I had this great idea to do daily blogs on the ITD conference. It didn’t happen for a variety of reasons. I’ll try to do a little reflection for now. The truth is I will be thinking about this for a while.
On Tuesday Hans Reinders spoke about the situation regarding L’Arche and Jean Vanier’s sexual misconduct. This has been a very difficult situation for me to sort through theologically, emotionally, and ethically. In short, my questions have to do with how we treat sexual sin and whether that negates a person’s ability to understand anything about spirituality. We all commit sins every day. Some of us continue to commit certain types of sin throughout our lifetimes, but because those sins affect only our own person we are not branded as “monsters” or ostracized. I have a problem with this. There are no perfect humans.
I will be sitting with all of this for a long time to come. The most helpful thing that Reinders said was, “Maybe we will never understand it all.”
On Tuesday afternoon I attended a session given by Ben Watson in which he presented an alternative model of education that was accessible and affordable. I appreciated many of his ideas. I challenged him about one thing. He said that it was so hard for students to type their work because the characters for their language were complicated that the school implemented dictation. I asked if he had thought about scenarios when this might be disempowering.
He could only think of one: a time when people were noise-overloaded.
I wonder whether he has noted dictation errors in his students’ work and how difficult and tedious it is for them to correct their work. Can students who are dictating produce scholarly work or communication that is appropriate for communication with sighted peers? That is why I brought up writing.
I was very tired at the end of day 2. I took some time to sleep yesterday morning. Clearly it did not help. I’ll say why in my next post.
- Learning From My Younger Self - February 10, 2024
- more reflections on ITD - June 30, 2023
- On travel while at ITD: reflections after day 1 - June 27, 2023
- ITD day 1 - June 27, 2023
- ITD day 1 - June 27, 2023
- Job Descriptions, Inclusivity, and Equity for People with Disabilities - October 15, 2022
- Traveling without a Guide Dog: Experience with Cane and Walker - October 14, 2022
- Disability and Church, Intersection - June 11, 2022
- Review: When Chronic Pain and Illness Take Everything Away - June 11, 2022
- Grammar and Style Resources for Writers - June 9, 2022
