Overall from todays lecture and tutorials I have learned how important it is to make sure that people with disabilities, physical or not, are getting equal opportunities. This session highlighted how far disabled people have come in their fight to be treated the same as everyone else. In ancient times disabled people were often killed or sent to homes or other institutes as they were ‘different’ to the others around them. This thankfully has evolved, although not as much as some may hope. Some places around the world still don’t offer lifts or ramps for people in wheelchairs meaning they are not getting the same opportunities as those that can walk. Another thing that I found very interesting, and another main concept that was covered today, was that not everyone is born with a disability, it can be acquired over time, which I think is important for everyone to understand.
At first when the universal design was brought up I was struggling to comprehend how it would work or look. After looking it up on the internet and asking my peers and lecturer about this topic I grew a further understanding of how it would work. I also looked online to find some pictures of the universal design being used on some buildings. This helped me to comprehend it and understand it further.
A definite skill that will need to be improved for the exam and for the future is my language that I use when discussing the topic disability. I feel like I need to do more research and reading on the appropriate langue to use while talking about this topic to ensure I do not offend anyone. I think especially when I become a teacher this is something I will need to keep in mind as, “at least 15 per cent of the world’s people have a significant, long-term, physical or mental impairment that can and usually does disable them from taking part in the usual educational” (Rieser, 2012, p. 159), and so this is a rising problem that I am sure to encounter in my future career.
I feel like overall I understood everything very well as I was engaged and interested in what we were learning. As I previously said this is a very relevant topic that everyone should be aware of, and especially in schools I think children should be taught this from a young age to help there understanding of the term and to make them treat everyone in their class and community equally.
