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>>Professor Long: Welcome to NIU's
Perspectives on Disability MOOC.
I'm Professor Greg Long.
This is our final lesson in the MOOC.
As we've gone through the lessons
you've heard from a number of guest speakers.
I recognized, however, when I looked
at the entirety of what they had to say
there was quite a bit of perspectives, ideas,
and advice that we have not yet been able to include
in any of the previous lessons.
As such, this lesson is really going to be
devoted entirely to the guest speakers.
They will take center stage.
And they're going to talk first about attitudinal barriers.
They'll give you some more etiquette suggestions.
Got a section where they'll provide some
personal perspectives, talk about the value
of educating others, and then end with some advice
for students as well as advice for parents.
I would like to call your attention to two unique aspects
of this week's quiz and activities.
During Lesson One, you were asked to respond to
a pre-test regarding definitions, barriers,
Universal Design, and person-first language.
In this, our final lesson, the quiz will serve as a post-test.
That is, you will be asked to respond
to similar types of questions.
As always, you will have the opportunity to take the quiz
as many times as needed to attain an 80% correct rate.
The second change in this week's lesson
relates to activities.
In past weeks, you have had the opportunity to choose
among six different activities.
This week, however, we only have one activity.
Specifically, we ask that you write a brief, no more
than 1 or 2 page reflection and evaluation paper.
Basically, we would like to find out what you've learned
and how you expect to apply this information.
The evaluation part relates to suggestions for the course.
What suggestions do you have for improvement?
For example, what topics and/or types of guest speakers
could we include in a future MOOC?
With that said, let's move to the guest speakers.
In this first segment they will share
some additional perspectives about attitudinal barriers.
>>Alex: Someone had helped me gather all of my books.
And it had taken a little bit longer for the cashier
to ring up all -- ring up my order and at that time
there were a lot of people that were coming in because
it was very busy, it was the beginning of the semester.
And she had said, oh, can you hold on a bit.
I have to get these other people and me being a nice guy,
I didn't say anything. But I was very offended.
Because I was there first, you know.
I thought it was first come, first serve.
But I did say something -- I did call the bookstore
afterwards, and that woman from what I understand had been
talked to because they had apologized to me for that.
And the next time I went there,
this woman wasn't ringing up my order.
I was very happy, very happy about that.
My biggest concern, though, was gym class.
I had a really great gym teacher
when I was in elementary school.
She made sure I did everything,
even when I wasn't really sure of myself,
she made sure I participated.
She adapted everything for me. She was great.
But when I got into junior high and into high school,
it was very different.
I was off to the side a lot.
And even when the kids would run in class, the teacher --
the teacher would have me run on the inside
of the cones in the class.
Because his logic was I ran a lot slower than the other kids,
and so he didn't want me to trip them.
And that was his logic too when I would want
to play basketball with the other kids.
You know, he said, oh, you know, you might trip someone
and they could fall, so you might hurt someone.
And that was pretty frustrating.
>>Aaron: The bigger barriers are the attitudes.
To give an example, to give a quick story,
my wife who is hearing impaired to give an answer,
is that we went shopping.
And a person -- we were signing using ASL,
and that's how we communicate.
And a person who works there came over.
And they said do you two talk. We get that question a lot.
I go, yes, we talk.
And my wife came over
and said what are you two talking about.
And the second question that the sales associate
said is she stupid.
Well, I just -- whoa. What am I going to do?
I told my wife.
She got upset, of course.
But it was that stereotype deaf and dumb type thinking.
The only thing we don't like is pity.
That's a huge barrier. Pity is crappy.
I'm going to be honest. It's an awful word.
But pity, we don't like -- don't pity us.
We don't like that.
>>Dale Sczweck: It depends on how I go out that day.
If - as someone who's partially sighted,
I can use either my cane, my dog.
Or if I want to take a chance, go out without anything.
If I go out with a cane,
I'm usually treated as a social pariah.
People see the cane and they're confused by it,
scared by it, and generally just want to avoid it.
If they see the dog, they generally want to pet the dog,
play with the dog, and will sometimes talk to me,
but will also sometimes act as if the dog is there and I'm not.
If I go out without it, I tend to get treated
as you would treat anybody else, and my vision difficulty
is referred to as a vision difficulty
rather than blindness....
You definitely have more communication with people.
And what that does is it tends to open the door.
So afterwards if I have the cane and the dog,
it's not as big of a deal.
It's that initial interaction that seems
to be eased by the lack of travel aid.
>>Dale Spencer: The issue of disclosure when it comes
to my disability itself, we're a visual society.
And somebody looking at me, you know,
remember it's all about tact too.
There's always one in every crowd that comes up to me
and is like, oh, what the heck happened to you
or whatever, which is ridiculous.
I'm not going to get offended.
I'll just say, yeah, I just had, I broke my back or whatever.
>>Mark: Because my disability is invisible,
people aren't necessarily jumping through hoops to try
and make accommodations, right,
or to make things more accessible.
Likewise they're also not willing to make accommodations
when things look absolutely normal.
>>Sarah: I was giving a presentation and someone
-- the person who was introducing me,
I was sitting down at the time, she came over
and she was like "And this is Sarah,"
and she patted me on the head.
And -- how do you respond to something like that?
They automatically because of your disability seemed to --
seemed to not -- I don't know, treat you like a kid.
No.
Not all blind people know other blind people.
That's -- for example, I was on a train
and I think it was Amtrak. I was riding Amtrak.
And I had -- a conductor asked, oh, you know that
other blind guy over there, right.
I didn't even know there was another blind guy on the train.
So, no, I wouldn't know this person.
Or if I happen to be with, say, a blind guy,
people will be like, oh, you must be dating.
That's not true.
He happens to be a friend of mine who happens to be blind.
It's annoying when people think that all of us know each other.
>>Sheila: Assumptions.
Just as far as two weeks ago, I still had that assumption
from a physical therapist.
A physical therapist came in.
I was having a procedure for something,
something that's common.
And in the hospital, the physical therapist
came in to ask me, well, who do you live with, you know?
Who do you live with?
And I said, well, I have an 18-year-old that lives with me.
And so you have things like that.
Who do you live with?
It's always assumed that you need help.
I pride education. I pride leadership.
There's still people who feel
like they should run your life. Make decisions for you.
They still should make decisions for you.
And I don't know whether to relate that
to being Black or whether disability.
The majority of time I think it's with the disability.
It's with the disability.
Your captive audience and your location.
And conversations are held just over above your head, you know.
And if you say something or if you react to it,
you're placed in a stereotype.
Traveling, going to the airlines,
you're often asked who's with you.
And I always point to that person standing up right there.
And they look around before they catch on.
Oh, there's nobody there. You know, they're with me.
It's always -- and you always
--you're always confronted with can I help you.
Can I help you- not even good morning.