Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Free-Speech...just not for teachers?!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Testing for Disabilities
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Medicating Children
Friday, March 25, 2011
Is full inclusion Desirable?
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
What Should Teachers be Informed About?
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Sheltered Workshops? Yay or Nay?
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The "R" Word
In our Adaptive PE class we were speaking about the “R” word. Many of us had strong opinions about its usage. I know from my own experience that I do not like the word because of its offensive nature, but I feel like whether you say the R-word, challenged, disabled or special, it means the same thing.
Special Olympics began a campaign to eliminate the words “retard” and “retarded” back in 2004, and this article shows the NBA players also backing the campaign. A strong argument to eradicate the word is that words matter! They can be very offensive and hurtful and using the R-word is a prime example of narrow mindedness. Another blog article shows that legislation in some states is now starting to eradicate the R-word. So on the one hand there is the argument that words matter and we should not use or include offensive language in our vocabulary. The “n” word for example would never be associated with organisations and legislation nowadays so the “r” word should not be either. On the other hand, the cost of changing old legislation to eradicate the R-word would be extremely high and many organisations would not be in favour of this. Also changing the word does not necessarily change the attitude. People will find new ways to say the same hateful things so some could argue will changing the word eradicate the problem?
So our questions to you are what is your opinion on the use of the R-word? And do you think changing the word will help change peoples’ attitude?