Special People Diversity

Classrooms in our society today are becoming increasingly diverse. This is true not only in terms of the cultures the students come from, but also of their ability level. Inclusion laws, such as the IDEA act of 2004, have set mandates on public school systems to integrate into their classrooms all children with disabilities. Teachers need to be prepared to work with children who come from all walks of life, and who have varying levels of abilities in their learning skills. Teachers also need to foster an environment in which all children, including those with disabilities, feel welcome and wanted. One way to accomplish this, is by treating disabilities as diversity. The children’s book chosen for this assignment, Special People, Special Ways, …show more content…
The first criterion, deals with the illustrations in the book. Special People, Special ways, does several things well with their illustrations which fit under the criterion. For instance: the book does not depict children with disabilities in any way which “carries derogatory implication”. (Nastir & Horn 7) The children in the story, both with disabilities and without, are illustrated to be very similar. They all dress similarly, and partake in similar activities. The book also passes the second criterion, the story line. To fit this criterion, stories cannot show children with disabilities to have extraordinary quality, stories in essence “should be able to be told in the same way even if the main character[s] did not have a disability.” (Nastir & Horn 7) In this book, the children with disabilities are not depicted to have any extraordinary skills than their peers. The disabilities depicted within the story, are simply a part of it, they do not drive the story. The next two criterion that this book passes, are the 6th and 7th. Both these criterion, deal with the prospective of the people who created the book. In this case, both the author and the illustrator have worked on previous books dealing with diversity. They clearly have a keen interest in the subject. Maguire, for instance, has another book entitled We are all special. The book focuses on the …show more content…
I decided to read this book to my 8 year old cousin TJ. The reason I chose to read it to him, is because he is a child with a learning disability, on top of that he also fits within the target age range. TJ really enjoyed the pictures displayed in the story, as well as the rhyming pattern used by the author. He was able to make several connections to the characters. He recognized one girl as being blind, because she had a cane similar to a friend of his. He also noticed that there was a girl using wheel chair, and he told me that one of the boys in his class has to use a wheelchair “because his legs don’t work real well.” What interested him the most about the story, though, was that some of the children got to bring their ‘pets’ to school or to the beach. He could not understand why one of the girls had a monkey with her. TJ thought that it was very unfair that some of the children in the story got to have pets, while others did not. I had to explain to him, that “some people who have trouble with their vision or with doing some tasks, and animals can assist them. These animals are not pets to be played with, but are meant to help.” Though I do not think my cousin was able to grasp the key concept, that being recognizing disability as being part of diversity, he really did enjoy the book specifically the