Equity Post 1

Something that was surprising to me was on page 88 where it says that poor children have severe vision impairments at twice the normal rate. It did not give any reason why this is. I was puzzled because I was curious why this would occur. It says that hearing impairments are common but it gives the reason that inadequate treatment of ear infections as babies is common. I wonder if anyone has any idea about why this is.

Typical schools may be inequitable to all students in many ways. First off, textbooks usually depict middle and upper class white students. There is usually a misrepresentation of white children in school textbook pictures. In addition, many stories and problems involve the names of white children. These names are common names like John & Jane Doe. There is usually no mention of names that come from other ethnicities. If you look in a math textbook, you are likely to find word problems like “John is driving his car at 25mphs, he travels x amount of distance and it takes his t amount of time…” This kind of problem applies to students where driving cars is a norm. Some families don’t own cars and use public transportation instead. Textbooks are clearly easily inequitable.

Another way schools may be inequitable is in their physical structure. Only schools built recently may have been built with a universal design in mind to appeal to people with all types of exceptionalities. Others may have to accommodate by adding ramps, brail and other universal design elements.

If a student like Alice was in my class, I would support her by giving her additional writing practice. Another way I would support her would be to work with her one on one and help her decode which words she uses are formal and which ones are informal. What formal word is she trying to say when she uses the informal one… kinda (kind of). I would be careful to avoid degrading her home culture by telling her that at school everyone is expected to speak formally. She can speak any way she wishes at home, however it might help her if she practices at home to.