Talking points Kliewer

1.) "Anne, who, ...had been left out of her high scool transition planning conference. In this meeting, her committee had decided that Anee, who has down syndrome, would become a preschool aide. Anne did not particularly care for young children..."

I feel like anyone in the world would think "of course you should ask what placement Anne would like to have." It seems elementary. Often it is quicker and easier for people to make decisions themselves. I imagine that's why they wouldn't have involved her. But of course it was wrong. So why does it happen? I think it is because no body is paying enough attention to know that it is happening. IF Anne wasn't your daughter or friend how else would you know? That is another reason why we need democracy in schools. If Anne was firmly rooted within a community the group would ban together to keep her best interest in mind.

2.)"Gardner(1991) answers his own questions by suggesting, as did Dewey, that schools must first recognize themselves into locations where the three r's are posed as "problems, challenges, projects, and opportunities."

I chose to write on this quote because I don't want to forget it. It is not as emotion evoking as some of the other quotes, but rather a very useful "nut and bolt" of education. It is interesting that this article lists math and linguistics as the two fields where one's intelligence is measured. This is especially ironic when you think about how rote and thoughtless math can often be taught as. We don't teach how to thin our ways out of problems, we teach how to follow the directions to get out of problems. So if math measures intelligence and math is simply following the directions then intelligence is just following directions... right?!

3.)"The presumed defectiveness exists not as an intrinsic commodity of the child who thoughts fail to fit within a perceived static border of normality."

I like this statement because it embodies all that is unable to be bottled. We cannot neatly package intelligence, spirit, and normality into a neat little scale which we can measure against. Everyday a person is different. Everyday a person has experiences, becomes older and grows. Nobody can live the same day twice. But tests are tests are tests. They don't account evolution, revolutions, transience, love, empowerment, curiosity, development, community, friendship or anything else human. They are rigid, made up and arbitrary. Which is more important, the test or the child?

I really like this reading because it let me see things through someone else's eyes. I don't know if I would have seen Isaac for the literary and dramatic master that he was. It was nice to have someone break down curious behaviors into enjoyable quirks rather than devastating dysfunctions.