Books, essays, podcast episodes, and more that I think are worth your time, plus recent cultural news that I’m paying attention to in the month of May…
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Podcast Episodes
Everything Happens: “How to Love the World Anyway with Nadia Bolz-Weber and Sarah Bessey”
So this conversation about holding on to faith, beauty, hope, and simple ways of participating in loving one another encouraged me this week.
Being Human: Dr. Lee Warren on Using Neuroscience and Scripture to Rewire Your Brain
My friend Katherine Wolf says that sometimes she has to “boss her brain around.” I thought of her words when I listened to this fascinating and encouraging conversation between Steve Cuss and neurosurgeon Lee Warren about how we can rewire our own brains through our thinking
Essays
News: ‘12 years comes down to a day’: High schoolers with Down syndrome become some of the first in Kentucky to graduate from integrated program
I love this story about two seniors with Down syndrome graduating from their private Christian high school. According to the article, their is “one of the only private schools in the country that allows students with Down syndrome to integrate in classes and activities with their peers.” It is so encouraging to see schools deciding that inclusion is good, right, and beneficial for all.
News: Ed Department Unleashes $144 Million For Special Education
It is very good news that the US Dept of Ed has released $144 million which will be used both to serve infants and their families who need Early Intervention services and for students aged 3-21 in our school system. These types of public investments in the futures of our children with disabilities benefit our whole society.
Article: Private schools, public dollars: A staggering racial gap in NYC special education tuition payments
A new investigation reveals that the children with disabilities whose families receive funding for private school tuition in New York City are predominantly and disproportionately white and live in wealthy zip codes:
“Nearly 71% of students who won tuition payments last school year were white, a population that makes up 12.5% of students with disabilities in the city’s public schools,”
and
“Black and Latino children, who make up about 75% of students with disabilities, represented just 24% of children receiving tuition reimbursements.”
There are all sorts of reasons why children in middle- and upper-income families are more likely to move from public to private school, including the ability to fund tuition while suing the school district.
I’m in favor of families getting out of public services that don’t actually serve them. But I also want to invest in public special education that does actually serve our students with disabilities and helps them and their families know that a good future is possible.
Article: Disabilities & the Church: What Leaders Should Know
There’s so much wisdom in these ten thoughts for church leaders who want to create welcoming spaces for families affected by disability. I appreciated all the points, but this sentence especially caught my eye:
“Disability is not a problem to be solved, but an ordinary human experience that calls for sustained attentiveness.”
As the authors note, there is no “magic-wand” that changes the ordinary reality of disability. But there are ways of being a congregation that can transform the experience of everyone involved.
NYT {Gift Article}: “Vegetative Patients May Be More Aware Than We Knew”
I’m still not sure what I think about how we should care for people in what doctors call a “persistent vegetative state.” On the one hand, I don’t think we should idolize life. On the other, nor should we denigrate life, and even the comparison of a human with a vegetable seems to do exactly that. This essay was fascinating, and also horrifying, in examining many of our assumptions about how much “vegetative” patients might feel and understand. It also examines the ways in which our language and politics around people in these situations pertain to debates over euthanasia of the disabled.
Research: In Pursuit: Marriage, Motherhood, and Women’s Well-Being
I have an essay, in connection to Mother’s Day, with the Institute for Family Studies. For today I wanted to point you toward a fascinating research study IFS published about the happiness of mothers. I got to reflect on this a little in my own essay—married mothers are the happiest women, says the study, probably due to decreased loneliness, increased physical touch, and increased sense of meaning and purpose. (I should add, I also appreciated the study for pointing out that other women are not inevitably unhappy and that we as a society could do far more to support both single women and single mothers.)
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