Human Emergence Syllabus

Carmen  Mosley

Human Emergence Syllabus

Abstract

Course Description How has evolution molded human biological and cultural diversity? What are the broader implications of our evolutionary history? This class seeks answers to these enduring questions. Divided into four units, we begin by studying Darwin's ideas about natural selection and the challenges his ideas have faced over the past 150 years. The second unit examines how evolution has shaped the anatomy and behavior of our closest living relatives, non-human primates. The third unit of the class is devoted to investigating the human fossil record and tracing the physical and behavioral evolution of our species over the past five million years. In the fourth unit, we focus on the breadth of human variation and explore the broader social implications of our evolved behavior.

“Impairment is the rule, and normalcy is the fantasy...We are all nonstandard.” – Lennard J. Davis, The End of Identity Politics (2013a). “There was an increasing tolerance, generally, for cultural diversity, an increasing sense that peoples could be profoundly different, yet all be valuable and equal to one another; an increasing sense that the deaf were a ‘people,’ and not merely a number of isolated, abnormal, disabled individuals; a movement from the medical or pathological view to an anthropological, sociological, or ethnic view ... [Depathologizing led the world to become] more aware of the previously invisible and inaudible deaf; they too became more aware of themselves, of their increasing visibility and power in society.” – Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices (1990/2008) DESCRIPTION/OVERVIEW: This course assists early-career educators examine special education and disability with a variety of lenses. The course overviews the changing roles of service professionals, like teachers and medical teams, who serve people with disabilities. The course design addresses historical and contemporary, and domestic and global issues affecting people with disabilities* that influence how they are positioned within educational, legal, medical, and social institutions. By drawing from various perspectives (e.g. theoretical, philosophical, conceptual, and methodological), the course encourages students to ask critical questions. For instance, how is disability configured in schools with respect to the body, family, language, culture, society, politics, policy, economics, and technology? The course achieves these aims by providing opportunities to understand the practical and conceptual consequences of four models of disability: (1) philological, (2) biomedical, (3) sociocultural, and (4) biosocial. For instance, the biosocial vantage surveys ecological relationships among domains of power that shape deaf education in contemporary society. Course foci include—how theory, models, and services change; how changes affect institutions and people; how changing views on disability affect students with disabilities; and what consequences are inherent or ascribed to dis/ability within educational contexts. On Language: This course uses people-first language. People-first terminology: 1) maintains the dignity/integrity of all humans as individuals, 2) avoids objectifying, denigrating, condescending or overly negative labels or euphemisms. See APA guidelines, (6th Edition, 2010, pp. 72-3, 76) for details. GOALS/STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO: Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to (SWBAT): (1) Identify and describe different theoretical models of disability, apply the models toward an understanding of historical and contemporary issues, within domestic and global contexts. (2) Employ theoretical models to explain how people with disabilities are identified, labeled, and served in special education settings. (3) Analyze how special education services and training for professionals have changed by articulating how social systems and human ecological structures contribute to the evolution of teacher preparation and professional training. (4) Articulate how those closest to people with disabilities (particularly the family constellation, special educators, and medical professionals) experience, interpret, understand, and respond to disability in schools. PROGRAM OUTCOMES: The experiences, philosophies, and methods included in this course are designed to: (1) Acculturate MSSE students to the thought processes, values, and practices of highly qualified special educators. (2) Assist teacher-candidates in becoming self-reflective deaf educators who are lifelong learners. (3) Synthesize evidence-based practices, sociological research, and special education practices in preparation for student teaching and early-career teaching. (4) Develop an educational knowledge base that supports the social, academic, and communication needs of diverse deaf students in a variety of educational environments. SKYER’S STATEMENT OF ARTICULATION: An understanding of human nature is incomplete without studying how exceptional humans—in this case, disabled students—exist within social institutions like schools. The course surveys a rapidly evolving and expanding research enterprise. This class will expose you to a corpus of research regarding the thought-processes, practices, and values of special educators, disability scholars, and researchers. While some readings focus on deafness, the majority do not. All readings examine disability, though some focus on impairments and others on exceptionalities. One area of focus for this course is the subject of poverty, which traverses all listed domains of disability. The unifying themes throughout all materials are diversity and change. In this course, we will discuss historical thinking on disability and investigate contemporary issues, addressing both consensus and controversy regarding how people with disabilities are affected by changes in schools and societies. The course discusses disability in human social ecologies, including advancing educational research, biomedical intervention, and socioeconomic stratification within an increasingly globalized planet. The course design provides abundant opportunities to explore educational and sociological problem spaces, those affecting the concrete “real-world” and issues that are more conceptual or theoretical. Considerable effort has been made to select readings and design activities that assist teacher candidates in understanding how disability, special education, and sociology converge in both material and abstract ways. The broad theme for this course is: understanding the role of theory in social research.

"Deafness [is] a cultural category with medical considerations rather than a medical condition with cultural ramifications."-K.M. Christensen (2010, p. 82) "What good are deaf people to society? [This difficult question] must now be explored if the Deaf world is to continue in the face of biopower institutions intent on the eradication of the Deaf community."-H-D. L. Bauman (2008 p. 15). "Providing quality, effective services for d/Dhh students is complex and often difficult because of the heterogeneity of the deaf population. [Variance factors include] genetics, family support, socioeconomic status of the family, and community resources [likewise] age of identification and initiation of services, quality and quantity of early intervention services provided, degrees of hearing levels, primary mode of communication being used, and amplification use and benefits. Also, many individuals who are d/Dhh have multiple learning challenges (i.e. learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, autism) with medical origins as a result of the etiologies of their hearing loss (e.g. preterm birth, meningitis, cytomegalovirus, measles, encephalitis, ototoxicity, Usher syndrome, Waardenberg syndrome). In addition to the challenges of addressing the vast individual differences among d/Dhh students, educators and families are faced with a shortage of evidence-based practices (EBPs) … demonstrated as effective with d/Dhh students…The lack of EBPs results from … the low-incidence of the d/Dhh population and the wide geographical dispersion of students. However, the problem is exacerbated by a historical overreliance on sources such as experience, tradition, expert opinion, and personal beliefs rather than demonstrated efficacy to determine how and what to teach."-J. Luckner (2018, p. vii) DESCRIPTION/OVERVIEW: This course introduces concepts and issues about educational and cultural diversity. It focuses on deaf students’ experiences, deaf education research, and teaching practices shaped by them. There are two primary goals: 1) to understand the combined roles of cultural diversity and individual differences for the education of deaf persons, and 2) to examine the theoretical and practical effects of cultural and educational diversity upon curriculum and classroom practices within (deaf) education as a sociocultural institution. Content Warning: Owning to the oft-conflictive nature of diversity, readings may contain subject matter that may be controversial or difficult to confront (e.g. Nazi eugenics, HIV/AIDS, prostitution). Please read with care and respect. Exercise your own judgement about how and what you read. Students will explore, interpret, analyze, and apply research (theoretical and empirical) about educational and cultural diversity by comparing and contrasting case studies and examining complex ethical dilemmas common in deaf education. Students will develop teaching repertories by evaluating, synthesizing, and reflecting on the complex, interdependent relationships between aspects of diversity, such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, languages, and their social histories. Via the course, students will understand how plural forms of diversity shape learning and teaching, with a focus on understanding the role of diversity in the curriculum. COURSE GOALS & OUTCOMES: Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to (SWBAT): (1) Read, summarize, and interpret contemporary deaf research. (2) Define and describe multiple forms of individual and group diversity. (3) Understand how fundamental concepts constitute diversity in education, (e.g.: culture, values, language, class, gender, etc.). (4) Explore ethical dilemmas and conflicts that are present in deaf education research and practice. Finally, working alone and in groups, (5) Use academic communication to share findings and articulate critical stances regarding course themes and topics (including online discussion boards, student-created Vlogs, and curriculum planning units). PROGRAM OUTCOMES: The experiences, philosophies, and methods included in this course are designed to: (1) Acculturate MSSE students to the thought processes, values, and practices of highly qualified deaf educators. (2) Assist teacher-candidates in becoming self-reflective deaf educators who are lifelong learners. (3) Synthesize evidence-based practices from social and deaf education research in preparation for student teaching and early-career teaching. (4) Develop a knowledge base that supports the social, academic, and communication needs of diverse deaf students in a variety of educational environments. SKYER’S STATEMENT OF ARTICULATION: Diversity is elusive and omnipresent; at once easy and impossible to define. This class’ design exposes you to a research corpus that explores interdependent relationships between multiple components of diversity in education. The course will assist you in understanding how to make ethical decisions about teaching and curriculum within increasingly diverse, increasingly complex, and changing environments. The class has two main goals: (1) to understand the complexity of deaf students’ diversity; and (2) to devise ways to respond to diversity via research-supported teaching practices. Together, we will come to understand how diversity shapes ethical, evidence-based curriculum planning, pedagogical interventions, and assessment practices. The course design provides abundant opportunities for actively discussing contemporary issues in deaf education. Considerable effort has been made to select current research that views deafness, disability, and diversity positively. However, diversity is often a source of disagreement. As such, the theme of conflict overarches the course, extant in various forms across all sites of educational and cultural diversity. The broad theme for this course is: applying theory on diversity in teaching.

Log In

Human Emergence Syllabus

Sign up for access to the world's latest research

Abstract

Related papers

Related topics