In Douglas Baynton’s “Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History,” Baynton argues that the idea of disability was used in American history to justify discrimination. People with perfect health from the past viewed disability as a form of disease because of their “dysfunctional body”. Women, African Americans, and immigrants were viewed as disabled because they are “abnormal”; they don’t have the ideal body built and mind to be defined as “normal”. “Normal”, as Baynton would described, means “the average, the usual and the ordinary” (Baynton 36); a person is perfectly functional. Women were forbidden to learn and be educated; African Americans were discriminated because of their skin color. Moreover, immigrants were viewed
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It was at the point of the history that the deaf students at Gallaudet felt the need to stand up for a place at school. Gallaudet, a liberal arts college focusing exclusively on the education of the deaf, failed to support deaf students with an opportunity to let deaf students to be president. With a school that could not provide equity for fellow students, how could the students receive their opportunity to feel successful and confident of themselves at school? Oliver Sacks, in “Protest at Gallaudet,” suggests that “the faculty could, to some extent, communicate with students, enter their worlds, their minds, but the administration formed a remote governing body, running the school like a corporation, with a certain “benevolent” caretaker attitude to the “handicapped” deaf, but little feeling for them as a community, as a culture” (Sacks 237). The controversy raised awareness on the need to aid the deaf students. Since the protest, the school board was more open-minded on disability and willing to support an equal opportunity at …show more content…
Although we, as a society, are not doing a bad job supporting the students, we definitely have ways to improve by studying individual cases of hearing loss students across the country. In Overcoming the Barriers to Including Students With Visual Impairments and Deaf-Blindness in Physical Education, author Lauren J. Lieberman and Cathy Houston Wilson suggests some of the barriers teachers today face about the lack of resources towards deaf-blindness students. It is difficult to provide support for students with disability to participant in physical activities. “Unfortunately, students who are blind or deaf-blind are not afforded the same opportunities to participate in regular physical activity and do not attain the same psychological, social, and physical benefits as their sighted peers” (Sherrill qt. in Lieber and Wilson “Overcoming the Barriers”). Most schools do not have the ability to provide the same opportunity for those students to be able to engage in activities as the “normal” students. Deaf-blind students require visual-motor skills in order for them to engage well in physical activities. As Lieber and Wilson suggest, “professional preparation programs are simply not enough” because of the lack of preparation that the teachers are given to (Lieber and Wilson “Overcoming the Barriers”). There is also a prevalence of sports equipment for those disabled students. Special
It was at the point of the history that the deaf students at Gallaudet felt the need to stand up for a place at school. Gallaudet, a liberal arts college focusing exclusively on the education of the deaf, failed to support deaf students with an opportunity to let deaf students to be president. With a school that could not provide equity for fellow students, how could the students receive their opportunity to feel successful and confident of themselves at school? Oliver Sacks, in “Protest at Gallaudet,” suggests that “the faculty could, to some extent, communicate with students, enter their worlds, their minds, but the administration formed a remote governing body, running the school like a corporation, with a certain “benevolent” caretaker attitude to the “handicapped” deaf, but little feeling for them as a community, as a culture” (Sacks 237). The controversy raised awareness on the need to aid the deaf students. Since the protest, the school board was more open-minded on disability and willing to support an equal opportunity at …show more content…
Although we, as a society, are not doing a bad job supporting the students, we definitely have ways to improve by studying individual cases of hearing loss students across the country. In Overcoming the Barriers to Including Students With Visual Impairments and Deaf-Blindness in Physical Education, author Lauren J. Lieberman and Cathy Houston Wilson suggests some of the barriers teachers today face about the lack of resources towards deaf-blindness students. It is difficult to provide support for students with disability to participant in physical activities. “Unfortunately, students who are blind or deaf-blind are not afforded the same opportunities to participate in regular physical activity and do not attain the same psychological, social, and physical benefits as their sighted peers” (Sherrill qt. in Lieber and Wilson “Overcoming the Barriers”). Most schools do not have the ability to provide the same opportunity for those students to be able to engage in activities as the “normal” students. Deaf-blind students require visual-motor skills in order for them to engage well in physical activities. As Lieber and Wilson suggest, “professional preparation programs are simply not enough” because of the lack of preparation that the teachers are given to (Lieber and Wilson “Overcoming the Barriers”). There is also a prevalence of sports equipment for those disabled students. Special