This is a speech I gave to a local Special Education Committee
(I also mailed a copy to all the area High School Assistant Principal and/or History Department Heads)
Virginia has a resolution designating the month of October as Disability History and Awareness Month.
I’m here to seek your help in gathering all students for my Disability History presentation. It’s about 30 minutes long. It’s a powerpoint. I also have on DVD.
I know this need to be an inclusive event. I have a few suggestions on how to do this:
- Work with history teachers to make coming to the presentation extra credit.
- Have a $20 gift card raffle, Best Buy OR movies. I will provide the gift card.
- Investigate how the ****** SEAC can advertise it to all students.
Maybe in morning PA announcement?
Disability awareness is important but I feel that you can't necessarily teach someone how to feel towards one another. Though by teaching about the history of a group it will lead to respect, compassion, understanding and breaking stereotypes about people with disabilities.
Teaching Disability History to all students will promote inclusion and improve disability employment rates.
Thank you for your time.
UPDATE: 10/3/14
I did receive a tiny bit of interest from the SE Committee in the form of emails, but I was not invited to give my presentation. I heard from a source they did recommend it to the school board without the gift card suggestion.
Thanks to a Partners in Policymaking connection, I'll be presenting to two classes at a local elementary. Click here to read how it went.
.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Friday, July 18, 2014
Ask Not What Your Country Can Do To Include You, Ask What You Can Do To Include Yourself In Your Country
I got nearly 100 likes on Facebook when I posted this, so I decided to Blog It!
I heard behind me at my local Recreation Center (pool) today,
“She can’t talk.” in a young sweet voice.
I turned my wheelchair around and in a kind cheerful tone said,
“Yes I can. How are you doing today?”
A few seconds went by, The four young girls started smiling. The staff person with them said they had went into the deep end of the pool.
“Was it fun?” I said with a smile.
They nodded and one of them said yes.
I love kids, they say what is on their mind. so simple and without malice.
All you have do is show up regularly. The general population will get used to you.
it’s no big deal.
Relationships and even friendships might form. Wow, what a concept.
ALSO this makes me ponder and remember.
- This young girl couldn't have been more than 6 and already the "can't" stereotype had set in. I can't wait for a couple of more weeks until Youth Leadership Forum ... a whole 5 days of telling them "You Can".
- Today I’m reminded of the reverse lie I told myself in tough situations when I was young.
I told myself, “Ivy, you do belong."
I really did belong that's why I’m calling it reverse. Fake it until you make it. Shame on whatever people or situations that made me reassure / lie to myself.
In the Facebook comments I said:
I hope parents don't 'unteach' my example. lol! It's the adults you have to worry about you know.
&
As I think back on this moment today, it was so awesome the staff person helped the convo along. She KNEW what I was up to. Major kudos to her.
Either I got there a minute too late or I wasn't listening until I heard CAN'T but I’m curious why the young girl said that in the first place? So cute! I’m very tickled by this little moment in time.
.
I heard behind me at my local Recreation Center (pool) today,
“She can’t talk.” in a young sweet voice.
I turned my wheelchair around and in a kind cheerful tone said,
“Yes I can. How are you doing today?”
A few seconds went by, The four young girls started smiling. The staff person with them said they had went into the deep end of the pool.
“Was it fun?” I said with a smile.
They nodded and one of them said yes.
I love kids, they say what is on their mind. so simple and without malice.
All you have do is show up regularly. The general population will get used to you.
it’s no big deal.
Relationships and even friendships might form. Wow, what a concept.
ALSO this makes me ponder and remember.
- This young girl couldn't have been more than 6 and already the "can't" stereotype had set in. I can't wait for a couple of more weeks until Youth Leadership Forum ... a whole 5 days of telling them "You Can".
- Today I’m reminded of the reverse lie I told myself in tough situations when I was young.
I told myself, “Ivy, you do belong."
I really did belong that's why I’m calling it reverse. Fake it until you make it. Shame on whatever people or situations that made me reassure / lie to myself.
In the Facebook comments I said:
I hope parents don't 'unteach' my example. lol! It's the adults you have to worry about you know.
&
As I think back on this moment today, it was so awesome the staff person helped the convo along. She KNEW what I was up to. Major kudos to her.
Either I got there a minute too late or I wasn't listening until I heard CAN'T but I’m curious why the young girl said that in the first place? So cute! I’m very tickled by this little moment in time.
.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Rustin Cohle Quotes - HBO True Detective
Hats off to HBO, fine job!
The one-liners (or a few) in this show were fantastic. Not to say I subscribe to what was flying out of Rust’s mouth, but maybe I do in some strange way. It intrigued me enough to blog about it.
By the third episode I knew I wanted to make a list of my favorite Rust quotes, here they are:
“It's thursday and it's past noon. Thursday is one of my days off. On Thursdays I start drinking at noon. You don't get to interrupt that.”
“I see a propensity for obesity. Poverty. A yen for fairy tales. Folks puttin' what few bucks they do have into a little wicker basket being passed around. I think it's safe to say nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom, Marty.”
“Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking.”
Marty: Well, I don’t use ten dollar words as much as you, but for a guy who sees no point in existence, you sure fret about it an awful lot; and you still sound panicked.
“At least I’m not racing to a red light.”
"People out here, it's like they don't even know the outside world exists. Might as well be living on the fucking Moon. It's all one ghetto, man. A giant gutter in outer space."
"I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of shit. And I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible. ....
You gotta get together and tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the goddamn day? What’s that say about your reality?"
"The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door."
"Death created time to grow the things that it would kill."
“There is no such thing as forgiveness. People just have short memories."
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey, 'He said for you to give me your fucking share.' People… so god damn frail they’d rather put a coin in the wishing well than buy dinner.
….Yeah, well if the common good’s gotta make up fairy tales then it’s not good for anybody.”
“People incapable of guilt, usually do have a good time.”
“All your life, all your love, all your hate, all your memory, all your pain... is all the same dream: The dream about being a person.”
“Men, women... it's not supposed to work except to make kids.”
“Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgements.
Everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that, you’re living wrong.”
“Life’s barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.”
“This is a bar, not a fucking bedside. And being stupid’s not the same thing as catching sick.”
"Well, once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning."
The one-liners (or a few) in this show were fantastic. Not to say I subscribe to what was flying out of Rust’s mouth, but maybe I do in some strange way. It intrigued me enough to blog about it.
By the third episode I knew I wanted to make a list of my favorite Rust quotes, here they are:
“It's thursday and it's past noon. Thursday is one of my days off. On Thursdays I start drinking at noon. You don't get to interrupt that.”
“I see a propensity for obesity. Poverty. A yen for fairy tales. Folks puttin' what few bucks they do have into a little wicker basket being passed around. I think it's safe to say nobody here's gonna be splitting the atom, Marty.”
“Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking.”
Marty: Well, I don’t use ten dollar words as much as you, but for a guy who sees no point in existence, you sure fret about it an awful lot; and you still sound panicked.
“At least I’m not racing to a red light.”
"People out here, it's like they don't even know the outside world exists. Might as well be living on the fucking Moon. It's all one ghetto, man. A giant gutter in outer space."
"I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal."
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of shit. And I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible. ....
You gotta get together and tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the goddamn day? What’s that say about your reality?"
"The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door."
"Death created time to grow the things that it would kill."
“There is no such thing as forgiveness. People just have short memories."
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey, 'He said for you to give me your fucking share.' People… so god damn frail they’d rather put a coin in the wishing well than buy dinner.
….Yeah, well if the common good’s gotta make up fairy tales then it’s not good for anybody.”
“People incapable of guilt, usually do have a good time.”
“All your life, all your love, all your hate, all your memory, all your pain... is all the same dream: The dream about being a person.”
“Men, women... it's not supposed to work except to make kids.”
“Look, as sentient meat, however illusory our identities are, we craft those identities by making value judgements.
Everybody judges, all the time. Now, you got a problem with that, you’re living wrong.”
“Life’s barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you get good at.”
“This is a bar, not a fucking bedside. And being stupid’s not the same thing as catching sick.”
"Well, once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning."
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