COURANT: Racism and Learning Disabilities

[Mort Zuckerman]

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Subject: COURANT: Racism and Learning Disabilities

Date: Nov 12, 2008 7:06 PM

[ARTICLE BELOW]


It has never yet been proven that children of color are inferior
learners because
the question of diction in the family and its effect on learning to
read via phonics
has never been addressed.

I had the good fortune of an older brother who was learning disabled.
So, to address
his reading disability, his mother had purchased these phonic records
that help
kids learn to read at their own pace, with associated books (pictures
and words)
that went with the records.

I helped myself to these educational tools and thus had a jump on the
reading game,
being two years younger than my brother.

I am certain that phonics is the key to reading. I have autism, so I
have always
watched people's mouths -ENUNCIATING the words, the letters, the code
(which
translates visually to an autistic kid), too, since that's part of the
"decoding."

I have a verbal learning disability.

Naturally I am sensitive to these learning disability issues.

Listen to me speak:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS9-B7G3Ha8

Do I sound stupid?

NO.

http://www.actionlyme.org/PsychEval_2.htm

On the second test (not scanned in) I scored more than two standard
deviations below
normal in verbal processing and recall.

This is a learning disability, but the only people who ever said I was
retarded
was the OPAPD, who told me I belonged to the Department of Mental
Retardation.

LOL.

I'm not kidding.


But I remember statements made about me like "like Ted
Kascynski" (Yale's
James Phillips) and "dangerously intelligent" (DMHAS's Kenneth
Marcus),
because that is so freaking off-the-wall INSANE.

No one's ever been criminally charged with "INTELLIGENT" before
in America, to my knowledge. Phillips' "issue" was the malpractice
and brain damage (you have to show damages in a malpractice lawsuit):
http://www.actionlyme.org/PENISBITERDOCS.htm

There's the proof. Karen Forschner was a witness.

So was Edward McSweegan:
http://www.actionlyme.org/McSweegan_Stalking_Feb_2001_38a561b9b28962b5.htm


Sweeg was at the FDA hearing, too, sitting in the back of
the Versailles Room:
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/slides/3680s2_11.pdf

How dangerously intelligent like Ted Kascynski of me to
be telling the FDA that the diagnostic standard for Lyme
changed and that therefore Yale had no data:
http://www.actionlyme.org/DICKSON_FDA_SUBMISSION_FULL.htm



Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org

=========================================
http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-ubinas1106nov06,0,955567.column

Time To Reject Outdated Ideas About Race

Helen Ubiñas
November 6, 2008

Imagine what would have happened if a young Barack Obama had seen
himself the way
many adults saw him.

If he believed that he was merely a black face in the crowd and
actually bought
into the low expectations endured by so many children of color.

We wouldn't be celebrating today, watching racial barriers fall and
talking
about the possibility of better days ahead.

But then I was yanked back into reality and found myself wondering
just how many
future men and women of greatness are having their young minds shooed
to the back
of the bus in Manchester's classrooms.

Helen Ubiñas Helen Ubiñas E-mail | Recent columns

For the past week, I've been trying to wrap my head around the
stunningly racist
comments made in a news story by a diversity "expert" on the
challenges
of teaching in a school system where the minority enrollment had
climbed above 50
percent. "Everything we do should be done through the lens of race,"
said
Diane Clare-Kearney.

Black and brown "boys," she proclaimed, don't learn the way whites
do. They're "rambunctious," "late bloomers." And note-taking?
Well, let's just say putting pen to paper is not their strength.

My God, I thought. Who thinks that?

Turns out Clare-Kearney is a celebrated administrator who also happens
to be black
— a fact that supporters used to defend her, as if her skin tone made
her dated
and damaging claims any less offensive.

When I called her, she initially insisted that her comments were made
generally
and were applicable to all boys, no matter their color. But soon
enough she explained
that the fact is that black and brown children do learn differently
from their white
counterparts. Fact? Actually, plenty of data suggest it's nothing more
than
an insulting school of thought that doesn't take into account
individual differences
or class. A dangerous suggestion that reaches back to Jim Crow days
when people
of color were thought to be inferior simply because of their race.

It cut even deeper when I thought about my own nieces and nephew and
imagined teachers
paternalistically adapting their lesson plans to accommodate their
"limitations."
Their parents expect more. They deserve more.

When I watched a tape of the school board meeting at which Clare-
Kearney made these
comments, I could almost understand why she said these things. It was
clear she's
up against fear from board members who seemed almost relieved of being
given an
out, a reason that put the burden on the students.

Those same fears were apparent on Main Street when I spoke to many who
said that
race is an issue the town has long struggled with, in the elderly
couple who talked
about how they miss the old days, before "things changed." In the kids
who talked about lower, unequal expectations in their classrooms.

Understand I am not condemning a whole town here, or even the entire
school system.
I know teachers and residents who think this is nonsense. And you do
have to give
people credit for at least trying to talk about tough issues.

I am also not naive enough to think that just because other experts in
other school
systems don't overtly subscribe to this school of thought that there
aren't
teachers looking at black and brown children with the same low
expectations.

But school officials in Manchester clearly have no idea what kind of
damage they
are causing.

If I were a parent with children of color in that school system, I'd
seriously
think about pulling them out until they reject these dated ideas.

I know that may sound harsh, but I couldn't bear imagining my child
being cheated
just because of the color of their skin.

Helen Ubiñas' column appears on Thursdays and Sundays. Read her blog
at courant.com/helen.