FNED Post #7: Dis/Ability

This week's readings make me wonder how much my students have thought about ability and disability, if at all, and the ways in which they might articulate what these labels mean.

• I think it would be particularly powerful to examine disability-related language, as posed in Cripping School Curricula. I think there are several of these examples listed that I myself have trained myself to not use, though many of these sayings are rampant among the teenagers I teach. Would focusing a discussion around this topic reveal to them the importance and power of language? 
• In a brief observation of my students, I get an impression at times that talking about mental health (in some cases) is easier than perhaps it was when I was growing up. With TV series such as 13 Reasons Why dominating teens' Netflix feeds, depression and suicide are not necessarily taboo subjects that they are afraid to bring up. How can I as an educator embrace this tertiary knowledge my students have to move into a greater discussion/critique of the ways in which disability is regarded and depicted in our society? 
• In Disability in Children's Literature, Crow makes a point to focus on the intersectionality of other identities with disability. This is important, because as she notes, most disabled people in books are white, middle-class, heterosexual men. I think addressing our multiplicity of identities is not only fair, but can also open up some very real dialogues around how mental health and disability issues are regarded in certain ethnic groups. 
• After doing these readings, I am reminded of a group that was on my undergrad's campus called Active Minds. While I now regret not taking part in their programming while I was a student there, I wonder how a similar premise is or can be applied to the high school demographic.