#9 Citizenship in school: Reconceptualizing down syndrome. By Kliewer

Kliewer talks about the effects of students with Down Syndrome being segregated in schools. Just because someone is different does not mean they should be separated in schools. Even though kids with Down Syndrome have a disability, Kliewer brings up some interesting points as to why these kids should still be treated equally.  This article relates a lot to the article we read last week which talked about  separating students into different classes and giving special treatment to some certain groups. 

When I was in high school there was a class set up for kids with special needs to be placed in, in order to get special help learning. One of the kids in the class happened to be a boy that I knew and grew up with.  He was a funny, nice, and caring boy that never saw anything wrong with himself.  He may have had a disability but still acted just like a teenage boy would normally act at his age.  I learned many things from him when we were growing up and also was inspired that he wasn't gong to let anything get in his way if he wanted to do something. He was in drama performances, went to every dance, and played every sport at school.  Just locking special needs kids up in a room by themselves all day really destroys the way these kids are looked at.  Just like the stories in this article if you can actually see these kids and realize they are just like normal students you can learn a thing or two from them.  But as long as they are segregated from normal students, students will view them differently and will never prepare special needs or regular students to handle being in the same environment  or respected equally.