Week of 5/4

This week, I feel like I have learned a lot about Special Ed law and about things that affect my philosophy of education. The things that I want to focus on though are the ones that have an affect on my philosophy of education.
I class we were invited to watch this video about mental institutions in Serbia. This video showed appalling footage of what these people with disabilities have to live like. It talked about how most people who will have children with disabilities are told that the best option for their child is to send them to intuitions like the ones shown. The videos of children in these institutions were hard to watch because these children spent many hours on end feeling and being completely alone.
To me this is not okay, and this helped me to realize how lucky I am to be born into a country where people with disabilities are able to become productive members of society.
This affected my philosophy of education because it helped me to realize and more fully understand that we are all children of God and that he loves all of us. It also helped me to understand that importance of our knowledge that we can all learn and that we all have the ability to grow, and that it is my responsibility to help with that and help my students to have the best experience possible. It also helped me to understand how important inclusion is, because the people who go to these Siberian mental institutions are considered outsiders in their society and in our society that doesn't need to be the case. Studies have shown that when student with special needs are included that both students are likely to learn more when integrated.