Equity is more than giving everyone the same treatment. Equity means giving everyone the same chances in life to achieve goals and discover personal potential. One of the important things I remembered from our course is to always use people's first language. I hadn't realized this before and couldn't explain why words like the "R" word or talking about someone as "autistic" rather than someone with autism would devalue them and in a sense rob them of their personality. Equity means treating people as real people who may come from unique and different circumstances and not assuming that everyone is the same. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay From this course on teaching students with disabilities, the lessons, the content, the videos, and the very informative family panel, I have learned to see people with disabilities more as people than as disabilities. I think it's something that most people struggle with because they haven't been in contact or relationship or emphasis on people with disabilities. I too am part of that population. I don't have friends or family members with disabilities that I'm close to, and it's harder as adults to be open-minded. The course and videos like the family panel really opened my eyes. I did not know, before starting the course, the difficulties that students with disabilities, parents and families have faced, such as dealing with incompetence in the public school system and not having the support, help and knowledge to accommodate and help your children grow in a positive way. It is part of the teacher's job to find ways to accommodate all students to the best of their ability and with the help of specialists and resources such as students' parents and families. These are people, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, family and friends who have unique hopes, dreams, feelings and personalities. Equity and equality don't just mean giving everyone the same resources and saying that's okay. It doesn't work like that. Just as not everyone learns the same way, people with disabilities need different adaptations to be successful. We are not all the same. We must recognize the differences because we don't all start from the same point, especially people with disabilities. It's like if someone was in a wheelchair, you would create ramps and accessibility points for them to get to work or school because that's what they need to achieve their goals. I don't see why we can't create supports like that for everyone who is different. For example, some disabilities are well studied and so people can prepare and expect how a child with something like autism might behave in the classroom, and so any disruptive behavior can be managed efficiently and the child can still be educated. I believe equity means giving everyone access and the same opportunities as everyone else, regardless of differences. Giving people the same things isn't fair. But embracing and being aware that differences can hinder a person's success, and preparing and building support for those differences so they can reach their full potential in life is equity. As a potential future general education teacher, in order to promote fairness and equity, and to help students of all types succeed and discover their potential and adapt them to academic and social success, I would try to use what I have learned and I know, but I realize that I still have a lot to learn due to lack of experience and searchto find creative ways to bring students with disabilities into the classroom socially and academically with the help of research, planning, parents, student families, specialists, my general education students, technology and any other resource available for students with disabilities. Throughout the semester, I have learned many ways and seen many ideas emerge about how to prepare for students with various disabilities and how to help and support them in the classroom, and I hope that what I have learned and know now be useful to promote equity in the future. For example, in one of the videos we watched, I saw a teacher nervous about having a student with Down syndrome in her classroom. The student was at times quite violent and uncooperative. At first she didn't know exactly how to handle the situation, but over time it became a valuable learning experience, not only for her, but also for the other students in the class. The students helped the teacher by positively reinforcing good behavior in the classroom. They realized that the student with Down syndrome was just behaving to get attention, and that it was better to ignore him when he does something bad, but positively reinforce good behavior by paying attention to him when he does something good. together and, importantly, they also made friends with the student with a disability. What I've learned from videos like this is that even the general population without disabilities benefits greatly from students with disabilities in the classroom because they bring their personalities and friendships with them and push all of us to empathize and relate to people with disabilities. If the student with Down syndrome had never entered the classroom, the rest of the students would never have made friends or probably would never have adapted to the needs and problems of people with disabilities. As a potential future teacher, I would try to welcome all students in a positive way and be a role model for the rest of the general education students on how to treat and support students with disabilities. I would try to foster inclusion and get help from students so they learn about people with disabilities and, as a side bonus, make my job easier. This promotes equity for students with disabilities because it allows students with disabilities to adapt to the classroom culture so they can be independent and be ready for higher education, and it provides opportunities to make friends. Not only that, other generalist students grow and learn to treat a person with a disability positively, and I as a teacher become wiser because I have learned to work with and teach a student with a disability as well. Equity is about helping students with disabilities have as normal and interesting lives as possible and ensuring that they are able to proceed to the next steps in academic life. Another recurring theme that I have seen in this course and in videos such as the family panel and other videos on the topic of students with disabilities is that sometimes schools do not support inclusion, sometimes they do not even try to see how students behave students in the classroom, and students with disabilities may study at home, or be educated elsewhere, or isolate themselves, and therefore feel alone. I think in class the professor said that, as teachers, we will have to change the culture and ideology of the schools we work in regarding how they view students with disabilities. Rather than sweeping students with disabilities out of sight into separate settings, prospective teachers should advocate for at least experiencing how a student with a disability performs in a general education classroom. I would try to include them with others.