Radio: Disability and Coach Harold Jones

Forrest’s struggles with both physical and mental disabilities. Forrest attended school before the “radical school reforms of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s”, and long before No Child Left Behind was implemented, but he still had to deal with the concept of rationalization in education (Ravitch

The book, Deaf Again, written by Mark Drolsbaugh, is an autobiography telling his life story which starts with a young boy growing up who goes through the process of losing his hearing and then, as he gets older, he struggles with trying to fit in as a normal child. When Mark was very young, he could hear fairly well then gradually he went hard of hearing until he eventually went completely deaf. Even though he had two deaf parents, the doctors advised speech therapy and hearing aids because they did not understand Deaf Culture and they thought that Mark would be a lot happier if he could hang on to his hearing persona. Throughout the rest of the book, Mark goes through a lot of stages of trying to fit in with everyone and eventually

During the 1950s, people who had a disability had two options of housing which included living with their families or living in an institution. However, families did not receive much support since most public welfare services were used towards institutional care, such as mental hospitals and orphanages. Throughout the 1960s there were movements to deinstitutionalize, which at that time basically led to smaller institutions. The 1970s allowed for even smaller community-based residential services that were typically designed for not more than 12 people that were similar in terms of age, independence, or ability. Even though different funding was available, many standards were violated in most of the institutions. Throughout the 70s there were movements to close state institutions and provide more community residential services as well as family support. During the 1980s groundwork for families was laid to expand their control of the nature of the support they received and more options were available to help out with living outside an institution. People with developmental disabilities began to gain increased support to having homes of their own during the 1990s and funded had dramatically increased to over $735 for family support programs in 1998. In 2001 the federal government began a new freedom initiative to “remove barriers to community living for people of all ages with disabilities and long-term illness.” In 2011 the decision that the isolation of people with

In the movie, Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks plays an intellectually handicapped man named Forrest Gump from Greenbow, Alabama. The majority of the movie took place through his recounting of his memories from early childhood all the way up to his current age. This paper looks at Forrest’s ability to communicate, his diligence in a relationship, ability to cope, and his self-perception.

In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.

The dramatic and uplifting movie “Radio” starring Cuba Gooding JR. and Ed Harris, is based on the true life story of James Robert Kennedy, a k a Radio; a mentally retarded young African-American who spends his days pushing a shopping cart around the streets of Anderson, a small South Carolina town, collecting junk and old radios.

Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson is an article about her experience visiting Princeton University to exchange views and challenge Peter Singer, a professor who strongly believes that all disabled people, like herself, are “better off” not been born at all. The article provides an insight into Johnson’s life as a disabled person. She takes the readers on a journey that explores both sides of her own and Singer’s contrasting beliefs. She protests the prevalent stigma and prejudice of disabled people and gives voice to this marginalized community. Johnson challenges stereotypes of disability, uses her a personal experience to better understand the world and help others, and attempts to directly address oppression by arguing against Professor Singer’s theory and assemble a group of diverse and like-minded people for social change.

Bob Hiltermann is a famous deaf storyteller, actor, comic, and musician. He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and became deaf at the age of four due to spinal meningitis. His family assumed that he was slow and it wasn’t until he was ten years old that they finally realized he was deaf. When Bob turned eighteen, he attended Gallaudet University. While attending Gallaudet he learned American Sign Language, which would eventually lead him to become a confident and successful signer. Bob grew up in a family of classical musicians and this shaped his love for music. Despite being deaf he has become an accomplished musician himself and is the drummer for a famous all deaf band named Beethoven’s Nightmare. He has also experienced a very successful career as an actor and has starred in many award winning documentary films, TV, stage productions, soaps, and feature films. Bob has also helped create and star in an educational sign language series called “Shut up and Sign” (Hiltermann, 2016).

My first subject is Forrest Gump, in analyzing Forrest we understand how he correlates toward the psychoanalytic theory (p. 35-38). Since Forrest has an IQ of 75, which is reflected as intellectually disabled or formerly called mental retarded. Forrest is incapable of preserving the necessary abilities that require language, comprehension, mathematics, and social communication. Forrest has overcome the actuality that he’s distinguished and classified as intellectually disabled, with the encouragement of his mother, Forrest has developed a sense of self (p. 335-336 & 339-340).

After reading Deaf Again I learned a lot of new things about Deaf culture and was drawn in by the story of Mark Drolsbaugh. "The hardest fight a man has to fight is to live in a world where every single day someone is trying to make you someone you do not want to be" e.e cummings. I was brought into the book immediately from this quote and realized how difficult it must have been for Mark to find his identity. He was trying to hang on to his hearing in fear of going deaf as if there was something wrong or not proper with being deaf. It took him a long time, twenty-three years to realize that the Deaf culture is receiving and it was there for him to embrace the entire time. It would be difficult to be able to hear and then slowly

In Mark Drolsbaugh’s educational and witty autobiography “Deaf Again”, he describes his journey as a child born to deaf parents, losing his own hearing in his childhood, and navigating both hearing and deaf worlds while trying to discover his identity.

The movie “Radio” is the tale of a young African-American man who suffers from severe mental retardness and his journey to fame from football in the small South Carolinian town of Anderson. James “Radio” Kennedy is befriended by the T. L. Hanna High School head football coach, Coach Jones, and begins to help as an “assistant coach” of some sort. Eventually, James begins to attend Hanna High as an eleventh grade student due to the persistent efforts of Coach Jones.

The book, Mean Little deaf Queer, a memoir, by Terry Galloway, is a powerful autobiography that gives insights about her life. Not only has she coped with a disability, but she also had to deal with being queer and overcoming the many obstacles of accepting this reality. Terry Galloway, grew up viewing herself as an outsider because of the responses she received from other individuals as her body transformed. She proclaimed herself as a child freak from the moment her body began to change, and when her hearing was diminishing and her hallucinations became a frequent occurrence, she would address her fury and discontent with her hearing aids and thick round glasses. Nevertheless, the moment she feigned her own drowning at a summer camp for crippled children, she knew she had discovered a new passion. Her hardships were overlooked and renovated into a love for theater and speech that would not only defy her reality, but that would surpass her expectations.

The article Redefining Normal: A Critical Analysis of (Dis)ability in Young Adult Literature by Jen Scott Curwood discusses the importance of proper disability representation in young adult literature for the benefit of school children. Curwood writes "young adult literature should not only provide accurate portrayals of individuals with disabilities, but must offer themes that are not 'didactic, condescending, or pedantic" (Curwood, 18) because " 'literature about disabilities and differences can be a powerful tool to heighten the achievement of all students by broadening attitudes and perceptions of self and other '" (18). She also argues that if schools don 't include diverse characters and topics, then that "effectively condones prejudice and stereotypes" and continues to further the "othering" aspect. In contrast to Me Before You, the book Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson is a book that provides readers with both a positive representation of life with disability as well as showing a wide range of disabilities. Accidents of Nature is set in the year 1970 and is about a seventeen year old girl named Jean who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair to get around. Despite her condition, Jean has always thought of herself as the same as everyone else as she goes to a "normal", abled-bodied school and has "normal" abled-bodied friends. She has never even known another disabled person before going to Camp Courage for a week, a camp solely for disabled youths.

Disability has appeared frequently in recent films (Byrd & Elliot, 1988), a reflection of society’s interest in the subject. These films often misrepresent disability using stereotypes. These stereotypes reinforce negative and incorrect social perceptions of, and attitudes towards,