“Riding the Bus with My Sister” by Rachel Simon is a touching, true life journey about Beth and her sister Rachel. Beth and Rachel are in there thirties at the time the book takes place. They were born eleven months apart and aside of their age difference and their personality, Beth is different from Rachel because she suffers from mental retardation. Beth has lived on her own in her subsidized apartment and enjoys riding the bus routes around Pennsylvania city. Beth asked Rachel to come stay a year with her in order to accompany her in her daily bus route routine and Rachel agreed. “Riding the Bus with My Sister” documents Rachel’s remarkable journey her and her sister spent together and her learnings from Beth. Simon presents views on how those with mental retardation should be treated and self-determination. Throughout “Riding the Bus with My Sister” we encountered several characters. One significant character other than Beth and Rachel was Jesse, Beth’s boyfriend who also suffered from mental retardation. Claude, Jacob the Christian bus driver, Happy Timmy, Rodolpho, Rick, Henry, Estella, Crazy Bailey, Jack, Bert, Cliff and Melanie were the buses drivers Rachel and Beth interacted with on the daily basis. Rachel learned a lot from each of them. She …show more content…
learned what love really was and came to realize she need to make changed in her life through Jesse and Olivia. Rachel learned a lot during her stay with Beth.
The experience changed her life, she learned to rethink her own attitude and self determination. I learned that people with mental retardation are not to be separated from society or even treated with less respect because of their disability. “Riding the Bus with My Sister” taught me to never neglect people with mental disabilities. Readers learned that people with mental retardation, just like everyone else, have families, desires, and determination. They cry, they laugh, they have emotions just like the rest of us. We can learn new things from those suffering from mental retardation. ‘Riding the Bus with My Sister” taught me that civil rights apply to
everyone. The characters relate to each other in “Riding the Bus with My Sister” through variety of ways. Jesse and Beth relate through their desire to be “normal” and live “normal” life’s despite of their disabilities. However, the bus drivers relate in ways most others would. They are unpleasant to Beth due to her condition. They don’t understand her and have a hard time accepting her for how she is. Due to Beth having trouble communicating, it leads her to a communicating obstacle to characters in the book. Beth knows which bus drivers are nice, such as Happy Timmy and which ones to avoid like Rachel. “Riding the Bus with My Sister” was enjoyable to read. It was inspirational and taught me to value life and others regardless of their disability. I learned to not take things or others for granted. I learned the real lesson of finding joy in life in spite of in complication. Just as Beth and Rachel experiencing life changing experiences, I developed to experience the true meaning of life through the experience Rachel had in her journey of spending an entire year with Beth. Beth’s story gave hope and reassurance. I would recommended others to read this inspiring book. People with disabilities can live independently and carry a normal life to their potential. It is a positive representation and helps anyone understand people with disabilities better.
In “Eleven”, written by Sandra Cisneros, Cisneros uses literary techniques such as diction and imagery to characterize Rachel’s character during her transition from age ten to age 11. These literary techniques help to describe how Rachel feels in certain situations while also explaining her qualities and traits. Through the use of these literary techniques Cisneros also collaborated on Rachel’s feelings when she was other ages and how she felt at that time during her life.
Perspective allows people to see another person’s point of view. In the essay “The Cabdriver’s Daughter” by Waheeda Samady, she addresses her perception versus society’s opinion of her father. In her eyes, her father is a person capable of displaying kindness and expressing his profound knowledge while for some Americans, he is their preconceived notion of what a terrorist might look like. She challenges people to look past his scars and the color of skin, and “look at what the bombs did not destroy” (19). To her, he is the man that has lived through the Soviet-Afghan War, persevered through poverty, and denied these experiences the power of changing him into a cantankerous person. Samady feels prideful of her father’s grit through his past experiences yet feels sorrowful thinking about the life he could have lived if the war had never happened.
“The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal” by Jonathan Mooney is the story of his journey around the U.S. in short bus nonetheless to meet with different children and their families who have faced challenges in school due to ADD, ADHD, Autism, and other learning disabilities. Jonathan Mooney himself faced the disability of Dyslexia and often had to deal with many challenges in school himself, but he appears to be one of the more fortunate ones, who was able to grow from his disability and ultimately get a degree in English. Needless to say, his book and journey lead the reader to question what really is “normal”, and how the views of this have caused the odds to be stacked against those who don’t fit the mold. Throughout, this story, for me personally however, this story gave several events that I found moving, and had the potential to influence my further work in education.
Unfortunately, a lot of parents may have a difficult time accepting their child, and coping with their needs and the responsibilities. From the book “The Elephant in the Playroom,” some families dealt with depression and physical and mental deterioration of their health. These struggles were shown in the story by Laura Cichoracki. Laura’s son’s name was Patrick. Patrick was a 6-years-old boy with autism. “I wasn’t eating right, I wasn’t showering regularly, I wasn’t sleeping well” (Brodey, p. 64). I also read the story told by Susan Marrash-Minnerly, which highlighted emotions that parents face. Susan also shed light on how wonderful children with special needs can be to a family, such as her ten-year-old third grader who had autism. Susan talked about how it was normal to feel angry at times, especially with the ups and downs a child’s disability may come with. “When I look back, I want to tell other parents that a child’s future is worth grieving over – but it’s not the end of the world” (Brodey, p. 75). After reading these stories, it became apparent to me that families who are raising kids with special needs, need support, kindness, and available resources. “I was fortunate to be surrounded by other moms who understood my pain…who could be supportive and emphatic.” (Brodey, p. 67). Overall, educators can use this kind of information that was shared in “The Elephant in the Playroom” about family systems and risk/resiliency by creating lines of open communication between families. This is to connect parents together that share similar struggles. By creating open communication is can allows for the teacher and parents to be on the same page when it comes to the issues affecting special needs students and
Patricia Bauer was a former Washington post reporter and one of the founders of the UCLA, a school for young adults with intellectual disabilities, although she gains most of her knowledge on the topic from raising a daughter with Down Syndrome. This article was originally published in The Washington Post, one of the most circulates newspapers in America. When this article came out in August of 2008, two major things were happening concerning mental disabled people. The first was a movie that came out
For instance, Robert and his family were significantly impacted by the opinion of others i public, as younger members of society would often taunt Robert with mean comments about his disability, yet Roberts strong and assertive response toward them has exposed his family to a positive outlook on interpreting these comments, which had a strong influence on his and Julie.
However, some will argue that Christopher benefits from his mental state because he likes being alone and has a photographic memory. After finding out that Christopher is suffering from Asperger most will think the book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” is about a boy who struggles with Asperger, but the main topic of the book is the difficulties of being a stranger or being different from others. The book gave a little bit of insight of how life can be different for someone with a disability, then for someone who doesn't. which is important to keep in mind that not everybody's the same and some have a special need while others don't. People with disabilities have a hard time understanding concepts and which might seem easy most. Also, it's a concept in life that people should learn because people are going to meet and interact with each other if they want to or if they don’t want to and it's critical to be able to handle different types of
...or the better and have left future generations with the message that, "Duty bids us go forth into active life. Let us go cheerfully, hopefully, and earnestly, and set ourselves to find our especial part. When we have found it, willingly and faithfully perform it; for every obstacle we overcome, every success we achieve tends to bring man closer to God." (Anne Sullivan, Biography.com). Having had to fight for every advantage in their lives, Keller and Sullivan both broke barriers and overcame their disabilities, creating a mindset that those with disabilities or social disadvantages were not inferior, but deserved the same chance as any other person. With organizations now dedicated to their life's work, Sullivan and Keller have become heroes for those disadvantaged in our societies and have proven to be role models for those who work hard to overcome obstacles.
Out of my Mind teaches this in a great way. It teaches us that you can’t judge someone by if they have a disability or not. Melody wanted to be just like all the others at her school, but she never realized how special she really was. In the story, Everything Will Be Okay, it teaches us that you don’t have to be like the other people in your life and that you just have to be yourself. This lesson goes out to everyone in the world because you have to remember, you will grow up on your own time; no one can force
The nonfiction book I read was titled Beautiful Child and was written by Torey Hayden. Beautiful Child follows the life of a special education teacher who is new to a school is met with a challenging class consisting of five children, all with very different needs. The class consists of a child who has tourette’s syndrome (Jesse), a child who we later find out has dyslexia (Billy), two twins who have fetal alcohol syndrome (Shane and Zane), and a young girl who is selectively mute (Venus.) Although through the story we see each child grow and progress, Venus is the main character and we see her open up to Torey through books and most important She-Ra comics. As Venus’ story unfolds, so do the horrendous details of her family that include a past of drug abuse and prostitution. The quietness of Venus that left many confused, begins to make
For first eight years of her life, Elaine Risley lived a nomadic lifestyle with her parents. When her father, and entomologist, accepts a job to work as a professor at a university, the family moves to Toronto. Everything is new to Elaine: school, sitting at a desk, straws, and especially real girls. Since her brother does not want to be teased for having a younger sister, Elaine is on her own. At first it is difficult
Rachel Watson a 30 year old happily married woman, living out her dream life. Dream job in the fashion industry and it’s just a train ride away. Dream house with all furniture she picked out and its just close enough to the train station. Dream husband who provides her with everything she needs. But that was two years ago, Rachel Watson a 32-year-old alcoholic, divorced from her dream husband who took her dream house. All she has left now is her job, which isn’t all too dreamy anymore, and the train rides, which are her only real time to think. This is the story of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Three significant objects in this story are, the train, alcohol and Rachel’s old house.
One thing that I found particularly noteworthy is that as much as society looks down on disabled people, they on the other hand display love and wish to be reciprocated the same way. Therefore, the overarching theme is hate vs love. The best example from the book to illustrate this would be Jeff. Jeff is 46 years old and is also unemployed. He suffers from Asperger syndrome. He times e...
This class made me pay attention to the problems that people with disabilities are facing in society. It help me realize that many people who are struggling do not show, which I can relate to. It made want to be more patient with people, even if I might get mad because a game or them doing a certain tasks. I shouldn’t judge them based on what they can’t do, because I do not know any problems they are struggling with. With my positive experience in this class I would recommend everybody to take this class, because many people are naïve to disability. Many people still taunt people with disabilities even if it’s hidden or noticeable, I want people to realize that people who suffer with a disability are still human, nothing different. People need to understand that, people with disability are just like everyone else they just have to do things differently, but they can still achieve the same results, I think a lot of people around the world need to understand that. I feel this class can be essential to everybody and the society, to make the negative stigmas about disability
The story envokes the realization that anyone can be mentally liberated if they simply only open their eyes and behold the value of individuality. It is up to each of us to explore this meaning. Through compassion we can unlock the true purpose and meaning of ourselves and others. We need to be open to and understanding of people who are different. Therefore, students who are mentally challenged need to be surrounded by those who dare to add value to their lives. We definitely need more people like the coach.