Olivia


 * “A Diversity of Voices: Physical Education Teachers’ beliefs about Inclusion and Teaching Students with Disabilities” by Samuel Hodge **

Hodge, S., Ammah, J. A., Casebolt, K. M., LaMaster, K., Hersman, B., Samalot-Rivera, A., & Sato, T. (2009). A Diversity of Voices: Physical education teachers' beliefs about inclusion and teaching students with disabilities. International Journal Of Disability, Development & Education, 56(4), 401-419. doi:10.1080/10349120903306756

__Summary __
====This article mainly focuses on the idea of how to properly teach a classroom that has both students with disabilities and students without disabilities. Classrooms like this are becoming more common, but not all teachers are receiving the proper training that is necessary to teach a classroom of students with disabilities. The articles mainly focuses on the idea that //inclusion// is necessary for these students (//inclusion is “an approach that supports the placement of all students whatever their abilities or disabilities in classes with their peers.”)// ====

__Reflection __
====I found this article extremely relevant to what a lot of us will be facing as teachers one day. Due to the fact that getting dual certification in Education/Special Education, more and more students are choosing to opt for it, making themselves far more desirable for potential job interviews. The article refers to making sure that students with disabilities are included and given the chance to participate just as much as those students who don’t have disabilities. Disability or not, students are students, and all students deserve the same opportunities in the classroom. ====

__Explanation __
====The article will definitely lead to a positive outlook for me and my future classroom. I thought it was interesting to see that some students with disabilities actually prefer to mingle and work with the rest of the classroom, even if it may lead to more challenges for them. Teachers definitely need to have the right skills taught to them from the get go, because you can never anticipate which types of disabilities you will see in the class, whether it's a developmental disorder like autism, or a physical disability like visual impairment. ====

Precious-The Movie

  The movie, Precious, is a very emotional movie that gained a lot of recognition for its deep plot. The main focus of the movie is around a teenage girl named Precious from Harlem. At the age of 16, she has lived an extremely rough life. She has battled obesity all her life, she is unable to read, and to top it all of, she becomes pregnant with her //second// child (adding to that, she was impregnated by her estranged father. Also, she has suffered from long-term mental, physical, and emotional abuse from her mother. She is suspended from her high school because of the second pregnancy, which results in her being enrolled in alternative form of school, with the intention of helping her turn in life around, and start it off in a new, //better// direction.

 The groups being depicted in this movie are African Americans, the poor population, those suffering from abuse, and pregnant teenagers.  Watching this movie definitely changed my perspective on some of the possible students I might be facing in the classroom. It definitely gives me a whole new perspective on certain scenarios that I could be facing, because these are not exactly scenarios my mind would instantly have jumped to. If there was a pregnant child in my classroom, I would never in a million years that something as severe as incest may be happening. It shows that you can never truly know exactly what is going on at the home front. Just by looking at a student, you are not able to tell how much money they have, what type of treatment they are receiving form their parents, etc. Hopefully by watching this movie, I will be more atoned to the sings of abuse at home, and be able to recognize a student begging for help. By learning from a movie like this, I might be able to have some of the answers for these students.

 Especially if end up teaching a more diverse group of students, maybe at a large public school in the city perhaps, I think this type of movie will be extremely beneficial for my teaching style, and the community I will be teaching in. Much like I said before, it has definitely widened my perspective on the diverse types of students I will be teaching. Scenarios like this are also not unique to a certain ethnicity or background, like for African Americans in this case. This is something that could happen to every single type of student I will have in my classroom, no matter what type of background they come from.

 I don't think that there would be many subject courses, or lessons where I would be able to incorporate this into a lesson plan (unless I were to add a unit on the idea of overall Awareness to a class, perhaps during Black History Month.) But on the other hand, this is definitely a movie I would recommend all my students to see at some point in their lives. It is definitely an eye opener, and even though it may not change a young students life, it can show kids that things like Precious' life are actually going on in the world. And for those students that are facing some type of hardship in their own life, maybe this movie can encourage them to do something about it. Even though I would definitely recommend this movie to my students, it is an extremely deep and emotional movie, with extremely graphic material. Due to the fact that most students can be unaware of the fact that scenarios like this are happening everyday, it may be hard for some to take, especially with the graphic details and explicit representations of real life crimes/scenarios.

Overall, I consider this an extremely emotional story that deserves everyone's attention. It's a shame that scenarios like this are currently taking place in our world today, and hopefully more movies like this will be able to change some of that.