Elizabeth Axler

MUEX
Dr. Rodriguez
12/10/21

MUEX Final Reflection

Walking into this MUEX, I had broad knowledge and experience working with students with

disabilities. Over the summer, working as a camp lifeguard, I frequently had to deal with

situations where campers with disabilities felt uncomfortable/ acted out in the pool. Many a time,

the situations were handled by force: the aid dragging the student out of the water and punishing

them with “time out” or leaving the pool completely. Another student with a disability had to

frequently lose pool time because he acted out too much, and put other students in danger.

Looking back at that experience and using the knowledge I know now, I am disheartened with

how the situations were handled, and I feel guilty that I could not help deescalating the situations

in a different ad more helpful way. But, I know I shouldn’t be guilty about my lack of knowledge

in the past. I should have happy that I now have the tools and resources to help children with

disabilities in future situations.

I’ll now go into the aspects I have learned in class that I find the most helpful and enlightening:

First off, I’ll go into one of our classes we had this semester that changed my outlook entirely on

students with disabilities. It was a lesson closer to the beginning of the semester about a woman

with a disability’s TED talk about how people with disabilities are not “special”. I remember her

saying something like, “there should be nothing special about living your live the way you were

born.” That line really got me. In TV, new, and media, we are brainwashed that with a person

with a disability accomplishes something: whether that is giving a performance, going to school,
Elizabeth Axler
MUEX
Dr. Rodriguez
12/10/21

playing an instrument, that it is considered “inspirational”. The woman challenges the viewers to

stop viewing people with disabilities as “inspirational”, and to start viewing them as people who

just live their lives with their definition of normal.

After that video, I think that the course really hit home and made sense to me. That video really

set the scene for me for the rest of the course and changed my thinking about people with

disabilities.

Now for more specific knowledge I’ve learned in this course that is going to help a lot. For one, I

have collected an internal database of knowledge and strategies to use with students with

disabilities, and that is mainly through experiences and trial and errors with our MUEX class

time. I have also learned so much specific knowledge when it comes to making adaptions for

students with different kinds of disabilities: blindness, autism, missing arms/legs, illnesses, ect.

Thanks to all the work and homework we have done over the semester, I have experience

researching and reading form Hourigan and Hammel about many strategies I can use for specific

instances.

Learning about UDL and the three categories chart has also helped me tremendously in creating

lesson plans and finding good adaptions for the situations. I think that UDL has also opened

another door/ another layer to consider when creating adaptions, because you’re not just creating

adaptions for the disability, you are creating adaptions for the student, which is very important.

UDL also taught me that when I am designing my lesson plans, I should have UDL ideas open
Elizabeth Axler
MUEX
Dr. Rodriguez
12/10/21

from the start, not just adding it on at the end for pity. UDL has become a main part of my lesson

planning, which is great!

Finally, it was extremely helpful for me to learn about all the laws put in place when it comes to

furthering the education of students with disabilities. These laws I am definitely going to be

looking at a lot more once I become a teacher. I also found it so helpful to research in depth IEP

plans and 504 plans, which prior to this class, I knew a bit about, but not in detail.

Overall, this class has prepared me so well as a future music educator, and I am so thankful that

Susquehanna offers this course. I can say with confidence that I know what to do when a student

comes in with any disability. My confidence in this encourages me to be a better teacher, and to

keep learning everyday to be a better teacher. 😊

Thank you so much for a great semester Dr. Rodriguez!