Let’s Ban Vision Correction in Classrooms
“If technology enables a kid to read above grade level, why wouldn’t we allow that?” Dan McGuire, a leader in open-source educational tools, quoted me in a post.
I responded, “If technologies aren’t allowed to help kids read, eyeglasses and contact lenses need to be banned.” Because I simply cannot believe this debate still exists.
In 2008, in perhaps the most controversial blog post I ever wrote (read the comments), I said, “…we have to “queer” the experience around us — use “Retard Theory” whenever we can. De-normalize “them.” Demand to see the doctor’s note from anyone wearing eyeglasses. Ask for a note from the cardiologist every time you see someone in an elevator. Challenge anyone who prints out a copy of a digitally supplied text — “Did your doctor say you couldn’t read a computer screen?” Make “them” uncomfortable every day.
They are willing to do it to us. So it must be “fair.”’
Two years before that, in a wildly controversial article on Inside Higher Ed, I wrote, “There is also the issue of educational discrimination. When schools fight against technology, they are fighting access to education for people who learn and function differently. Technology, from computers to calculators to classroom cellphones, enables a wide variety of students who would otherwise be left out to participate and succeed. Technology in the hands of all students allows disabilities and functional deficits to be invisibly accommodated so that knowledge can be developed, nurtured, and evaluated on terms fair to everyone.”
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