China: Man Starts Eatery For Disabled Son
Sarah Elizabeth Carpenter
March 6,2009 @ 6:30 am
This article is about a Chinese man who has a son with cerebral palsy. With his condition he has stunted growth and Is not able to go “regular school” with the “normal” children. Juihe could not walk until he was four and could not speak until he was five. So his father started a Beijing eatery “Hand in Hand” to give his son life experience and secure him life skills that he can use after he finishes school at the school for the disabled. The idea for the restaurant came after he saw his son chatting with a waitress. From working in the restaurant Juihe has learned about money as well as organizational, how to “talk to others and has expanded his vocabulary.
During this endeavor a few other disabled children have been hired to help with the restaurant but they have now graduated and live much more successful lives according to Zhao. In 2006 is was found that six percent of China, or 83 million people were disabled and 5.5 of them are mentally ill. For a long time in China disabled children and adults were labeled as useless, now it runs homes such as the “sweet Home” that is a living learning community for disabled children.
"His skills got better very fast, and there are a lot of moments that we parents have observed. He makes advancements each day, though very small." I liked this article because it talks about learning in different environments. Then I proceeded to look at schools and the problems that they have with the EC children and their classrooms. Most schools place the students in a separate classroom and give the children jobs to do around the school: Sweep the floor, put down chairs in the cafeteria, or even organize classrooms for other teachers. So instead of learning life skills these EC kids are being treated as janitors in the school system. However they also are able to be involved in things like the special Olympics, and the HOPE club that allows kids to work together for improvement of themselves and to raise money for other children like themselves. This lead me to the question of what exactly do “disabled” children need? Do these kids need a special school? Or do they only need a restaurant/ home like Juihe?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/02/china.disabled/index.html?iref=newssearch
2 comments:
I thought that this idea was very good and neat. I think that the disabled children probably did learn alot at the restaraunt by being around other people. The research shows that this is effective. I agree with you that everyone learns in different environments and sometimes being in a more social environment could defintely help some children out.
I like this idea of putting the child around "normal people". I think it is ridiculous that in schools they have them separated constantly. In elementary school the special ed classes would just have fun (such as going on a field trip to go bowling). They had a different lunch as well as a different recess. This continued throughout middle and high school. The only thing that will help these children is to have them treated like real people. Let them interact and socialize.
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