http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/education/11stutter.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=stuttering&st=cse A history class at the County College of Morris in Randolph, N.J. is discussing about the exploration of the New World, and Philip Garber Jr. raises his hand hoping to ask a question regarding the topic. Yet he kept his hand aloft for much of the 75-minute session, and the professor did not call on him. She had already told him not to speak in class. Philip, a precocious and confident 16-year-old, has a lot to say, but his stuttering makes talking difficult. After two sessions of that class, his professor, Elizabeth Snyder, sent him an e-mail asking that he pose questions before or after class so that "we do not infringe on other students' time." She told him, "your speaking is disruptive." Unyielding, Philip reported the situation to the school's dean, who recommended that he transfer to another class, which is where he has been answering and asking questions again.
The Area of Knowledge involved is Ethics: the balance between the needs of an individual and the good of a group. Although listening to Philip or any other stutterers like him requires a lot of patience and special attention that a lot of people just don't have, that doesn't mean we should just shut them down completely. Their stuttering often impedes the flow of a social event, such as a class discussion or a conversation. This often affects other people in the event whose time is losing away as one person with stutter painfully trying to deliver a complete sentence. Or the course of the discussion may have been dismantled as people wander off to other things in mind when they try to listen with difficulty what the stutterer is trying to say and thus the energy of the discourse or the social event is lost. As a result, society tends to ignore the needs of these individuals in order to establish the convenience or accommodation of the group. Yet, is it right to overlook these minority just for the good of the majority? Our moral standards tell us that society needs to pay more special attentions to those with certain disability but not disregards them. But should we as a society have to constantly accommodate the minority's needs and sacrifice our own needs? Just because one stutterer wants to speak out, does that mean we have to waste our time and patiently and strenuously listen to the almost incomprehensible words? I mean, let's face it, who has all those patience and time nowadays?
Another Area of Knowledge raised is language. To what extent is stuttering defined as a disability? What conditions qualify to fit into the definition of disability? Many perceived stuttering as not and so do not treat stutterers with special attentions and often regard them as annoying or disruptive. There has been research that states that stuttering is a real disability that is caused by hereditary genes. Still, some doctors continue to associate it as psychological and emotional issue. Both psychological and hereditary problems are causes of stuttering, but nevertheless, some do not acknowledge it as a real disability, while some do. The supporters of stuttering complain that people who accept the bus to delay to load a disabled passenger are often less patient with people who stutter or cannot speak clearly because those people do not affiliate stuttering as a real disability. Yet stuttering does in some way obstruct a person to express oral communication regularly for others in the society to understand conveniently and normally. So is disability only defined according to what is the standard or norm to the group?
Whether or not stuttering is a disability or not, it is still something that needs to be treated with sensitivity and special attentions. As a society, no matter how inconvenient or laborious, we still need to assist anyone who are in any hardship because it is the ethical thing to do. If someone has a thick accent, do we ignore that person just because it's inconvenient for us to understand that one individual? We may even define that person as disabled because he or she doesn't fit into the social norms of the particular group. But because each of us is part of a society that abides to certain ethical values, as a group, we need to help anyone that is in some kind of ponderous situation.
The two area s of knowledge mentioned in the above definitely raises some controversial questions. Looking back at the ethics involved in the article, I definitely think that our society treats minorities differently compared to the majority. This can relate back to the video we watched called Sound and Fury. In the documentary, Chris and Mari decides to give their child a cochlear implants; there are many reasons behind this tough decision, most importantly, they want to give their child a equal opportunity to survive just as any other hearing child in the world. Obviously, if they weren’t mistreated or have witnessed their own kind being mistreated, Mari and Chris would not have decided this for their child; this being said, they perceive a part of the society in the world treats deafness as a impairment, a human characteristic that is worthy of less attention than those who can hear perfectly well. Relating this back to the article, the stuttering kid is like a representation of the deaf culture—a minority. Although the way his learning environment treats him may not apply to everyone, however, it simply shows how the way people treat a minority is a controversial issue.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Monica has stated about how ethics is a prominent issue that is involved in this article. After having read this blog post, I was reminded of the movie Changeling. I know that is a slight tangent from the actual issue about the college student, but some parallels can be drawn. Christine Collins struggled desperately to find her lost son, by seeking help from the LAPD. However, the LAPD attempted stubbornly to pass of an impostor as her child which emphasizes the extent to which the law was subject to manipulation and censorship during that time. This also draws to the problem of preventing the minority (in Christine Collins' case, the fact that she is a woman) from speaking up to authorities and having a voice in society. Certainly, this raises the question of whether or not it is ethical to "override" what the minority has to say, judging by the fact that in these two cases, what they said were the "truth". However, they were discriminated against due to their status in society, which poses the doubt of how society treats people of the minority. Is it morally corrupt to discriminate against those who are not part of the majority? Certainly, as shown by these two cases, it is often difficult for the minority to voice out their own opinions due to what authorities deem as the "safety of the public" or the "common good" versus the individual.
ReplyDeleteA new way to understand this issue would be to consider the biases that this article itself might hold (could you link the article?)Perhaps the class is a lecture, perhaps the teacher's teaching style is to lecture at the students, perhaps the teacher treats everyone like that instead of only Philip who happens to stutter, and perhaps the media was trying to dig up some sensational news. There are a lot of questions that are left unanswered. Also, I find it interesting how the dean didn't address this issue to the professor, so it makes me question if there is more to this issue than mentioned. Therefore, I feel that the circumstances could be clearer in order to make a more objective opinion on this issue.
ReplyDeleteFirst off I'd like to say that I really like your topic and the way you choose to address it, very straightforward and easy to comprehend! Whilst reading your article, I couldn't help but think of accents and how that is very similar to stuttering but not quite and I was pleasantly surprised when you mentioned accents at the end of your blog post. Accents are something we laugh at, something we associate a group of people with, something we mimic because it's funny. It's never seen as a disability and is, in the most extreme cases, hilariously funny or downright attractive. But the people with accents that are not so attractive, how do they feel about the way they talk and do they see it as a disability? I did some research on this topic and found that there was a Canadian TA at a university that received a complaint from a student that thinks that her Trinidadian accent is hard to understand and requested a different TA. The TA then went to the Office for Persons with Disabilities on campus. She was informed that understanding accents can be hard for people who are severely hard on hearing but otherwise discriminating against someone just because of their accent constitutes as discrimination based on race. I think one of the issues here is what constitutes as a disability and who's definition do we go by? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as a disqualification, restriction, or disadvantage. A stutter or say, an accent doesn't disqualify you from anything but it is a restriction and disadvantage when it does hinder a lot of things in life, like socializing, interviewing for a job and making a good first impression. But I don't think a stutter or persons with accents will want to be labeled as someone with a disability as everyone wants to think that they're just as qualified as everyone else. The most basic way we can do to solve this problem is to be more considerate of other's "disabilities"? No one can help it if they have an accent or stutters so something we can do is to accept them for their uniqueness and move on from that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Remmy pointed out. Due to our fallible memory, schemas, and sense perception, we can never be sure what really happened in that history class without any biases. I agree with the conclusion the blogpost has suggest, but it doesn’t pertain to the situation specifically. From this article, assuming that it has the least biases, I think the best way to solve Philip's situation quickly and effectively is by switching him out of the professor's class and have Philip seek outside support not because he's considered different but it'll benefit him in many ways. Through this experience, Philip has suffered emotionally and seeking some outside support and specialist would help him gain confidence and self-esteem back. Therefore, Philip will continue his habit of speaking in class which would help practice his communication so that another case similar to this will never happen again.
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