Ensure Full Citizenship Essay

Ensuring full citizenship promotes the idea that students with disabilities are entitled to full participation in American life. This is saying no matter what or who you are everyone is treated equal. As people in this world we need to accept others opinions, beliefs and lifestyle because not everyone is the same. In this day in age everyone needs to accept people for who they are and not judge them just because we think we can judge them. We need to teach students to understand that everyone is different in many ways. The definition of ensuring full citizenship is making sure everyone has the same rights and is receiving them (google). The capacity and readiness to be involved in meaningful interpersonal relationships such as free choice,
setting goals, actions, and evaluation of outcome. As mentioned in the bible Philippians 3:20 says “But our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a savior the Lord Jesus Christ”(Bible). This is saying that our citizenship comes from our savior Jesus, the same Jesus that created us. Also John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have external life”(Bible). This is saying that god loves the world and that if we believe in him and love one another we will have external life. In our science class, our professor made her daughter’s class do an activity that made them struggle with the things that her daughter struggled with. In class one day she let us preform this same activity, she gave us candy bars to try to open and break them into pieces we had to use gloves and some needed to use a fork and knife with the gloves, we used just gloves and a knife, we also used just gloves and then our own hands. We found out that her daughter struggled with a simple thing in life that we take for granted every day. This made the children realize what she struggled with every day and these were things that came naturally and very easy to them. After seeing her struggles they gave her more respect since they had experienced what she has to deal with each and every day. This is a great thing to do with the class because this gives the children an opportunity to visualize and understand what others may be going through in their life. This also reinforces that things, physically or mentally, that may come easy to us may not be so easy for others. Ensuring full citizenship is very important to have in the class room because not only are children with disabilities treated differently because they learn in a special way, but they should be treated the same when dealing with teaching. Everybody is made in Gods image so therefore everyone is created and should be treated the same because God treats everyone the same no matter who or what you are. Fat City video opened my eyes up to what a learning disability child actually experiences when they are in a class room. FAT is an acronym for Frustration Anxiety Tension. This video was very interesting because of the way the instructor showed the audience how it feels to have a learning disability. Most children with a disability or special needs do not like surprises.
When a teacher is asking them a question it is going ten times faster in their brain than it is for a normal student. When they finally understood the question and the teacher and other students already moved on to the next question. They do not like to take risks or chances because they don’t get the positive reinforcement for getting the answer right and when they get it wrong the teacher makes a big deal out of it. Being embarrassed is not a fun thing for anyone but, it is particularly difficult for these children. As a teacher dealing with students with learning disabilities it is a great idea to talk to them privately and tell them the only way you are going to call on them, or ask them to answer a question is when you stand directly in front of their desk. This will help them think about the question and hopefully come up with the answer without being startled or surprised and possibly embarrassed because they may get the answer wrong. Discussing this procedure in private with the student will hopefully give them the confidence in me the teacher by showing them that I will never put them in an upsetting or uncomfortable situation. It helps me understand what these children are going through while learning. I chose this topic because this happens to almost every child that has a disability and it is always good to know as a teacher that children do not like to be surprised or take risks because of the possible
outcome. Students with a learning disability have a hard time processing information as quickly as others. The child with learning needs feels the class is going way too fast for them to even comprehend information. They have a hard time processing what they see and what they hear as quickly as others. Sometimes they will be called on to answer a question but, they honestly have no idea what others may have already given as answer because their mind was too preoccupied trying to digest the question. For example the teacher asks the class “Where are the places that Dr. Seuss traveled in his book Green Eggs and Ham?”, one child might have answered “a box” and then you call on an learning disability child two students later and he said “a box”. He had no idea that someone already said that, but everyone else in the class did. So it takes them a little longer to process information. So as a teacher you have to understand that when calling on a child that has a hard time processing information and knowing maybe they may repeat answer, you may want to call on them first in order to give them a chance to choose a correct answer but, still giving them a little time to process the question before answering. I think another helpful way to help the student with the learning disability should you call on them second, is to phrase the question as such; “we know that Dr. Seuss traveled in a box, can you think of another place that he traveled?” this may help them to come up with an answer other than box, however if box was the answer they were thinking of this may put more pressure of them to try to think faster and may not have a good outcome. I chose this topic because every child that has a learning disability has this problem and we need to be aware of this as teachers and to come up with alternative ways to make them feel comfortable, included, involved in all ways possible to develop them into functioning adults. Dysonmia is a learning disability in which the affected person cannot remember certain things and a particular word or words. The memory of the affected person has a difficult time recalling names or written language. Has two deficits Performance and Skills. Performance they can do it, but they are not responding in the right way. They receive praise in a positive manner and this is all based on motivation. Skills they cannot do it. They need more instruction and teaching to understand more information. Dysonmia is a cognitive problem that they cannot find the word but it is on the tip of their tongue and in many cases the person becomes very frustrated and agitated because they almost have it, but can’t seem to finish.
I worked at the LCARC Lawrence County Association for Responsible Care Camp which is located in New Castle Pennsylvania. My job title was a “Counselor” which we had a one on one experience with our child that we looked after for a week and then we switched clients from week to week. I had personal experiences with kids with mental retardation, autism, ADHD, anger management, downs syndrome and more. Having such a great opportunity to work at this camp opened my eyes to the way I look at special people and the way I feel about them. This job tested my patience and while teaching me to be more patient. I am going to be sharing my personal experience that I had with a child with downs syndrome. This child had many problems that not only dealt with his personal problems, but issues that he faced with his eating habits and lack of communication skills. This boy which I will being referring to as Steve is seven years old and has no communication skills whatsoever. He talks like a baby, can only communicate with pointing and louder noises that come out of his mouth. He has a diet of only eating potato chips and sometime pretzels. He gets upset if he runs out of chips and sometimes bangs his head on the ground to try to get attention, until he gets what he wants. The only way he takes his medicine is through drinking juice. Steve had a TSS that helped me to restrain him when needed and to deal with his temper tantrum. His TSS and I developed a technique that dealt with rewards and punishments, the only way we could get him to drink his drink that had his medicine in it was for him to sit still and let him watch Sponge Bob Square Pants. While he was watching Sponge Bob we would turn it off after he was done with all the chips in the bowl and he would have to drink quite a bit for us to turn Sponge Bob back on. After he realized what we were doing he participated very well, but he would try to act like he was drinking, but he really wasn’t and we would not let him get away with that. Rewards and punishments worked very well when we needed him to take his medicine. Steve also had an obsession with hair which he loved the feeling of it, but he never realized that he was hurting others when he pulled it. Many of the other kids did not play with him because he would always pull their hair, but by the end of camp he was playing with hair in a nice way by having us clap and cheer when he was nice and gentle. Steve could do most things like play games, throw a ball, and loved to dance around. He had no concept of understanding how rough he was being when he would throw something or hug someone. When learning about downs syndrome and the affects it has on a child or adult definitely makes me think back to how this child reacted to certain things. As stated in the text Downs Syndrome children have a hard time with significant impairments in language and grammar compared to visual spatial skills. From this hands on experience I can relate to how children have delays in situations that come easy to most of us, also on how he had a hard time learning language and words because he physically could not talk. It also makes me think about how downs syndrome children cannot understand the concept of how strong or rough they were being versus being gentle in certain situations. (Hallahan,Kauffman,Pullen 2015) Downs Syndrome can be hereditarily transmitted, but in most cases it is not. Downs Syndrome is the most common form of intellectual disability that is present at birth. It has a lot of physical characteristics, but they vary in every person which makes every person unique, just as anyone that does not have a disability is unique. Usually children are very hyper flexible of their joints and have a decrease in muscle tone. Downs Syndrome and Alzheimer’s are closely related in many different ways. Researchers have found that protein in a person diet will help people with Downs Syndrome and Alzheimer’s. As this child that struggles with eating, if he would add more food and protein in his diet it might help his future learning ability.(Hallahan,Kauffman,Pullen 2015)