BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR INSTITUTE 2003

Forum 5 - Culture As Disability and ...
(Thoughts After Day 3)

Sometimems as people present thier points of view from the scientific perspective, they treat people who beileve in GOD as if the witches in Salem, MA, back in the 1600's.

If it is better teaching practices that we want, why not accept that could be some things for which we may never be able to fully understand?
And others still that we may only have a limited understanding of...or the stories we currently tell.

That said, let's agree that what HAS been does not forever HAVE to be. Serendip has a section for people who feel they have been discouraged from telling stories that include concepts like God, so their stories can be clearly heard by others (Science and Spirit). And I personally am more than willing to agree that "there are some things we have only a limited understanding of" (indeed, I'm SURE of it; its fundamental to the "getting it less" wrong principle). And I'm also more than willing to believe I can learn from other people's stories, whether they include the word God or not (cf. How to Get Through the Veil).

Where there may be an interesting difference in our stories (perhaps useful to both of us to see in getting it less wrong?) is the idea that there may be some things "which we may never be able to fully understand". I'm fully prepared to admit that as a "possibility" but very much disinclined to accept it as a starting point ... and even more disinclined to have people specify for others (or themselves) particular things that should not even be examined to see if they can be "understood". Is that a meaningful difference between us, one that would incline us to make different choices in education (or in life)? If so, we have some more things to talk about. If not, we're pretty much in the same place, the words we use notwithstanding.

Now to the article--The session this afternoon brought some thoughts and ideas about the article together for me. I see how in our culture we classify people as disabled who do not meet the "requirements", the "standards(artificial at that)", the mold of our culture. We need to treat each person as an individual. We need to look at a person's strenghts and go from there. We all have disabilities and these are on a continuum--our students disabilities are on a continuum also. Why do we have to classify them and make them feel inferior. We need to be able to get help for all students and not classify them. This sometimes creates a self filfulling prophesy.

The World of the Blind was interesting. The blind were not able to accept a sighted person because he was different--we are not able to accept a LD person. This story showed me how ridiculous our values are.

While alternative programs must be created,the challenge will be to avoid tracking poor and minority students(once again)into the trades.This practice was prevelant in the period from approximately 1930-1960.

Usually I respond to the forum by writing 3 paragraphs: introduction, explanation and conclusion but Paul never reads my second paragraph, so I'll just jump to the last.

Living in another culture was enlightening, enriching and liberating. Learning how to behave in order to be successful in another culture illuminated the artificial and meaningful boundaries of my own Americanism. I could look down at the ground when a Filipino male spoke to me and in the same minute stand as a PROUD equal with a PCV male.
Culture is like a wheeled baby chair. It keeps you on both feet and gives you a soft place to lean on. It allows you to look up, down and spin around. It can keep you immobile or send you flying. Culture as ability or disability is up to you and your choices.

Nunez missed the greatest experience of his life.

Good rich discussion of "two minds" yesterday morning, with I thought a pretty good consensus that understanding the conscious/unconscious thing IS important in education (as well as in neurobiology). Along those lines, does one learn unconsciously? How does that relate to wanting our students to "think"? Can on lie unconsciously? How can one tell if someone is doing that or consciously lying?

And some bonuses in the morning discussion. Noticing that it is for some reason harder to write in forum than to just talk ... maybe because one's conscious, with an editor built into it, gets in the way? Maybe that's why students ... ? Was struck also by the playing with "I think, therefore I am". Maybe it should actually be "I am, and find I have the capacity to think, which I can use to change who I am" ... and explore?

Also in the morning was the idea that the nervous system is just neurons, pretty much the same not only morphologically but also functionally ... the same signals, and the proof that indeed those signals could start in the box rather than result from experiences (in some cases EVER, because of the genome). There's certainly more to think/talk about there.

And then there was everyone tells me was a rich session with Kim in the afternoon. I saved the blackboard as a photo and will post it. And then there's the Culture As Disability article (and the fortuitously related conversation between me and Antoinette

So, how about writing TWO entries in the forum this morning? One, if you haven't already done it, about the Culture As Disability article. The other about whatever part of yesterday you thought particularly interesting, have reactions/thoughts about. Yeah, please write TWO entries instead of one about both things. Then I can archive them under separate topics. And remember, don't "think" WHILE you're writing. Just write.

Unconscious learning precedes conscious learning! The implications for education are enormous. Students should first engage in things unconsciously, busy work in a comfort zone, prior to conscious processing.

Descartes may be wrong, a cultural elitist, in positing that "I think, therefore I am." But, you also can't posit "I am, therefore I think." This is particularly relevant with regard to organisms who demonstrate activity, but have never had sensory or motor neural imput. It suggests to me that this activity may be unconscious, but the reflective activity that characterizes conscious I-function doesn't occur, therefore there might not be any "soul." Acquinas might posit some "vegatative" state.
Is refection what really distinguishes what is "human"? Do different organisms exhibit more or less reflection? The revelation and tracking of Action Potential as an indicator of the difference that humans exhibit between conscious and unconscious activity seems to me very relevant.

2/ Culture as disability is reflective to me of the history of my teaching. I have, more often than not, taught students whose subculture in these United States differs from my own. Bit by bit I have become aware of my preconceptions that do not match with theirs. I can only guess as to how much I still don't know. I have students with many talents that do not include reading, writing and ciphering so they are not seen as sucessful in school yet have rich full lives in which they show varied competencies . On the other hand, if I were in a culture that measured success by how fast one can run, I would be among the disabled/limited because I do not have many fast twitch muscle cells (my physical therapist clued me in on that factoid).

The afternoon's discussion was interesting , particuliarly because it demonstrated how an activity could be used to engage individual thinking and awareness, promote group ideas, as well as illustrate the points for the learner to focus on - What is a diability? and who decidesthat? For what Purpose? Many of the points in our discussion were revealed or parralled in the article"Culture as a disability".

Lots more reflection of the "two minds discussion" in my head, to mull over.

After reading parts of the article (I admit I did not get to read it all), I was reminded of a college professor I had who work with people who had "disabilities." He shared with us his experience when he went to a school for deaf children during the early stages of his carreer. He discussed with us his expectations and his preconcieved notions of what a school for the deaf would be. He pictured a quiet and "peacful" environment. He thought that he would be overwhelmed with the silence. He thought that this would be a relaxing environment to do his work. His experience was the contrary. He found that the students were playing their music so loud that he could hear it hundreds of yards before reaching the campus. He also found that this did not change throughout the day. It became distracting and difficult to work at times under those circumstances. He said that at first he could not understand this. Why did people who could not hear need to have music so loud? Then one of his collegues told him it was because they could feel the music.

He also stated that he knew traditional sign language. He noticed that the students were using signs when communicating that to him, seemed to be nonsense. As he spent more time, he realized that even sign language had dialects. The students had created their own slang and signs (like the codes our students write thier love letters in) to keep the teachers from understanding them.

Much like "THe Country of the Blind" his "ability" became his "disability." ONe other interesting aspect of this was that he found ways to adapt to the culture (as he put it). He began to use ear plugs while working and he also developed and internalized the sign language that they were using over time.

If this can occur with her,what then must be the situation with many students who are unable to process information in an ordered fashion because signals are reversing.I have doubts as to what methods can be employed to "retrain"their message centers.

The article, like the discussion yesterday afternoon brings to mind that our culturre/expectations play a large role in hoe we ppercccieve and react to things. In the early 70's if a child was doing flips over a swing and fell and hurt themself...they would go home and get a bandage put on a cut or scrape and that would be all. If a child did the same thing now, they would go home, call the plastic surgeon, and their lawyer, and try to get a mega law suit from the owner of the swing set, the swing set manufacturer, the shoe manufacturer and so on.

Our culture has set up some standards that "define" minimal achievemnt standards, are those who do not meet them "dis-abled" or "differently -abled?"

When we ask our elem. students to "read, read quietly, and study" Could it very well be that they have a different mental script of what each of these words mean, and a different script of how to demonstrate that they are doing what we ask?

The seminar yesterday with Kim was very enlightening. We do we get part 2?
Abilities v. Disabilities!

Interesting idea--so much of what the nervous system does has nothing to do with anything that happens to it--it just does. And nothing to do withanything that ever happened to it--is this a little about psychosis. What is that anyway?

Afternoon with Kim was great. REally enjoyed hearing her own stories. Really brought culture into the realm of our problems.

Oh well Paul wants us to stop.

"Maternalization of education" as the message of Culture of Disability. Encouraging concepts/nurturing over critical/demanding, less attention to struggle/war/competition? Avoiding "hurt feelings by demonstrating that someone else has a different point of view? All necessarily goes together this way? A good thing or a bad thing or ... ?

Re "special ed". Why classify/analyze instead of just fixing? Could we create a less disabling culture by allowing people to develop their own goals instead of insisting they have to be achieving by a common standard? But need to be careful not to return to a time of prejudging potential based on wealth, skin color, etc. Would help if we could encourage kids to become more self-reflective from earlier ages?

Re Keith's story: VERY important that one can be (be helped to be) aware of BOTH one's strengths and one's weaknesses, without demeaning the latter characteristics in others (can be comfortable about oneself without disabling others). Is this something that can be taught early?

Would be easier for kids to work on sorting themselves out if connections among different subjects/skills in the curriculum were made more apparent. This would help one make personal choices, encourage recognition of worth of things one doesn't onself choose.


| Forum | BBI 2003 Home Page | Summer Institutes | Serendip Home |