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That up-goer Five meme
Feb. 1st, 2013 04:13 pmThere's a meme going around where people try to describe their work/job using only the thousand (ten hundred) most used words in English. I don't have a job, so instead, I wrote:
My rant on the broader, medical meme: "Having Cerebral Palsy means you have mental retardation":
(Begin Quote)
The part of my brain that thinks works well, but it has trouble talking to the part of my brain that moves my legs and arms and knows when I am standing straight. So even though I am a full grown person, I can't walk by myself, and use a chair that rolls instead.
People sometimes stare at me when I am out in my rolling chair, because they think that all full grown people should walk all the time. Sometimes, they act like they think I just don't want to walk. Sometimes, they talk to me like they think I am a child. Sometimes, I think this is funny. Many times, this makes me angry.
Many people in the world have brains with different parts that don't talk to each other well (almost four in ten hundred people around the world). If the reason the brain has trouble starts before a person is four years old, and it's just because the way the brain is, and it won't change, doctors call it "Not-move-well-because-brain," even if the ways people's brains have trouble are all different.
In places with lots of money and hospitals, "Not-move-well-because-brain" often starts on the first day of life. But in places with little money or doctors "not-move-well-because-brain" can start because the child gets sick, or falls and hurts their head.
It is most hard for people if the part of their brain that moves the mouth has trouble, so the person talks slow, or with a strange sound, because even if the part of the brain that thinks can do its job, teachers in school won't believe the child understands, and so won't try to help them learn, because it is too hard. So many of these children don't go to school, but learn at home, instead. But sometimes, the child's mother and father believe the teacher and their doctor that the child can't understand, and so these people never get the chance to learn. So no one really knows how much they can understand or learn.
Two well-known people in the world (one man who started life four-twenty years ago, and a woman woman who started life three-ten-and-two years ago) each had "not-move-well-because-brain" so bad that they each could only move one foot, and could not talk at all. But they learned how to read and write by themselves and wrote true stories about their lives. The man's story was made into a movie, and two years ago, the woman was called the best worker-with-words in the place that she lived, even though her mother and father beat her for trying to write when she was a child, because they thought the way she wrote, with her foot, on the ground, would make bad things happen.
This is why I don't believe the doctors and teachers who think that most people with "not-move-well-because-brain" can't learn or understand anything, and even if some of these people do have trouble with thinking, it is wrong to begin helping them learn by starting with that idea.
(End Quote).
Links:
Up-Goer-Five text editor
BBC News article about the woman who was awarded Nepal's top prize for her writing
My Left Foot on Amazon.com
My rant on the broader, medical meme: "Having Cerebral Palsy means you have mental retardation":
(Begin Quote)
The part of my brain that thinks works well, but it has trouble talking to the part of my brain that moves my legs and arms and knows when I am standing straight. So even though I am a full grown person, I can't walk by myself, and use a chair that rolls instead.
People sometimes stare at me when I am out in my rolling chair, because they think that all full grown people should walk all the time. Sometimes, they act like they think I just don't want to walk. Sometimes, they talk to me like they think I am a child. Sometimes, I think this is funny. Many times, this makes me angry.
Many people in the world have brains with different parts that don't talk to each other well (almost four in ten hundred people around the world). If the reason the brain has trouble starts before a person is four years old, and it's just because the way the brain is, and it won't change, doctors call it "Not-move-well-because-brain," even if the ways people's brains have trouble are all different.
In places with lots of money and hospitals, "Not-move-well-because-brain" often starts on the first day of life. But in places with little money or doctors "not-move-well-because-brain" can start because the child gets sick, or falls and hurts their head.
It is most hard for people if the part of their brain that moves the mouth has trouble, so the person talks slow, or with a strange sound, because even if the part of the brain that thinks can do its job, teachers in school won't believe the child understands, and so won't try to help them learn, because it is too hard. So many of these children don't go to school, but learn at home, instead. But sometimes, the child's mother and father believe the teacher and their doctor that the child can't understand, and so these people never get the chance to learn. So no one really knows how much they can understand or learn.
Two well-known people in the world (one man who started life four-twenty years ago, and a woman woman who started life three-ten-and-two years ago) each had "not-move-well-because-brain" so bad that they each could only move one foot, and could not talk at all. But they learned how to read and write by themselves and wrote true stories about their lives. The man's story was made into a movie, and two years ago, the woman was called the best worker-with-words in the place that she lived, even though her mother and father beat her for trying to write when she was a child, because they thought the way she wrote, with her foot, on the ground, would make bad things happen.
This is why I don't believe the doctors and teachers who think that most people with "not-move-well-because-brain" can't learn or understand anything, and even if some of these people do have trouble with thinking, it is wrong to begin helping them learn by starting with that idea.
(End Quote).
Links:
Up-Goer-Five text editor
BBC News article about the woman who was awarded Nepal's top prize for her writing
My Left Foot on Amazon.com
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