Christopher Brown

There are both legal and moral obligations for dealing with students. I have met students with obvious disabilities who want nothing more than to be treated like everyone else. They don't want special treatment. Then I have met others who clearly do not need them and are just looking for special treatment or use it as an excuse to be disruptive. The entire class needs to also be considered in these instances. 

Accommodations can be a source of contention if they are overused. Who would need to be brought in if some students complain that another student has too many accommodations?

I think we need to pay attention to one of the more often overlooked groups, disabled veterans. And I don't mean the physical disabilities lost, but the mental disabilities faced. I have had students break down in class because of something that happened years prior and it wasn't related to a discussion. These things happen and we need to understand how to deal with it.

The clarification on Service Animal vs Emotional Support Animal should be understood by many more people. There is a distinction and it should be enforced more consistently.

Motivation is a fun and complex thing. What gets one student interested may not affect another. I used to take students out to perform actual, real-world work when teaching Electrical. All of it was school sanctioned, it was work for Habitat for Humanity so it was all volunteer, and it gave them not only real world experience, but it showed them that they could do it.

I have always used the "There are several options for assignments". I tell the students that if they are passionate about what they are writing about, then it will come across in the paper. As long as it is school appropriate...

I do explain my disability to the class when we start because it can cause some people to feel ignored. I let them know that because of blindness, I am not ignoring them, I just don't see them. We joke about it, make fun of it, it's all to make them comfortable with it and then I let them know to call out when needing to ask a question so that I can acknowledge them.

While it is interesting to hear the legal aspects of the issues, a lot of it is common sense. I have had students of all types in many different programs. Many didn't want the extra assistance because they didn't want to feel pitied. I get that, and I respected it. It made the student feel better for it. Some that needed help, we gave it. It wasn't a blanket issues that applied to everyone and needs to be handled individually.

I got to the part about disabled veterans and indeed I have taught quite a few. Some of them have physical trauma, but most have been mental. It isn't something that can be easily categorized and it takes training to understand how to help them in those shock and awe breakdown moments.

I saw that it mentions the concept of the service animal and the differences between the growing "Emotional Support Animal" and the need for an actual service animal. It's good to have a legal distinction and a clear guideline for which one is allowed and which is not.