Before completing the readings and videos assigned for this week, I did not know as much about disabilities in culture and society. I also was not fully aware of the social constructivist model of disability before the readings. Something that stuck out to me during Stella Young’s TED talk, was the point that she made about the fact that many people only experience disabled people as “an object of inspiration”. Overall, many of the points made during Stella Young’s TED talk made me think about how many people with disabilities are treated in our society.
One way that we can negate someone’s disability would be to allow them full access to spaces that people without disabilities easily access daily. For example, I know someone who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy. She works in an office building that does not have ramps and automatic doors. She always says that she gets angry whenever she has to ask someone for help. Making sure that doors automatically open for people with disabilities will help minimize their “disability”. Having ramps for people with disabilities will also help. Although some buildings have this modification, many buildings that do not offer these modifications for people with disabilities. These modifications will allow for people with disabilities to go about their daily lives without feeling like they are constantly needing assistance. Disability as a social construct means that our society, in many ways, causes people with disabilities to feel “disabled”. In order to change this, we will need to change the way society views people with disabilities. I think that Stella Young’s TED talk was a great way to explain how people with disabilities feel in society today.
Stella Young made a strong argument that I had never previously thought about before. Young goes into depth about how the world has this perception that everyone with disabilities are inspirational. We think that they are so inspiring because having a disability must be so terrible therefore it's amazing that they live with it. Young tells of a time when someone approached her parents and told them that they wanted to nominate her for the Community Achievement Award. Young explains how that was funny cause she hadn't actually achieved anything but when people see a wheelchair they assume otherwise. People who are disabled don't see themselves as an inspiration because they know they are capable of doing almost anything. However, It is the world that we live in that causes people with disabilities to feel disabled. That is what disability as a social construct is. The word “disability” is what we as a society make of it and we make that word into something bad. I must admit I was like everyone else. This is all different to how I previously thought about people with disabilities. I always thought that what they did was inspirational but now I know that they are living their life just like me.
I live in a sorority house where there is no elevator or wheelchair ramps. At the beginning of the year of one of my close friends broke her pelvis and was required to stay in a wheelchair for the first 3 weeks of her recovery. She physically could not live in the house because there was no way for her to even get in or get up to her bedroom. She ended up going home for most of the time because our house was not wheelchair accessible. My house could be modified by adding in a ramp outside in order to get to the front door. It could also be helpful to add in either an elevator or a device that hooks up to the wheelchair which lifts the chair up the stairs.
注：本栏目重在收集一些海外留学文书的题目，以便加加留学编辑深入了解海外教育方式与发展形势，从而拓展个人陈述、推荐信等文书的写作思路。
