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This week I learned a lot about the emotional roller coaster parents are thrown on when they learn their student has a disability. In the past, I never thought about how I would feel if someone told me my child would have a harder time accomplishing the things I hoped for her future.  I never thought about how parents grieve for the easy road they hoped their child would be able to travel.
A second thing I never considered is how physically and emotionally draining it must be for parents to keep up with all the aspects of their child's life to ensure they are receiving the proper instruction, intervention, social interactions, medications, etc. Taking my child to her yearly check ups seems daunting for me but to have added appointments and goals to be working towards would be even more exhausting. I learned how parents of students with disabilities put in a lot of time, thoughts, worries, and energy into making life the most accessible for their child.
In my future and current jobs, being more aware and understanding about how parents are feeling when they come in to talk with me is very important. Educators are an essential connection for parents and it is important we make them feel like we are doing what is necessary and best for their children.  Having a better understanding of parents' feelings will make parents feel more at ease and less stressed. This will create a better working relationship between the parents and school.

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This week I learned how important is it to listen to parents. As teachers we often talk to parents about their child's educational goals, but the videos this week reminded me how important it is to stop and listen to parents.
Through the readings and our discussion this week I also learned about the assumption of poverty and how it can be inadvertently racist.
In the future keeping in mind the feelings of parents with students with special needs will help me to be a better educator and building administrator. Also it is and will be important for me to continue to make sure that the curriculum I use in the classroom is culturally relevant for my students.

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This week, I was reminded of just how emotional it can be for parents to learn about  and deal with their child's disability.  Also, I learned some useful tips to encourage parents to be more involved and advocate for their child's educational process.  One huge take away for me is to welcome surrogate family members because they can at times be very helpful in educational process of the child with disability.

Often times I meet with parents who seem to have a lot of information about  their child.  It can seem as if they don't trust others to be helpful in the child's information.  However, after reading the articles and doing the activity I can now empathize more with these type of parents because they may have to take on  these many roles rather than volunteer.

The information that I learned this week I will be using it in my current job to

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I learned several things this week, but here are two notable ideas that stuck out to me.

First, as discussed in the IRIS model, parents who have children with disabilities have to play so many roles in their child’s life. From case manager, medical expert, advocate, inclusion specialist, transition specialist, to personal futures planner, these parents have more roles than parents with children without disabilities. Being a mom is exhausting, but functioning under all these roles would be a new level of physical and emotional exhaustion. When work with these parents it is important to understand their complex relationship with their child.

Second, I continue to see how intensely the public schools has used disability as a means of categorizing, stratifying, and excluding students of color. . African American students are and have been disproportionately represented in special education. They are labeled with disabilities at a much higher rate than their white peers.

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The point that sticks most in my mind this week is that cultural differences play an important role in how parents react to the diagnosis of a disability in their child. It is important for professionals to recognize these cultural differences for what they are, not as something necessarily "wrong" just because it doesn't fit our own cultural expectations for these situations.

I also learned more about labels and special education becoming ways to increase division and manifest racism. I wonder what part culture plays in this as well?

I will continue to be vigilant about cultural differences and expectations, something highly important as a therapist. Identifying cultural expectations and boundaries can result in more effective interventions. I will be more aware of not only my client's cultural expectations, but those of their families and how this affects the way they view their child's (even adult child) disability.

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First I learned that "advocates for the right of all children with disabilities to a public education framed special education as one of the answers to the inequities of eras past."  However, it is "learned" that Blanchett, Klingner, and Harry (2013) provide this statement in contradiction to an article that we read earlier in the semester.  In that article it was stated that white middle class students were provided the "opportunity" to have access to curricula aside from the standard general ed curriculum to enable their opportunities of a society of white privilege.  And secondly, although there has been exposure to other literature and data to support it, I learned a more precise reference to the fact that "The reluctance of many states to comply with the Brown ruling led to the first official allegations of the use of special classes to continue covert forms of racial segregation." .

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One thing I have learned this week is that how IQ tests had been used to give the misleading information about students of color’s intelligence level. As it is stated in the article, The Intersection of Race, Culture, Language, and Disability Implications for Urban Education, “IQ tests reflect the cultural, social, and linguistic knowledge of the mainstream (e.g., Hilliard, 1994; Samuda, 1998) and thus, in comparison, students of color are more likely to appear deficient when in fact they are not.” Even though the IQ tests do not measure the intelligence level, they had been used to determine the level of intelligence which is really hard for me to accept that this happened in USA.

Secondly, this week’s readings made me try to walk in disabled students’ parents’ shoes. It is so difficult to find extra time to spend with your disabled child while you have to work even more to have enough money to meet this child’s medical expenses or other needs.

This information will help me not only in my teaching career to be more sensitive and more helpful to parents of disabled students, but also be supportive to people around me who have a disabled child.

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This week I was reminded just how much parents of children with disabilities go through each day to provide for their children. All the many hats they have to wear, the worry and anxiety they could have, even the financial struggles that many have to endure can be tremendous and overwhelming.

I also learned a great deal about what kinds of assumptions and excuses are used to explain the disproportionate amount of African American children in special education settings. I had heard many of those arguments before, but some were entirely new and made very logical and thorough analysis of why these assumptions are harmful.

Family struggles and racism in school systems are both issues that require advocacy and proactiveness. I need to not only be aware of what my families are going through and also what my students of color may be experiencing, but I need to find ways to be an advocate in our community. Knowing something is not the same as doing something about it, so I need to actively seek out ways to empower our students and families in spite of these systemic issues.

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One thing I've learned this week is the way leadership and power are interchangeable especially when it comes down to support minority and students of color. It is so important not to make assumptions about race, culture. environment, social economic status when supporting students. Our mindsets need to continue to provide resources and opportunities that have students as the focus and not necessarily what we want. Another thing is that there still this issue of segregated schools. As much as would though it was in the past, this issue is still prevalent. Like Malcom X, who is one of my favorite scholars said: " The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world.

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One thing I learned this week is the way in which teachers should interact with families. We truly are a team and we are all here to best serve the student. It is important for teachers to listen to parents and value their input because in the end, the parents know the child better than we ever will.
The other thing that I learned that I found interesting was the different ways in which different cultures view disabilities. This is something that I never considered and I will be much more aware of this from now on.

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Carrie W.I learned a lot about collabor ~ation with families.  I have judged families that don't seem to be involved with their child's education.  However, the IRIS module pointed out that while they may care about the child's education, other more pressing matters might be healthcare, paying bills and buying food.  I will definitely be more open minded in the future.  

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Carrie W.I learned a lot about collabor ~ation with families.  I have judged families that don't seem to be involved with their child's education.  However, the IRIS module pointed out that while they may care about the child's education, other more pressing matters might be healthcare, paying bills and buying food.  I will definitely be more open minded in the future.  

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The second item that struck me is that different cultures view disabilities differently.  Hispanics may see it as an act of God and dedicate themselves to their child while other ethnicities believe their child is defective and want much less involvement.  This will be important to know if I go to work at a more culturally diverse school system.

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Being a teacher is more than just the student/teacher relationship, but also the teacher's relationship with the families. It's important to know where the family comes from and how that affects the child. As a teacher, I can be aware of what parents will soon be doing with their child, whether it be helping them transition schools to letting them know how their child is doing in IEP meetings, so that they can decide what is best for their child.

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One of the things I learned this week was that we must be culturally aware and responsive as public educators. Too often we get caught up in our day to day operations and forget or don't know how to use a critical race or culturally responsive lens as part of our practice. In order to bring about more inclusiveness and an education that is for all students, we must ensure we are critically examining the intersections of race, culture, language, and disability.
I also learned that segregation is alive and well in our public education system even after the Brown decision and that schools are in the process of re-segregating. Unfortunately, some of this is due to the over-representation of students of color in special education.

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The first thing that I learned this week was how we need to consider each families individual situation and complexity inorder to better understand them and provide ways of encouraging involvement that will be possible for the family dependent on their family situation. Another thing I learned was what CRT means. So far, most terms and concepts I have recognized and someone had some prior knowledge, but CRT was something that threw me off and made me need to look up more information. This information will allow me to have a better understanding for racial inequalities that are still present in the education system and allow me key points to remember when working with families when I graduate and become a social worker.

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I learned how teachers can provide a supportive role to families who have children with disabilities by listening to families, respecting the families, and acknowledging the student's strengths.  I also learned the roles parents may play to advocate for their child.  These may include medical expert on the specific disability, inclusion specialist, case manager, and primary therapist and nurse.
I am respectful when interacting with parents of children with disabilities whether by the telephone or in person, so this information assists me to remember the perspective from the parent's role and point of view about their child and their disability.

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The most interesting thing I learned this week was how different cultures recognize their children with disabilities. In the article The Intersection of Race, Culture, Language, and Disability it explained the differences in attitude between Hispanic, African American, and White mothers of children with disabilities. Understanding how parents feel about their children with disabilities will help teachers serve the child in a holistic way. If the parents see the child as a burden teachers must help the child not feel that judgement.
I also learned good strategies to use when working with families of children with disabilities. The strategy that will help me in my current and future job is creating an accepting environment for students and families. As a teacher understanding that sometimes my job is to help the families see the strengths in their children.