Dr. Cadle

ENG 520

10 December 09

Finding the Individuality-Attacking Our Own Disabilities

There comes a point in everyone’s life where a prejudice or stereotype makes its way to the surface of their own individual societies in which they live. These are sometimes very detrimental in the way we portray others and ultimately how others have their own perceptions of us. The thing that seems to get pushed to the side of these prejudices is academics. We sometimes use these pre-judgments to underestimate a person for their ethnicity, race or even gender. Although this is a horrific problem, all three can be addressed and with the desire of many may find a way to be squashed. The prejudices do work in all the aspects of education and are hurtful with the way the status quo presents and offers assistance.    

            Writing is the one aspect in life that much be mastered so that a student can move above and beyond the limited expectations that some put on. In order to be a successful writer you may at some point in your life have to write in another’s voice with another’s view.  The thought that we must realize is that we live in a predominantly white society that still thinks they are not only the way, but the right way as well. In order to better understand the premise at hand in terms of English we need to overpower this somewhat white ignorance and reach a full understanding multicultural language and education. In order to do so we must take many steps. Some have shown themselves to be successful in the past. But as someone speaks about the past they must walk away with a deeper understanding of the problem that we have amidst us. Writing has been around since someone realized to use the brain. It has come a long way letting true talents shine. But unlike the sun not everyone has the chance to shine in writing. We take away after writing something some us may never be able to describe. A deep gratification that gives a feeling of reassurement that we can tackle any endeavor that life may throw our direction. It is a beautiful thing when one gets to sing with their voice and gets a chance to utilize their potential in writing.

            As the leaders of such an important life skill such as writing one must look past the physical make up of a human and begin to understand an individual’s biological make-up and understand that we as humans are the same in every way possible. Engaging more fully with the concept of whiteness (in a broader sense, that “whiteness” as an essentialist notion of race) is the first step in this direction. Discourses on whiteness should be rewritten in order to foster stronger ties between academic work and social justice. (Barnett 2000) In the 60’s and 70’s we finally saw a way in which representation stood forth and attempted to make sense of what the problem at hand was.  This era shows itself to be one of the most crucial in the understanding that we ultimately expect as not only teachers, but as classmates as well. Although this was terrific in its ways one may say that the advocation process seemed to die off and human rights were put on the back burner heating up less important issues like national standards that put everyone on the same level not giving the education process a prayer that will let the learning of writing surface to a deeper meaning of non-judgmental care.

The problem that we must see at hand is that we as part of the education push this issue to the bottom or even erase it from our priority lists. The progressive educational movements such

 as ‘No Child Left Behind often find themselves not only leaving out the minorities but also not listening when they talk. For example, writing process advocates assume that black students need to develop fluency rather than technical skills while many black parents and educators want direct instruction in the “culture of power.” White middle-class teachers and parents often use indirect communication in order to deemphasize power; however, not all children have access to the same codes. Children accustomed to more direct instruction and to more authoritative figures will struggle to understand the rules of (white) classroom culture. (Delpit 1995) This is one of the norms that finds itself to be more prevalent than not. In many education processes we find that this issue goes full circle. It gives students a curriculum that never presents this and then teaches future students nothing to even get a one leg up to attack the prejudices in the classroom. As teachers we must teach in an unbiased universal way that gives every student an equal opportunity to find their way in giving their audience a chance to understand their voice through an extensive way of purposeful writing. Along those lines classmates must do the same. In the end the writer must successfully do this. It is an art form that takes many fails to succeed. Writing is a survival skill that must be achieved in a non-prejudice form in order to properly succeed in this world in which we live. This makes for a difficult time when a strong individual does finally have an understanding of what needs to happen in order to make an influential change. As we see in many instances the teacher as thought for centuries is the center of this change and process that we must adhere to. The problem has been seen in the past but as we can see one may imagine that it has not been touched.                      

                  One such court case was brought to the public spectrum. Its importance may not be understood to the context of validity that needs to be present more than ever today. A 1979 Ann Arbor court case filtered to the top and did address many important issues regarding children’s literacy but still left pedagogical issues unresolved. One strategy, offered by the authors of “Dispositions Toward Language: Teacher Constructs of Knowledge and the Ann Arbor Black English Case” is to inform teachers about sociolinguistics, but they all have trouble agreeing that it does not necessarily make it into classroom practice. The authors outline three constructs of teacher knowledge that help to explain the gaps between knowledge and practice: teacher as technician, teacher knowledge as lore, and teacher efficacy. Teachers’ attitudes toward racially inflected language cannot be addressed adequately by knowledge constructs that emphasize either a technical or lore-based approach. Teacher efficacy, on the other hand, emphasizes affect and the “emotional tone of classroom interactions.” The teacher is seen to be the direct reason that the classroom is seen as smooth.  Efficacy begins with a knowledge base of linguistic diversity and cultural discourse patterns but must extend into an understanding of pedagogical theory within a wider socio-cultural context. (Ball 1997) As we have found that all of these issues attacked at this point represented the color of one’s ancestors or the ethnicity in which an individual calls home there still is another in which representation is still not adequate in regards to human equality in the classroom, especially the English classroom.

            The act of prejudice mentioned is feminism in the classroom. These judgments make up the majority of the problem, realizing that it represents the biggest of the majorities that we must face as participants in the education process. Once again we see that the teacher is the one being trusted upon.  Students frequently attack a teacher’s feminist perspective as something personal that does not belong in the classroom. Indeed, students do not wish to acknowledge any value contradictions in their academic work. Feminist teachers should recognize that teaching these students will be a form of persuasion that they will learn to be the way in which they are

supposed to do something. Too often teachers like this show no ethics or morals in what they teach.  The students then find this to be the way that they believe the authoritive figure is supposed to be. They should not reject all forms of authority as patriarchal. Moreover, in seeking to persuade students to feminism, teachers should aim to provoke not only resistance to sexism but also identification with feminism’s equal’s vision of the social order.. (Bauer 1990)

            To represent all of the disabilities one solution must be considered by all. Increased awareness of disability reveals, for both teachers and students of composition, the harmful constructions of ability, difference, and normalcy that are perceived as higher education and society in general. Because differences in ability resemble differences in race, class, gender, and ethnicity insofar as they have the potential to generate learning, compositionists are in a unique position to disrupt accepted notions about disability. Some believe that it is the text that will show it to be an admirable solution. By introducing disability texts, by allowing for a multi-modal classroom, and by considering disability within a cultural context rather than just a medical one, composition teachers can make disability visible, and can challenge students to go above and beyond in order to reach their own potential as not good but great English students. (Brueggemann 2001)

            AS seen throughout not only this piece but the lives in which we live, we are experiencing a very detrimental problem that without the proper steps may show itself to have an undermining way of corrupting he society that many of us call home. The steps to reach out of this problem and make a change, to a norm that has been going on since the beginning of writing, is to step back and quit being in denial. We must say to ourselves that we are better than this and that all writers should have a chance to experience the freedoms that were given to us by the

Forefathers that loved the individual equality of the world they believed in. If not tacked and realized by everyone we may have an enormous fault at hand. Ben Franklin said, “When the well is dry we will learn the wealth of water.” This statement holds true to many aspects of our lives but especially writing. If one does not change their voice to another can listen then the writing process and educational process in itself will be lost. We are entering a very active time that we must see a change in what we are doing. In order to this one cannot take a passive approach when it comes to writing.

References:

Barnett, Timothy. “Reading ‘Whiteness’ in English Studies.” College English 63.1 (September 2000): 9–37.

Ball, Arnetha, and Ted Lardner. “Dispositions Toward Language: Teacher Constructs of Knowledge and the Ann Arbor Black English Case.” CCC 48.4 (December 1997): 469–85.

Bauer, Dale. “The Other ‘F’ Word: The Feminist in the Classroom.” CE 52 (April 1990): 385–96.

Delpit, Lisa. Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New Press, 1995.

Brueggemann, Brenda Jo et al., “Becoming Visible: Lessons in Disability.” CCC 52.3 (Feb. 2001): 368–98.

My Writing process as mentioned earier is similar to Kyle I found that I have a few major differences that distinguish me as my own individual in regards to the writing process and the elements it entails. A major difference that Kyle and I have is that I like to write during the day when the sun is out. It makes me think mentally that I am ahead of where I need to be. My artistic abilities are not the greatest but I try to depict this in my picture. I like to write at the library because it keeps me on task and doesnt give me an opportunity to get side-tracked. I too like a well lit room . I also found that most of my writings arer for acedemic purposes and like Kyle I am a science and english middle school education major. Most of my papers have been written for English though. I do not like page requirements either. I feel as if I cant fit everything in or on the opposite spectrum I am writing to fill a certain amount of pages to meet a teacher’s requirement. I prefer non-fiction. Kyle and I diiffer as I am more of a chipper. I do not like any structure and blieve a paper doesnt need a title, an intro, a body, or a conclusion to be successful. I am not like Kyle. I sometimes beat around the bush and dont say what I am really wantig to and this makes me not appear as a good writer. I am excited though to also bring out and see my full potential in regards to the writing process.