Last week’s blog looked at how we engage our students to assess their experiences with people with disabilities. This week, we will look at another activity we do to help our students assess their own perceptions of people with disabilities.  

First, the students answer the following questions on their own:

1. Who are people that are beautiful or handsome?  What makes someone beautiful or handsome? 
2. What makes someone not beautiful or handsome?  
3. How do we decide who is beautiful or not? Where does this come from?
4. Who are some successful people in your community?  What makes them successful?
5. Who are some unsuccessful people in your community?  What makes them unsuccessful?
6. How is success defined? Where do we get this definition of success? 
7. Are there families/people that are more important than others?  What makes them more important or sought after in the community?
8. Are there families/people that aren’t considered important?  What causes this to happen?  
9. How do we decide which people are valuable in our community? 

 Then, we might watch the following video.

Finally, we facilitate a discussion asking some of the following questions:

1. What did you think and feel as you watched the video?
2. To whom do we give stars or dots?
3. How do we view people with disabilities? Where does this view come from?
4. Do you have any other comments or questions based on your completion of the worksheet and watching the video?