I will be honest I never get really excited when I am assigned a reading. I never feel like I have the time to sit down and read chapters out of a book that I have never heard of before. However, I found this read to be a pretty easy read. I feel like this book is going to be very easy to follow, understand, and read.
Chapter 1: Chapter one is basically just an introductory chapter. This chapter sets us up for what the whole book is going to be about. As I have been reading I have been highlighting information that really seemed to stand out for me or information that I thought was interesting.
On page 3 this sentence really stood out to me "The problem is that around the United States and elsewhere parents, teachers, and administrators are making decisions about academic placement and teaching methods for those children on the basis of what is frequently incorrect or at least incomplete information." This is really a scary statement to me. It really made me stop and think about all the information floating around about deafness and academics. It is scary to think that parents, teachers, and administrators could be going to Internet sites that hold invalid information and taking that information as truth and then deciding the child's academic path based on this information. The other day my model teacher was talking about a time when a parent came into an IEP meeting quoting invalid information from the Internet and criticizing the school system because they didn't know anything. I guess what I am trying to get at is that it is very important to really evaluate where you get your information from.
I also found the "Key Findings Index" to be a very interesting section. I also think that it is helpful because beside each finding the authors gave you a direct page number that you can go to and read the rest of the information. As I read through the key findings I felt as though we have discussed most of them at some point in time in our classes. I think that it is great to see the information we have discussed in class published in other works.
Chapter 2: Chapter two focused on the demographics, diversity, and foundational issues. I found the statistics to be very interesting. I really enjoyed reading about the incidence of deafness in developed countries vs. the incidence of deafness in developing countries. Up until reading this chapter I had not put much thought to deafness in developing countries. I know it sounds silly, but it is something that just doesn't really get talked about.
Chapter 3: This chapter highlights all the different types of research that can take place. The following is a list of methods that were discussed:
1. Randomized clinical trials...experimental research
2. Quasi-experimental research
3. Single-subject research
4. Correlational research
5. Qualitative research
6. Practice-based wisdom
Today, in China, as well as in other developing countries, many deaf children still cannot go to school. We should let our students know how lucky they are!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that it is scary to think that people take what they read on the internet as truth and base their decisions for education on that information. I hope we (the future deaf educators) can help many parents with information that is true so they can then make a decision on education for their child. I also enjoyed reading chapter two. I find information of other countries and how they educate (or don't) deaf students so interesting. I think it is sad that all individuals are not given the opportunity to be educated and succeed in life. Maybe one day that can all change...hopefully.
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