Disabled Children and Discrimination - Term Paper Example

Report

• Situation of the Context: Description of the Issue and Explanation of its Significance

According to Sharma (2016, p. 219-220), disabled children facing discrimination is identified to be a crucial issue. To elaborate the argument, Sharma (2016) commented that all the children are ought to be treated in an equity way, irrespective of age, religion, caste, and disability. The author pointed out the fact that in addition to discrimination, students with disabilities does not have the equal opportunity to fulfill their expectations and meet the existing standards (Sharma, 2016). Based on the viewpoints presented by Sharma (2016), disabled children remain in such a situation wherein their individual rights as well as disabilities interest in one way or the other. Thus, as a result, such children are held accountable to face compounded along with dual difficulties, affecting their lives in future by a certain level. Crucially mentioning, the disabled children are likely to get deprived from the rights associated with education, participation, advancement and fulfilling own responsibilities (Sharma, 2016). Martínez (2015) observed that children are discriminated based on the several specific grounds that entail accessing better along with quality level of education, rational accommodation in schools, fees as well as expenses, abuse and neglect, along with lack of support regarding their personal and professional development. For example, in South Africa, children are discriminated in the ground of basic education system because of having shortages in physical and/or mental ability. In addition, they are dispersed to special schools, wherein it is notable that a majority of the families cannot afford paying their tuition fees. Notably, the South African government does not provide educational facilities to the children, signifying shortage of qualified teachers to teach and take care of the disabled children belonging to the diverse regions of the nation (Martínez, 2015).

Therefore, it is necessary to highlight the above-identified issue, as every children needs attention, care, support, love, and recognition from the societies to make them much advanced and qualified as well. With respect to the children who are disabled, changes are necessary in the perspectives of the individuals, who are viewing them as a social burden and likewise depriving from their individual rights. Therefore, establishment of inclusive schools are necessary that are suitable for the disabled children, who do not have the capabilities to attain quality education and offering them with the prospect to go to mainstream schools. Besides, a fact cannot be completely ignored that the children possess the right to act and participate in all the matters that pertain within a specific community (Martínez, 2015).

Specially mentioning, efforts need to be made about facilitating the students to learn and think about the inclusion along with the exclusion factors and being a part of the “insider” as well as the “outsider” groups. These are mainly owing to allowing the disabled children to comprehend that everyone in this world has experienced both exclusion and inclusion in their own lives. The importance of addressing the previously mentioned societal issue lays in encouraging the students to understand the viewpoints of those who have been excluded, and correspondingly making them to learn about how their feelings as well as behavioral attitudes might affect other people. The overall goal is to make the disabled children to understand the nature of the excluded groups and their difficulties that arise during the entire phase of life (United Nations, 2007).

In accordance with the findings of Sharma (2016), it has been quite clear that shifts in the focus from the approach ‘welfare’ to ‘rights’ may support in addressing and mitigating the societal issue of suffering discrimination by the disabled children. This can be justified with reference to the fact that the ‘rights’ approach pays utmost attention on identifying the problems that the disabled children face and likewise addressing the same in an efficient way. This way brings the affected population, i.e. the disabled children into a constituency wherein their rights will be protected as per the standardized norms and guidelines. As per the report by United Nations (2007), the disabled individuals remain much marginalized in every community, wherein they live. This particular report highlighted the fact that although the framework of international human rights has become much advanced and strategic, the issue concerning discrimination that the disabled children face still has not been solved at a larger scale (United Nations, 2007). The report of United Nations (2007) mentioned that the disability factor not only restricts professional development of the children, but also hampers the financial conditions of the respective communities in the form of raising the poverty level.

• Identification of the Audience

The thought-provoking activity is designed for the grade seven and eight students. The importance of selecting the students of upper elementary grade is that they are much active and energetic as well, and desire to discover new experiences and old enough to express their feelings and behaviors. Furthermore, such group has been chosen owing to the consideration of the fact that when they are given to perform any experiential group activity, they will have the eagerness to know about such activity and likewise become stimulated for raising several questions. An efficient conduct of such a kind of activity is likely to boost the overall confidence level of the selected students in different domains including individual professional development, thinking procedure and decision-making capabilities. On a further note, successful completion of the above stated thought-provoking activity will also enable the students to think, execute as well as work upon on new ideas and likewise change their individual behavioral attitudes towards performing any significant activity. The thought-provoking activity may get extended based on the outcomes being generated at the end of the completion of the same, based on which the professional development of the selected students largely depends upon.

• Description of the Anticipated Outcomes

It is evident that the behavioral attitudes and the feelings of the people are negative in nature at the situation wherein they feel excluded. However, positive responses are likely to be attained from those people, who feel that they are included in a specific group for performing any sort of desired action (Kite et al., 2013). Considering these vital facts, the stated activity will certainly achieve the desired outcome of providing the students with the opportunity to participate, communicate, and get involved with their fellow students for drawing positive conclusions about what it is likely to be excluded and how that can negatively impact others in the situation. In addition, the stated activity can significantly change the beliefs and the misconceptions particularly on the issue concerning discrimination. The thinking of the participants will be reshaped by the ways of understanding the notion that the students without disability can begin to understand the negative feelings and likewise encounter any sort of problem that they might face during the conduct of any specific activity (Sharma, 2016; United Nations, 2007).

• Summary

Children suffering from disability possess an impairment, which leads towards dysfunction in every part of their own lives, hindering the accomplishment of individual roles along with responsibilities. In precise, it must be mentioned that disabled children are those who face communal, physical as well as cultural barriers and thus fail to participate fully in varied societal dimensions in an equity way. A child suffering the disability concern from the very beginning generally creates a negative perception about their self-esteem and innate potentialities amid the respective community members. Such creation of negative perception amid the people eventually restricts the development of the disabled children from every sphere, positing them to become a social burden. Illustratively, as mentioned earlier, suffering from discrimination by the disabled children and getting deprived from the individual rights are viewed as the crucial issues based on which an attempt is being made for developing a thought-provoking activity, which is suitable for the upper elementary students. Efficient conduct of this particular activity is expected to address the above-stated issue through several ways. These ways entail making the students to feel insider as well as outsider and the grounds based on which the disabled children are discriminated. Another way can be reckoned as considering the situations that underwent by the disable children while being discriminated due to disability ground (Sharma, 2016; Martínez, 2015).

Considering the design of an effective thought-provoking activity, various steps have been duly taken into concern for the purpose of deriving favorable and/or positive outcomes in future with respect to the overall development of the selected upper elementary students. These steps fundamentally included collection of outsider emotions, feelings, insider sentiments and outsider behaviors. These steps are likely to act as a plan for the chosen students that will let them to cope up with the difficulties being associated with disability and the negative outcomes that can be derived resulting from such a concern. The above-stated two issues are important to be discussed with the selected group, as these critical situations are likely to affect individual progression of the people at large. Specially mentioning, it is expected that the conduct of a successful thought-provoking activity will certainly act as a blueprint for the students for addressing and mitigating any societal concern such as discrimination in relation to the disability ground.

Class Activity

The thought provoking activity will be designed in such a way that the disabled children can elaborately think about inclusion as well as exclusion criteria and likewise realize themselves as a part of the ‘insider’ as well as the ‘outsider’ groups. Four particular steps are likely to be considered for conducting the activity in a successful way. These steps have been elaborately discussed as depicted below.

• Step 1 (Collection of Outsider Emotions)
• Providing adequate explanation to the students about the fact that the above-stated activity will allow them to experience the feeling of both inclusion and exclusion
• Urging the students to remember such situation when they performed actions as a group and thus felt different from the others
• The students must recall certain words that portray how they felt during the conduct of the actions while remaining in a group
• Step 2 (Collection of Outsider Feelings)
• The students must engage themselves in calling out such words that they heard from the respective teachers and likewise record the same under the column of ‘Feelings’ on the place of “Excluded” board
• Step 3 (Collection of Insider Feelings)
• The students require to think about that particular time when they were in a team and realize that they have been included in the group for performing the desired actions
• Making the students to remain engaged in calling out such words that best describe their feelings encrypted in the previous situation
• Step 4 (Collection of Insider and Outsider Behaviors)
• The students will be asked to list their own behaviors while realizing the fact that they have already been excluded from the group
• The students will be urged to recall such situations wherein they realized to get included instead of experiencing the situation of exclusion
• Close observations need to be made regarding the actual use of the behavioral words by the students who often have the tendency to use the feeling words on a repeated basis

Source: (Kite et al., 2013)

The below depicted materials will be required for making sure that the thought-provoking activity gets conducted successfully and implemented as well within a specified time.

• Marker for writing on the board
• Two boards to write results in front of the students. Here, one of the boards will get labeled as “Excluded” and the second board to be “Included”
• Again, each board will be separated into two halves, getting labeled as “Feelings” and the other to be “Behavior”

Source: (Kite et al., 2013)