still this lack of spelling is seen as a sign of lazyness and uneducatedness. I get tired of it in fact my biggest pet peeve is people who really care about spelling.

I think one of the reasons I don't get it is because I do not read how most people do. I don't read word for word so not understanding a word or how it is spelled for me effects nothing. However I have been told many people read one word after another after another and stop when they don't get a word.

I find it wierd that people get so pissed about the lack of this skill and equate it with so much of the persons character. I just don't get it.

what is in a name

2011-02-28T23:18:00.000-05:00

I can tell you most of the PC names for everything I can tell you exactly how I identify at this moment. It isn't something I have to think about mainly cause every single year as a student affairs person you have to list in order what idenities are important to me. A person with a disability is always high on my list.

If I am of an idenity and I know you are of the same I use my word to refer to you usually and if not then I refer to you as how you identify your self. I never try and change how you identify yourself. I might explain why I identify the way I do or ask why you identify that way. I might tell someone who isn't of the group how the pc way is to identify, exspecially if they are offensive. I never though say you should identify as x cause it is your idenity not mine.

Book list

2011-01-25T00:47:00.002-05:00

I did all my resolutions this year except the book one which I sorta know I won't achieve but I like counting the books so 58 books and 22,798 pages.

1) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 370pg This was a really good book about the underworld of London I really enjoyed it this is the first of the suggested books by my cousins and I have to say almost every book they suggested I liked.

2) Sex Wars by Marge Piercy 411pg This was an interesting book about the 1910s and a fictional potrayal of women's rights I read it for a book group and really enjoyed it.

3) The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey 487 Another cousin recomended book. I have quickly found out I love Mercedes Lackey I find her to be quick and entertaining reads. I also love that she has primarly female leads.

4) The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum by Rebecca LonCraine 329pg I really enjoyed this book learned L frank balm was a suffergete

5) Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer 280pg I found this just ok it was quick and sort of interesting but for how everyone else was talking about it I thought it would be way better.

6) Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell: 253pg This was boring it didn't make a lot of sense

7) Stardust by Neil Gaiman 250pg I really enjoyed this book it was a fun quick book.

8) The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton 279pg This is a book i reread while tutoring I enjoyed it when I was ten and I think I enoyed it more now.

9) The Alchemaster's Apprentice by Walter Moers 372pg This was like a Dr. Seuss book for adults it is a little crazy but well done and I couldn't put it down.

10)Shanghai Girls by Lisa See 314pg I really like Lisa See I find her books to be realy interesting and has a lot of female charaters.

11)The Other Wind by Ursula K Le Guin 246pg I found this book to be slow and hard to get through it was a short book but took me longer than most of the longer books I read.

12) Education and Identity by Arthur W. Chickering and Linda Reisser 542pg This is a student affairs book I had been meaning to read it was as expected.

13)Eragon by Christopher Paolini 509pg I really enjoyed this book another cousin recomendation it was fun and a quick read.

14) The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro 349pg BORING

15) A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin 205pg See above on Ursula Le Guin I realized I read the first book out of order and I thought I would try again bad decision.

16) Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey 320pg I love Mercedes Lackey

17)Artemis Fowl:The Artic Incident by Eoin Colfer 277pg See othere Artemis Fowl book fun but not amazing

18)The Lightning Theif by Rick Riordan 377pg I love percy jackson they are like books taylor made for me!!!
19)The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan 279pg same as above
20)The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan 312pg same as above

21)Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks 565pg I enjoyed this book better then the first in this series.

22)The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows 278pg I enjoyed this book everything a good book should have and really interesting

23)Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce 431pg The fantasy world in this book was cool but hard to understand so the author needed more detail.

24) Alive on the Andrea Doria by Pierette Simpson 312pg HORRIBLE

25) The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan 361pg I love percy Jackson

26) The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan 381pg Same as above

27) Grand River and Joy by Susan Messer 230pg I thought this was okay, it was sorta interesting being that it is about detroit

28) Ugliea by Scott Weaterfeild 425pg I really enjoy these books sorta like a girl version of 1984

29) Eldest by Christopher Paolini 705pg same as Eargon

30) Brisingr by Christopher Paolini 763pg Same as Eargon

31)Arrows Fall by Mercedes Lackey 319pg love mercedes lacky

32)Alana by Tamora Pierce 274pg Okay but not as good as some of the other books I read this year... but this year I think I read more good books this year then I have in like the last 10.

33)In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce 209pg same as above

34)The Woman Who Rides Like a Man by Tamora Pierce 253pg same as above

35)Pretties by Scott Westerfield 370pg These are about like a disutopian style based on plastic surgery I loved it.

36) Joust by Mercedes Lackey 373pg I love all the Mercedes lackey books and I feel like i am jsut starting to read her books

37) The 131/2 lives of Captain Bluebear a novel by Walter Moers 703pg I find this to be more of a dr. seuss for adults, it is like nothing I have ever seen.

38) On Boxing by Joyce Carol Oats 118pg I was suprised how much I like this book so much, I just read it cause I was tutoring a boxer

39) Specials by Scott Westerfeld 372pg This is the sqeul of the pretties it is pretty entertaining.

40) Alta by Mercedes Lackey 402pg Dragon rider is pretty amazing.

41) Sanctuary by Mercedes Lackey 306pg I enjoy Mercedes lackey a lot this series is a little different ones then the other ones as it is with dragon riders and not horses

42) The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind 502pg This is the new book in the sword of truth author it is a little different as it is set in our world which is wierd and the ending was really ubrupt so I don't know.

43) Winds of Fate by Mercedes Lackey 385pg love Mercedes Lackey

44) Storm Warning by Mercedes Lackey 428pg Love Mercedes Lackey

45) Winds of Fury by Mercedes Lackey 387pg Love Mercedes Lackey

46) Winds of Change by Mercedes Lackey 402pg Love Mercedes Lackey

47)Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris 292pg I found this to be pretty entertaining not amazing but fun

48)The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 546pg I really enjoyed this book a lot

49) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle 245pg I was disappointed in this book I thought it would be better

50) The Help by Kathryn Stockett 451pg This book was okay

51) The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan 516pg I like this book it is an egyptian god universe and it is really fun

52) The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan 557pg I found this book to really keep my attention

53) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling 309pg reread for the movie

54) Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling 652pg Reread for the movie

55)Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J. K. Rowling 750pg reread for the movie

56)Replay by Ken Grimwood 311pg This was a really unqiue book that I enjoyed a lot

57) Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama 442pg I was suprised how good this book was. It really kept my attention and is the best book i have read about someone who is both black and white

58)Beatruce and Virgil by Yann Martel 210pg=22,798pg This book was wierd but really good and entertaining but also really depressing.

Where is your favorite place on Earth?

2011-01-23T01:05:00.000-05:00

One of mine is this big old bookstore in Detroit John King books it is filled everywhere around you of books. It is like all the old movies about an old hunted library. Your whole body feels like the life has been sucked out of you. I can not remember the first time we went, my mom used to work across the street and would tell stories of runnign across the street just to check what books came in. John King is the first place I started collecting old books. I would like to say I am a collector of old books what I like most about them is that as long as you don't want the top books you can get anything pretty cheaply in high school I gave gifts to people in drama by buying $1 shakespear complete colletions from the 1900s. I loved it cause they would be these imaculate copies that looked like they came out of an old movie but were really not worth anything.

I started by collecting wizard of Oz books, which are sadly a very collectable item which means they are hard to find and more money then I usually want to spend. Then I came to colleting old disability books, that frankly I swear i am the only one who wants. I go to the 4th floor and go to my favorite 3 book cases and I am in second heaven. I buy books for 3 bucks that are from 1910 and talk about the history of disabilities. The last time I went they had an entire row, I was in second heaven and bought a little more then the 30 bucks I was supposed to cap my spending at.

What amazes me most about these books is not that they are about the pain of growing up with a disability in 1865 for instance. The thing that suprises me most is statements that say, "My disability isn't the problem but the way society views it" from 1865. The type of statement I hear almost weekly. Sometimes what suprises me most is not the actual increases and advancement made but the actual failures and the things people acknowledged as problems in the 1860s that are still the same problems today.

I always feel like I am in the isolated heaven when I go to John King it is a place that to me is a jem that makes me proud to come to Detroit. I wish they had a better online catalogue but in the same respect I would be scared by how much I would probably buy from them now I only go there once or twice a year and that never feels like enough.

Failure

2011-01-09T22:25:00.000-05:00

One of the things I routinely joke about is that I was working harder in 1st grade then I was in grad school. I am always amazed by this fact. Sometimes I would wonder to myself if that ment I was doing something wrong in grad school. It always made me keep going in grad school this maybe bad but at least when you do wrong you now know why so you can fix things.

That constant repetition of the imaginable things you don't know what to do. You get so tired of writing things over and over again. When you grow up you get to do things that are not repetitive. However in the same respect I find myself trying to find things that expand my writing to a point that I can be repetive in. I write down quotes sometimes because it is fun but also because it makes me work on my writing. I also write award nominations cause it makes me write things quickly and articuly with out proofreading usually so i have to be good at doing it myself and if I suck it doesn't matter. I find that writing is not something i find natually I need to practice it. I need that same repitition I hated in my childhood.

I find growing up with a sense of constant failure you have to find a reason to keep going. Mine was I belived I wasn't a failure, I belived I had something to prove to myself. I had something to prove to others to. However it also makes you realize if you fail it isn't something horrible it is something to ignore. When you grow up with LD you have been told you are stupid and dumb more then you are told you are smart. That does something to you. Either it makes you resistant to it and persaverant or it makes you belive them. I don't know if either is right I always think my job is to make sure people do not become the second.

legality vs accomodation vs equal vs really?

2011-01-08T17:22:00.000-05:00

I sometimes think I know too much about the legality of the ADA. I know how people get around the spirit and use legalese to say that they do not have to do something. I question constitently when people will do what is right cause it is right and when they do what is legal and as long as the legal thing is right why does it really matter one way or the other. I used to have this very defined idea of what was right with accomodations that every asked for accomodation is right. I no longer do, however there are sooo many times that the question of rights for accomodations are so obvious a resnoble accomodation that it would be ridiculous in my opinion not for them to be granted.

The question I continually graple with is currently college isn't a right it isn't part of your basic education. Some of this has to do with money. When eliminated the money involved with education I see college as a right. What I question myself on is accomodations are about making the playing field equal in college everyone that is in college at 4 year institutions are there because someone has thought they can achieve. Which I love because there is no questions about can you do the work. However in the same respect I struggle with is college the next age group appropriate spance should special education in the respect of a group of people who can not achieve at the same level not that there is a barrier that they can not achieve be allowed to go to college. Is then the continual expansion of the next step of education meaning grad school even more expanded. College however is not about success in very real ways if you fail people care but they will not really think you deserve to succed. So it is kind of this wierd dicadomy they accept people who they know can achieve so if you are in disability servuces your job is to help them figure out the best way to reach the ability to achieve. However not neccisarly mean that they will sucede. It is an odd place. Routinely i think people think that accomodations mean success but they don't they just mean you can truely have the opportunity. I guess that is with all students though.

Is Disability fluffy?

2010-12-21T02:17:00.000-05:00

A very long time ago I was told people with disabilities are fluffy. I took offences to it being that, I think most people who work with LD folks would if anything be called rude and a little rough around the edges. However this fluffyness idea has stayed in my head. I find myself when I hear it thinking of a room in my undergrad that to me was home... and I always secretly hope when I go up there and see my writing on the door(yes someone really should change that sign) that it will be open. I hope most that I am providing that space for my students, in the places I create. I sometimes think 441 needed some kind of older sibling esq character. I think we had visitors but never a real person.

I wish I could be like Brent who seemed to take care of those of us in the attic. He really was the LGBT coordinator but he seemed to take care of all. We also had these random outside folks who would come in and sorta help us out. I also sometimes think now my fluffy spaces are comittees on disability or my feminist disability discusions. However what I keep thinking is fluffy to me if it describes disability it isn't an individualized term fluffy if anything is like a warm fuzzy you get from being around others.\

I still play that in my head, it was one of those complete shock moments for me when it happened I looked at the person like they said everything I heard in my head and more.... I wanted to yell no I am not fluffy but I kept silent I don't know why. I don't know why that was important but it was. Maybe I am just a wimp, when people shock me they shock me to silence it is when I most truely feel alone and impaired. I know the intent wasn't bad. Which sometimes is harder... when people are evil it is easier to deal.

Disability and Gender

2010-12-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

So I saw this article in a contex of another article about feminism..... Dyslexia/gender I am finding myself both agreeing and disagreeing with this article. I find the fact that the guy is controling her to be wrong... I find myself stuggling with the use of disability as a shrug off or a joke very confusing for me. in the article from the blog. I also find myself hating the title becuase I find myself being annoyed by the fact that gender not being an impairment is a bad thing where the question of should an impairment it self be bad thing. I find myself angry anfd agreeing all at once and being annoyed.

The main reason being I say I am dyslexic all the time I joke about it. I tease about it..... I also use my teasing as a way to ask for accomodations. In the begining I used it more as a point of frustration when I knew my disability is really interacting with the way someone is talking or the subject or something completley different. I also find myself taking offense to it and wondering if the woman actually has any of her disabilities she is claming which makes me add to this question of why do people use disabilities they do not have to be funny.

Why is it okay for me and not for people who aren't. I come back to the idea that the disability is a huge part of myself so the idea of not acknowledging it as part of myself makes me feel like I am posing or lieing. I also hate it when people lie about it cause I get all excited when people say they are dyslexic I find myself getting gidy and asking if the person really is most of the times the answer is no.

Why is my disability self defending her using these terms to say she is stupid when I clearly belive that is not the case. Why is my feeling connected to the idea that she is some how saying women are stupid and dyslexic in someway not even irking me. Maybe cause when I hear the word dyslexic my brain says oh she isn't stupid being dyslexic means you have an average or above average IQ? That those things are so connected.... why is it driving me nuts. How is it that I talk about disability and Feminism all the time and this makes me upset.... the person says they would be okay if she talked about her disability in a place of pride. Is the oppresion she feels of her disability affecting herself worth and womanhood and makng her more submissive in one of the things we always say happens with women with physical disabilities. Is this submission more likely to affect the way women with disabilities react to domestic violece?

When asked what I would call a developmental model of disability services?

2010-11-14T00:47:00.001-05:00

Maybe I am wrong but what I thought development form of disability services meant was a change in conversation model or what your office does not eliminating accommodations. Helping a student talk to a professor, having talks about how and when they talk about accommodations in a job interview, or having adaptive sports or dance. Being more active in awareness such activities and trainings, having students with disability groups, or looking at disabilities services less as a rehabilitation services and more like a multicultural affairs office or women's center. Helping them grow as a leader working on the way they talk about their disability and are able to articulate it more; believing they can have leadership roles within the university.

Also looking not on the accommodation itself but helping a student who doesn't know how to drive for instance looking at accommodations they might not know of like hand controls or talking about how to use public transit versus bumming rides for accommodations. Using the writing center versus a parent for proofreading or helping them use dragon. It isn't about weaning off but maybe the more independent accommodations and not even a push but an exposure. I think the big transitional things for me was in high school I was bumming rides and in college I learned to use public transit. Also the other conversations would be things like using dragon or using google to find correct spellings for words or using a talking dictionary versus just guessing on a spell check. All of which were facilitated by either my disability office or by participating in our student with disability group.

One of the most obvious way I see this is when talking to students about getting a councilor. Are you going to set yourself back by not being able to get your work done or are you going to take control and look for help. I a lot of times find the moving to independence for grad school is having students learn to figure out how to take out their human accommodations and how to find things that will be at most cities they want to move to or a technology they can take with them. In a lot of ways this is about asking for more accomodations or finding the best adaption.

There seems like a lot of disability issues poping up lately

2010-11-01T01:17:00.000-04:00

So yesterday was a bad disability day... I am in a new city and my bus to work doesn't run on saturdays so I walked... I live in texas so it is still really warm outside(driving me nuts a little but transit wise it is great). So I could take a couple options to make my walk just a mile versus and mile and half to 2 miles.... choices choices. To me the obvious answer is to walk. On the way there no big done that 3 times now no big. On the way back I got distracted and ended up walking about 2 miles out of my way. Then on the way back I almost got hit by a car. It was the drivers fault he was trying to turn left and go through 3 lanes of traffic into a street and didn't give himself time or see me. However it really scared me cause I couldn't of done one thing. I would of just been hit....

Other news, I had a debate with my disability peeps about the word empower. If empower is a bad word I think it is a good word if it is a giving back to your community word and bad if it is the oppressor using it on an oppressed community.

I also saw a decent disability movie... the person get "cured" in the end but there were a couple celebrating wheelchair scences which were cool. It is called Ondine and it is about a guy who finds a girl in his fishing net. The daughter of the fisherman goes from a manual to a power chair and shows her zooming around all over the place. It is an okay movie nothing huge but nothing bad either.

Getting ADHD kids to read

2010-10-18T00:22:00.000-04:00

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/10/15/rick-riordan-on-four-ways-to-get-adhd-kids-to-read/?KEYWORDS=Rick+Riordan

This is an interesting article by the author of Percy Jackson. I find it to be really interesting, I question the part about learning differences but I always say that when people call it that. I like the focus on finding a book the kid wants to read. I think it is important to read books that make kids want more and more of books. I don't know how I got into the Wizard of Oz books I don't know why I don't know how. My mom never read them as a kid, but I loved them. They were the books that made me want to read and read and read. I have probably read the 14 book series at least 10 times. Today I think books like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and the ugglies will continue this trend of loving to read. The big thing is hooking them in. Figuring out what they like to read, wether that is mystery or fantasy or something different. I always say what tv shows does your kid watch, what kinds or games do they play, and what kind of bed time stories are exciting to them?

The other thing is what kind of role models do you want your kids to have, I found that for me i couldn't stop reading books about Harriet Tubman and Elizabeth Blackwell. They were strong women who had disabilities and oppression to fight against. The idea that Harriet Tubman was hit by a weight and would pass out randomly including while guiding people on the underground railroad always made me feel whatever I wanted to do could be achieved. Also Elizabeth Blackwell being told time and time again she couldn't achieve her academic dreams and continueing to achieve them. Continueing to be a doctor after she was blinded by some kind of fluid from being a doctor. I wanted to be just like them I would read book after book and even and wrote paper after paper about them at school.

Books can be the thing that gets in your sole, many people are always suprised by how much I read. My mom I think this is the thing that gives her the most joy. The thing of all I have done she is most proud of.

Another bus/train post

2010-10-12T13:56:00.000-04:00

I just moved to a new city, Dallas. I live with in city limits and absolutely love the transit here. I think it is always interesting cause slowly and slowly I have gone to better transit cities, maybe on the end I will end up in Chicgao or new york or something. What I find interesting is no matter where I am and no matter how much better this bus is from the last or how this one has trains. The people at the location never think it is good enough. I think again I have never gone to transit meccas but this is how most people talk. I do not ever think transit will be better then a car. You have to plan things out and be more location focused, and I think that just doesn't happen that much, people do not think in what do I need to get to and how close is it. I think when people look at their lives usually people are staying in their area of town, but the idea that occasionally the trips would be hard is something people can't get over. I think for me going to these places where transit just is and I can go anywhere makes me smile so much. I feel so much more freedom. I hope that feeling continues.

Bookstores

2010-09-24T18:54:00.000-04:00

I love looking at disability books, I also love old disability books. There is a new and old bookstore in Dallas that I was like ooo maybe it will be like john king and I can just by their disability section hahah. Well sadly not so much. I ask the girl where is your disability section and she brings me to the how to teach LD kids with no disability studies like books. I ask her to look up No Pity cause I have not met a book store that doesn't own no pity. Well they had it but it was just all messed in with sociology. It was sooooo annoying. I don't know what I was looking for I just wanted my disability section.

Usually if it is a small store even they have a disability section. Usually by death and dieing but still at least a disability section. BAH I think they may have seperated up disabilities which makes me angry bah Why would you seperate disability books. Bahhh so this is me being incoherent in my anger at an expectation of a shelf at least and not so much. I still like the store but it was a big disappointment. I guess amazon and john king will just have to work.

Dreams

2010-09-20T01:36:00.000-04:00

My friend once asked you have been proving people wrong on purpose your entire life when can you just do it for you? It is wierd I think about that question a lot when you are told time and time again you will fail and then you keep succeeding. When you finally have that job you have been pushing to get. How do you respond. Does that mean you have proved them wrong does that mean you have proved yourself right? Is there something you must automatically do to succeed to find some where to keep pushing yourself is it still good enough to know you are exceeding expectations?

Sometimes I wonder if achieving something you aren't supposed to ever means you are just doing it for yourself. Is it frustrating sometimes yes. There is something wierd in side you that just keeps pushing you forward and you know that by you doing it people can come after you. Disability is in a lot of ways the thing that makes me smile and be giddy all the time. I don't understand it. I don't know why this is sooo important for me to think about and talk about and my other idenities don't seem to affect me as much. I think they are very important to look at and challenge but there is something that sorta makes it what I lead with a lot. In the same way the more I work at women's center women is taking a really huge front to everything. So I keep trying to connect the two women and disability. I guess I keep strugling with the whole idea of when does the voice in your head that sounds like that teacher who kept telling you will fail go away completely if you have achieved past her wildest dreams.

ADA 20th a little late....

2010-08-02T02:13:00.000-04:00

So ADA or the Americans with Disabilities Act turned 20 on July 26th, as a good blogger it is time to write about my favorite law. Now why is it my favorite law. I think it is my favorite cause everyday I see it working to help me achieve my goals. I think I see it helping. I also see it as this law that I have seen change the world to some extent. It isn't a law like the 19th amendment which clearly changed my possibilities for a better world or numerous other laws that clearly were good in it's own right; but happened before my parents were born or when they were in their teens.

No I was born, I started school the year ADA was passed. I was first spected to have a disability the year ADA was passed. When I entered school this was the law(not IDEA cause I went to a private school) that made it possible for me to get accomodations. In my lifetime i have seen the affect of both the disability rights movement and the ADA. The older I get the less i have to explain my disability, the less people question it, and the more I can use the line of have you heard of the ADA.

I have always remembered that I had teachers who said it wasn't possible to go to college with a disability exspecially a large school like MSU. I also remeber the shock of some professors and teachers to be the first one in their class. I think that because of this I am a sorta pioneer of sorts. You hope that ADA and with the ADA amendment it will become second nature.

It isn't a perfect law. Depending on who you talk to it does too little or too much.... maybe that means it is a good law. What always sprises and impresses me is how bipartisn it is of a law that the amendment passed almost unanimously in the enviornment we now live in is sorta amazing. That it was signed into law by George Bush and was put up by people like Harkin and Kerry. I bet their aren't many laws that can have such names all together.

So lets sing and be happy and celebrate the ADA and also lets remember the heros who pushed for it. Let's celebrate the lives of Dart and Roberts and Mcbride-Johnson and oh so many more of those that pushed for it that no longer are on earth. Happy ADA Day, a little late, but Happy ADA day!!

Moderate

2010-06-10T01:48:00.000-04:00

I am considered by many in my disability group at MSU to be the calm one. I can calmly talk to people about disability I don't get angry. I find this interesting, I talk like an activist and have since I started to get involved with disability student groups. I however do not get angry, I don't fight like an activist. In general I am an academic... I guess it means I probably will evenetually be a proffessor cause that is how I talk. I work with groups I work with in group. I do not find anything wrong with working outside the system it is just not historically how I work or how i find myself being affective. I like to help I like to see ways to affect how people think about disability. That is why I disclose so much I feel if I am open about it maybe they will ask me the stupid questions and not ask the people who are not prepared to answer.

I also do not fit in the box people have for disbailities they see me and I suprise them. I can answer questions and I have thought over and over again about what this means to me. I also think all the time with me. Disability this word people think is so ugly is really so fluffy and smily and me and so comfortable with who I am. The acceptance of the word the acceptance of it was the acceptance of myself.

What is my reaction to cities opting out of the bus system?

2010-06-02T17:14:00.000-04:00

I have been lately stoped by myself or someone else who wants to go to one of the cities that has opted out of the county wide bus system. I grant it I have been pretty pleased with the bus system in the Detroit area except I hate it when the cities opt out of the system. The bus system is sorta well great except for things that are out of it's control like cities dumping snow infront of it's stops or opting out or just not actively supporting it. I find that most of the times the bus is pretty good but then I find out something happened and usually it is the cities who aren't supporting the bus. Detroit as a region keeps saying we need to have the infostructure of other cities encouraging transit but frankly you can spout that as much as you want but until action is taken stating that the basic needs are meet of a transit city or region it will never become a better system. I am also saying though that you can easily live just off buses in the city it is absolutely no problem it is just a matter of knowing what communities support transit and which ones do not.

Is this funny?

2010-05-27T16:11:00.000-04:00

I have been asked two times in the last week if I think this is funny http://xkcd.com . I have to say both times I saw it I was pretty confused by it since I kept looking at it and thinking am I really this dyslexic that I can not find a spelling mistake on it. I kept looking and getting more frustrated then had to ask someone what the joke was. I guess supposably there is an old joke about dyslexics saying dyslexics of the world untie. A joke i have never heard by the way. So the idea is they couldn't get the joke right. My thought is if a dyslexic was purposely trying to spell something correctly opposed to just spelling for truth I think they would be very cognisnt of making it correct. like this blog I purposely do not spell check. I just go with it but I also do this as a way to show how far I have come from before.

I guess I dont know if I think it is offessive. I tend to find it a little funny and a little offesive at the same time but it also seems pretty harmless as things go. What do you think??