dennis carlson's : gayness, multicultural education, and community

connection

i really wanted to switch up my post this week, but i seriously couldn't get passed the connection i continued coming back to. normal, what in the world does that mean? and why does someone have to be it in order to be socially accepted? although it is kind of off topic, it just brings me back to a book i read in high school. i was doing my senior project and read a ton of books on autism, and one of the books was just a bunch of different incredible stories of children with autism, and one story has stuck through with me for years now. it’s off a 12 year old autistic girl, and the story concludes with this girl asking what is normal, and who wants to be normal any way? i just couldn't even grasp the fact that someone at her age and with her disabilities understood that "normal" isn't real.

i really enjoyed how carlson addressed the issue and explained it so well. the different discourses or the "invisible glass" we talk about in class, are all so real, and again because were unaware it takes something like this article to wake us up. sexual orientation is not something that should be forced into a category to classify as "normal" or "abnormal". but it still stands true; in the class "the family" it is taught that a family consists of a mother a father and children. and anything outside of that can be called a family but is usually given some other name deeming it different and unusual. and in our life under certain discourses this is true. this is our norm. but how can we just pretend it doesn’t exist? to not even acknowledge or accept it in the teachings of a general education course at a college seems just absurd.

carlson wants to change that norm, to make it so that someone with a "different" sexual orientation can feel accepted and normal. but in order to change the norm we need to pinpoint what it is, and that, is the problem. and how is it that one 12 year old autistic girl can just give up normal so easily? she is so sure that whatever normal is, she does not want to be it. i propose that at teachers we too break this idea of normal and make sure not to be ignorant of life outside our own, open the eyes of children to the world and make sure they know, that normal isn't normal.

to read a quick summary of the book click here, its the 6th book down
to see other books the "cup of comfort" company offers click here

song of the moment mine