The Short Bus By Jonathan Mooney

The Short Bus, written in in 2007 by Jonathan Mooney, is a story about Jonathan’s journey through the United States one summer, in a short bus. Jonathan, who was labeled as Learning Disabled in school, talks about his experiences with dyslexia and attention problems throughout his schooling experience, and recalls the short bus, used for students with disabilities, and is set out to change the meaning of the “short bus”. Jonathan states that to him, most of his life, the short bus he would see coming down the road was “the symbol of disability and pain” (Mooney, 2007, p.6) in his life. One of his main goals during this journey is to reinvent the word “normal”. Fixing up and old short bus, who he later would name “Bob Henry”, Jonathan …show more content…
At the festival, he talked about his experiences, the things people did, how they did these things and why, and the kicker was that no one seemed to look at them strangely because of this. There didn’t seem like there was a lot of judging going on, and anything was acceptable here. It didn’t matter where you came from or what your experiences were, when you were at the festival you were just having fun without any worries about how others might see you. And, on the very last day, I liked the idea that the burning of the figure almost represented a new …show more content…
No two students will learn the same, act the same, or think the same. I shouldn’t say or have the mindset that one student is more “normal” than other just because of their grade or actions, and I want to be able to practice this in my classroom, teaching my student’s the same way. Especially for students with disabilities, we shouldn’t define them as “different” or “unable” just because of this label. This doesn’t change my teaching philosophy that all students should have the opportunity to leave better than they came- it only enhances it. This book is extremely relevant to my major, and it opened my eyes to how some students with disabilities are treated. This book was written in 2007, and I believe as a whole, future educators are being taught more about inclusiveness, and hopefully there aren’t many teachers that treat their students like Jonathan or Brent or Kent or Miles this way as a result of this. The school system does seem to struggle with disabilities though as a whole, and that is evident by the stories the kids of these parents