Out of My Mind by

Out of My Mind

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-15 16:41:39 UTC

Summary

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-15 16:46:09 UTC

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper discusses what it is like to live with a disability. This book is from the perspective of Melody, a 11 year old with cerebral palsy. It discusses the struggles and challenges she has as a student with a disability. It also talks about the different stereotypes that are placed on students with disabilities. As you are reading the book you get to hear from Melody's perspective about how she overcomes these challenges.

Melody is in a special education classroom for her entire day in the beginning of the book and then she starts going to some inclusion classes. The reader gets to see how other students interact with the students with disabilities. She then gets a computer that enables her to speak and her life completely changes as she is now able to communicate with others. The book then goes on to talk about her joining the schools quiz team and how she overcomes everyones expectation about her and her abilities. Overall, the main theme of this book is about how a disability is just one aspect of peoples lives and that they are so much more than their disability label.

Personal connection

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-15 16:48:02 UTC

One personal connection that I have felt while reading this book is about my experience having a sister with a disability. My sister was diagnosed with hearing loss when she was about 5 years old. I have seen how people treat others differently just because they have a disability. My sister has had many experiences with people where they question her intelligence because of her disability. While reading this book I saw a lot of similarities between Melody and what I have seen with my sister. Melody always described how people would talk to her like she was a baby when she was really 11 and how that made her frustrated that people didn't understand more about her disability. Now, my sisters disability is not as severe as Melody's but I have still seen this happening with my sister as well. Many times people would talk very slowly to her or start talking to her like she was younger than she was. This is why it is so important to educate people on disabilities and how to treat people with disabilities. Just because people have physical disabilities does not mean that they have mental disabilities. We saw in Melody's case people would think she was not smart because she was not able to talk and voice her thoughts. Once she got her computer it allowed her to show people that they were underestimating her. While reading this story I really connected with these messages and have seen so many people underestimate people with disabilities just because they are different. If we can educate people more on disabilities we could stop this from happening so often.

Connection to class

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-15 16:51:42 UTC

In class, we have spent a lot of time talking about inclusion and how to accommodate students with disabilities into the classroom. This book did an amazing job of describing how inclusion might look. In the book, the special education classroom gets included into the music class. At first, many of the students were hesitant about this and there was still a strong divide in the class. But, as the book goes on the students start to become friends with one another and learn more about each other. In addition, it shows the benefits of inclusion. Melody was then able to go on and join the quiz team at the school because of being in an inclusive classroom. We have talked a lot about the benefits of inclusion and many of them were shown in the book. First, the inclusion classroom was extremely beneficial for social development. The students with disabilities were able to spend time with the general education students and they were able to interact and grow from one another. It also is beneficial for the general education students because it teaches them to not isolate the special education students and to engage with them like you would any other classmate. Another benefit of the inclusion class was the special education students were being challenged academically in ways they hadn't been before. Melody said that many times in the special education classroom she would learn the same thing every single year. In the general education classroom she was able to learn new things and demonstrate her knowledge to her teachers. This book does a great job of showing the benefits that can come from inclusion classes.

Another connections to this class was about the disability. Melody has cerebral palsy and we have talked a little bit about this disability in our class. Under IDEA, cerebral palsy is classified as an orthopedic impairment. It is not one of the more higher occurring disabilities so we have not discussed it too much. This book was a great way to learn more about the disability and how it impacts those that have it. Cerebral palsy affects a persons ability to move and balance. In the book, Melody has had severe problems with movement and balance. She uses a chair and cannot speak. This has caused her many challenges in her life. This book raises awareness of the disability and educates people on what having this disability entails.

Connection to outside world

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-15 16:57:19 UTC

Out of My Mind promotes visibility and normalization of people with disabilities. Many times when people with disabilities are in public they will get looks but this book shows us that when it is normalized, society will be more accepting of people with disabilities. If we, as a society, can become more educated on disabilities people would understand how to interact with people with disabilities. A disability is just one part of a person, not the whole person.Also, people with disabilities are often underestimated. In the book, at first nobody thought that Melody would be able to be on the quiz team but, she proved herself and proved that having a disability does not stop you from achieving your goals. This book showed that visibility is very important. If people with disabilities can see others with disabilities achieving it will motivate them to follow their passions. In the book, Melody talked about how seeing Steven Hawking made her feel more comfortable about her disability. She looked up to him and saw that if someone else with a disability could demonstrate her knowledge to people, so could she. One of her biggest fears was about people never hearing her thoughts and how smart she really was. So, for her, Steven Hawking was a role model she could look up to. This connects to the outside world as well because if people with disabilities can see themselves represented in the media, they will feel more confident about themselves.

Question for the future

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-15 17:03:02 UTC

How can we get students all of the resources they need to be successful in school?

In the book we saw that as soon as she had access to the computer that could talk for her, she was able to show teachers her abilities. How can we guarantee that all students can have access to resources that will benefit their learning.

How can we remove the stigma that is surrounded around students with disabilities?

How can we make sure that students are in their LRE?

All of these questions are important questions that still need to be considered in the special education field. This book has made me more intrigue in how we can guarantee that all special education students are getting a fair education.

Video

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-20 21:12:18 UTC

I thought this video was very insightful and it was interesting to hear from the perspective of people with Cerebral Palsy. I think there are so many misconceptions out there about people with disabilities so it is important to bring awareness to this and to show that people with CP can achieve so many things. People with disabilities are often looked at differently but if more people were educated on this topic than I think a lot more conversation about disabilities could be had and less misconceptions would be spread. This video showed some of the experiences these three people with CP have had and how they have felt as people with disabilities.

Article

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-27 16:11:38 UTC

This article talks about how a study was done about how to promote engagement in school for people with cerebral palsy. I thought this was interesting because it was a study that was focusing on how students with cerebral palsy learn best. It talked about how you can include students with cerebral palsy in the classroom in an affective way. I think that this research is important because we want to make sure that every student is getting the best education possible for them.

Article

hm990141_1 — 2024-04-27 16:16:18 UTC

This article talks about including students with cerebral palsy into a classroom. It talked about the importance of understanding the disability and how to successfully have an inclusion classroom. In addition, it addresses IEP's and how they should be written in a clear way that is easy to follow. I thought this was interesting because we have spent a lot of time in class talking about IEP's so it was good to learn more about how they can be utilized.