Final Blog for Lit. Circles

For the literature circles books I read the novel Thinking in Pictures: My life with Autism. By Temple Grandin.
 For this final blog I reviewed and compared my book to The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks from Haley Mooney's blog entry. Both books talk about challenging the status quo with oppression. In Temple's book she talks about how autistic people get oppressed in life and the disabled get pushed aside because they are thought of as incomplete. Many people see it as easier just to label disabled people and not worry about maybe they actually have something to offer. No one spend the time to figure out what their strengths are; Temple Grandin is able to see images in her head that no other "normal" human can see and yet she also at first was just labeled like everyone else. Henrietta had a similar story but she was not labeled purely by who she was, this played a role but really the problem with her was that no one ever tried digging to the bottom of who she was and what her real story was.
People in this society find it much easier to just go along with the rest of the crowd than spend time actually trying to find out the truth.  Haley sums this up well in her blog saying that "people are afraid of change and therefore when "signs" show that something may not go so well, the idea is quickly dropped and moved on from." This is what happens with autistic people too. No one wants to spend the time to actually find their strength and work with it, that is why it is hard for them to get past basic level job work. Yet if one was to actually spend the time to find their strengths and utilize them in the future, for education and job preference (like Temple did) they would flourish and be able to accomplish much more than then the average person.
Society needs to stop being lazy and get around just normal stereotypes, there are deep secrets that are hidden in things we choose to ignore, all we need to do is actually spend the time looking in them. They could help up solve our biggest problems.

Lit. Circle Response #3

Thinking in Pictures: Life with Autism. Temple Grandin.

Meeting #3. 123-184.

Summary:

In this section Grandin talks about the medication associated with autism. She talks about the new methods as well as the old. Afterwards she goes on to talk about autism and relationships and how autistic people see relationships in physical ways better than in mental ways. Then she goes into connecting with cows and how it helped her with her work; she was able to see things through the cows eyes and because of that she was able to accomplish more.

“One should not always be a watcher- the cold impersonal observer- but instead should participate” (Grandin, 153).

This is a quote from Temple; she talks about how autistic people often don't get involved but really should; people without autism are no different. There are always children that stay far away and just observe because they aren't courageous enough to participate. Children need to understand that they can not always be observers- they need to take part in things and become involved. Becoming involved is scary but it widens a person's horizons and lets one experience more than they ever could by just being an observer. Autistic children are often thought to be so different from normal children but they really aren't; they have the same problems that normal children do, like not fitting in and not being accepted, again as Temple says, one just has to step out and try something new and that problem is gone.

Captured Thought: Post-modern art

I never understood why people enjoyed a dot on a white canvas and why that was called art. After spending weeks learning about modern vs. post-modern art I finally realized why people liked this art. It is the only next step.
Artists have already shown everything that is visibly seen; now they have to dig deeper and show what we can't see with our eyes. Because we can't see these things with our eyes, people have the freedom to explore any type of image. Someone's personality can be represented by a black canvas or by millions of crazy colored paint splatters. There is no limit on that which we can not see.
Modern art is hard to accept for me, but knowing where it comes from definitely helps. It opens up doors to things that are otherwise impossible to represent. A persons feelings, personality, anything really.
Some modern art seems very simple as well but when you dig into it: not everyone can come up with a certain way of arranging colors and making it represent a certain feeling or emotion.
I will stay loyal to super photorealistic art as my choice of favorite, but i definitely understand now why many like modern art; it opens up a door that was previously closed shut.