{"id":558,"date":"2011-03-10T08:55:44","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T08:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/down-syndrome-and-friendship.html"},"modified":"2011-03-10T08:55:44","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T08:55:44","slug":"down-syndrome-and-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2011\/03\/down-syndrome-and-friendship.html","title":{"rendered":"Down Syndrome and Friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

“What’s the point of special education?” my friend asked.
\nShe has a daughter with Down syndrome who is the only kid with special needs in
\nher kindergarten class. Her daughter is struggling to keep up. The teacher
\ndoesn’t have any training for kids with special needs. “Are we trying to fit a
\nsquare peg into a round hole?”<\/p>\n

Here’s the question: Is the purpose of education purely
\nacademic? If it is, then perhaps there really isn’t a place for kids with
\nintellectual disabilities in mainstream classrooms (although even then, I
\nbelieve that most academic exercises can be modified for a variety of learning
\nabilities). But I would hope that education is about more than learning times
\ntables and writing sentences. I would hope that there’s a social component, a
\ncomponent that involves learning to accept one another even when we have
\ndifferent skills, befriending one another even when those friendships cross
\nracial or economic or intellectual lines. I would hope that there is a place
\nfor our daughters in a classroom with typically-developing peers, and I would
\nhope that their presence would be positive for everyone involved. <\/p>\n

I grew up in a homogenous elementary school. Everyone had
\nwhite skin except for one boy whose parents had immigrated from India. I didn’t
\nknow anyone with disabilities. And to this day, even with a daughter with Down
\nsyndrome, I am struggling to learn how to cross those social lines and become
\nfriends with those who are considered different from me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, I wrote about<\/a> my hope and prayer that Penny would have friends, and about my concerns that I haven’t done enough as a mother to facilitate those friendships. In the time since I wrote that post, Penny has had her playdate with the friend from ballet (it went well–hopefully more are in store), she went to a museum with two other friends and had a great time, and one of the readers of this blog suggested that Penny become penpals with her daughter. They have exchanged their first round of letters, and Penny has talked about her new friend via the mail every day.<\/p>\n

I was in the grocery store last week. There’s a man who bags groceries there–let’s call him “D”– who has Down syndrome. Most of the other baggers are young people with no sign of a disability. I watched as one of these young men yelled to D. It must have been an inside joke, for they shared a quick laugh before they returned to their work. From my vantage point, I wasn’t watching a man with Down syndrome and a man without disabilities. I was watching two friends.<\/p>\n

So I am hopeful–hopeful that Penny will continue to make friends, hopeful that she will grow up and share a laugh at work, hopeful that integrated classrooms will change things for our culture. And I’m hopeful that friendships that cut across differences help us to realize that we’re awfully similar to one another after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}