Columnist: Don’t let student with DS devalue college degree
April 28th, 2009Leonard Stern, editor of the editorial pages in the Ottawa Citizen, says Toronto’s York University is wise to deny Ashif Jaffer the opportunity to get a college degree. Jaffer gained admission to the school without disclosing that he has Down syndrome.
School officials have refused to allow Jaffer the accommodations he received in high school, including taking a teaching assistant with him into exams. They say the school has a responsibility to protect the integrity of its degrees. Jaffer’s mother is fighting the decision.
An excerpt:
Down syndrome people are generous, fun, thoughtful and curious. But the only way Ashif will ever graduate from university is if someone does the intellectual work for him.
York is willing to let Ashif audit courses if he likes, but his mother seems determined he get a degree. For a woman who is herself very smart, it’s odd that she can’t recognize the error of insisting her son become something he is not.
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April 29th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I wrote the following comment in response to the article stating that allowing a student with Down syndrome to have accommodations would devalue York University’s degree (I thought I would post it here, too):
I’m a law school graduate and I guess the author doesn’t know that in most law school and medical school classes it is common for one to use a tape recorder to tape the lecture or to have a service or a particular person take notes for students.
So why is it allowed for us, but not for someone with a disability? That sounds like discrimination to me. What an unconvincing point to make in the university’s argument for not allowing this young man accommodations.
I also think the author takes a giant leap from stating that this young man has a helper or teaching assistant to concluding that this means he is “coached” during exams, making it look as though the assistant is supplying him with the answers.
Nobody wants a degree to be “devalued” and I don’t think that by making accommodations so this young man can learn the same information as everyone else does that.
I thought the purpose of a school was to impart knowledge. I don’t care if someone has to have someone take notes or even read the exams to him if he can show he has learned the information given to him to learn.
As long as someone is not giving him the answers, why does it matter how he shows he has grasped the concepts and information he is supposed to be learning?
Finally, the author states that learning disabilities can be accommodated because they don’t necessarily reflect an underlying capacity for mathematical and abstract reasoning, but accommodations should not be made for one with a chromosomal defect.
By using the word “necessarily”, I take it the author concedes that a learning disability may reflect such an underlying capacity. But, “learning disabilities” can have the accommodations while someone with a “chromosomal defect” cannot? And, isn’t it a gross generality to say all with a certain defect all have the same capacity for learning and understanding?
These arguments put forth by the author certainly have a lot of holes and haven’t convinced me.
April 29th, 2009 at 1:51 am
I am reminded of a woman abroad who helped her child go to college. But the child was very unhappy.
The question here, is why is auditing not enough? The only answers I can imagine are two:
1. To get a job. (A degree obtained like this would not help….)
2. To meet some society’s vision that you are worth more if you have a degree.
A mother who fights for a degree for reason No. 2 is treading dangerous ground. The saddest statement I ever heard from a young adult with Down syndrome, who is very high functioning, is “I USED to have Down syndrome …” We must teach our children that just as it is great to strive, try, and achieve, you are worth just as much as anyone else, even if you do not X, Y or Z.