Good good, does this help to clarify? I think I figured out what was happening?
That makes sense, yeah. I just… It feels like there’s a war in the disabled community–visibly disabled versus invisibly disabled, able-bodied neurodivergent versus physically disabled, blind versus seeing but otherwise disabled, etc.
And I don’t just mean on tumblr or among kids. I was thrown out of a RL disability support group, average age 42, because “yeah but you look normal so you don’t need to be here.” That coming three days after I was asked to leave a public function in the town square because my medical equipment (a TENS unit clipped to my waistband and a cane) was “scaring the children present” and “you’re young and I don’t want to have to explain to them that young people can be cripples.”
So I am always super wary of people who respond to invisible disability stuff with “yeah but other disabilities…”
Wowwwww I’m so SO sorry to hear this, I had no idea. As I said, I’m fairly anti-social and i’m a hermit so I don’t really swim in many offline circles to begin with hahahahah. I definitely don’t blame you for being skeptical of that person’s comment under such circumstances. *hugs if wanted*
That said, I have paid dearly in my life for the knee-jerk need (mostly abled) adults have to insist that kids/youth don’t get sick or hurt or whatever. This erasure & denial leads to actual abuse of ppl like you and I and sooooo many others. I’m going to try to make public education about this issue a part of the mandate of the #InvisiblyDisabledPplExistmovement.
During the last four years, there have been many issues and concerns that have competed for the public’s attention: the Muslim ban, family separations, an impeachment, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, protests against police brutality and the recent election to name a few. Noted but perhaps less at the media forefront has been the implementation of specific policies both under Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and within individual states that aim to “re-envision” public education through a very conservative lens. In terms of public education, many of the conversations in recent years have focused on the school choice movement and the increasing use of standardized test scores to hold schools “accountable” and label them “good or bad.” The re-envisioning (or dismantling depending on your vantage point), however, which has really solidified in the last few years is unfortunately much broader than that.
InA Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of the School, authors Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider (hosts of the popular podcast Have You Heard) go beyond talking about the conservative agenda and public education solely in terms of privatization and standardized testing. A Wolf explores other aspects of this agenda: vouchers, the rise of (pre-COVID) virtual schooling, the idea of “unbundling education,“ deregulation, limiting the role of organized labor, the use of ratings and advertising in public schools, and, at the heart of it all, free market thinking. More than just positioning efforts to dismantle public education as only a conservative, Republican ideology, Berkshire and Schneider also acknowledge the ways in which Democratic lawmakers have also contributed to a climate in which some not only see education and the way it is currently delivered as something that needs to radically change but also an sector to profit off of at times to the detriment of the most vulnerable student populations.
Both in laying out the current state of public education and providing key historical context, Berkshire and Schneider provide an extensive yet well laid out and easily understandable assessment of the issues at play in light of the substantial funding and efforts being allocated toward a very specific re-envisioning of public schooling that relies less on the idea of public education as a public good meant to benefit the collective and more so on individual needs that prioritize choice, competition and cost cutting. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door is a must read for anyone interested in the current state and future of public education in the United States.
_________
If purchasing, please consider buying from your local independent bookseller.
Axe body spray once shut down a school because the 6th grade boys produced such an excessive stench that 8 kids had to be hospitalized.
This isn’t the first medical incident that’s occurred due to students wearing Axe. A Pennsylvania high school had to completely ban the body spray after a student was hospitalized from exposure to a ‘hazardous substance.’ A year before that, Connecticut high school officials said that a fire alarm went off after a student sprayed an “overabundance” of Axe in a locker room.
There’s actually a term called ‘Wall of Axe,’ which refers to at least “8 boys, dousing themselves in Axe body spray (usually after gym) and standing together in a stairwell to create a Wall of Axe.”
You can find it in Urban Dictionary. And also probably in many emails exchanged between middle school teachers.
An insidious problem is lurking in Kentucky’s schools: Students across the state are reporting high amounts of psychological stress, anxiety, and depression. The problem has become so bad that suicide is now the second leading cause of death for the state’s youth.
While nationally, mental health awareness has increased, for Kentucky’s teenagers, the issue isn’t getting nearly enough attention. During her sophomore year, Kentucky high schooler Allison Tu realized mental health was being treated like an afterthought in her school. “One student told me that all of their suicide prevention education, which is mandated, technically, by Kentucky law but left up to districts to administer, is just a bookmark,” Tu explained to The Week. “A literal, physical bookmark that has a suicide prevention hotline number on it, and that was it.”
Also; to the kids. Please do your best to be responsible and careful at school. But you are also not to blame if you or your family gets sick in the coming months.
I love you all and you should not be used as a sacrifice like you are.
In 1990, the high school dropout rate for Dolly Parton’s hometown of Sevierville Tennessee was at 34% (Research shows that most kids make up their minds in fifth/sixth grade not to graduate). That year, all fifth and sixth graders from Sevierville were invited by Parton to attend an assembly at Dollywood. They were asked to pick a buddy, and if both students completed high school, Dolly Parton would personally hand them each a $500 check on their graduation day. As a result, the dropout rate for those classes fell to 6%, and has generally retained that average to this day.
Shortly after the success of The Buddy Program, Parton learned in dealing with teachers from the school district that problems in education often begin during first grade when kids are at different developmental levels. That year The Dollywood Foundation paid the salaries for additional teachers assistants in every first grade class for the next 2 years, under the agreement that if the program worked, the school system would effectively adopt and fund the program after the trial period.
During the same period, Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995: The idea being that children from her rural hometown and low-income families often start school at a disadvantage and as a result, will be unfairly compared to their peers for the rest of their lives, effectively encouraging them not to pursue higher education. The objective of the Imagination library was that every child in Sevier County would receive one book, every month, mailed and addressed to the child, from the day they were born until the day they started kindergarten, 100% free of charge. What began as a hometown initiative now serves children in all 50 states, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, mailing thousands of free books to children around the world monthly.
On March 1, 2018 Parton donated her 100 millionth book at the Library of Congress: a copy of “Coat of Many Colors” dedicated to her father, who never learned to read or write.
The tag that says that Dolly Parton is the backbone of American Society is correct. She’s probably done more than Congress at this point.
Dolly Parton is a national treasure.
Every president should talk to Dolly Parton at least once a week.
