Outdated Library of Congress Policy Excludes Many Dyslexics

This opinion piece addresses an outdated Library of Congress policy that effectively denies literacy to millions of low income dyslexics and others labeled with learning disabilities.

Deconstructing Disaster: Psycho-Social Impact of Building Deconstruction in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Denhart, H. (2009). Deconstructing disaster: Psycho-social impact of building deconstruction in Post-Katrina New Orleans Cities, 26, 195-201.

This phenomenological study inquired into the psycho-social impact of building deconstruction in disaster response. Nine building owners participating in a Mercy Corps' sponsored building deconstruction program in Post-Katrina New Orleans (2005-2008), engaged in extensive interviews about their experience. The core phenomenon they shared was empowerment arising from a synthesis of positive social interaction and material discovery. Dedicated, local, Mercy Corps trained contractors brought immediate relief to these distressed participants by facilitating "a dignified end" to their buildings and by proxy to the lives they held before the catastrophe. Deconstruction allowed participants to reclaim wealth that would have been scrapped for landfill waste by federal mandate. Participants reported a sudden psychological shift from despair to enthusiasm as they regained control of their property and then discovered value out of the ruined buildings. Data indicated that merely possessing reclaimed material did not explain the psychological transformation. Four of nine informants (including impoverished individuals) experienced psychological transformation by giving all of their reclaimed material away. The sharing of material was described as akin to "donating organs" giving life to their critically injured community. Data indicated the program also promoted more environmentally sustainable behavior.  Previously, deconstruction has only been addressed in terms of technical, mechanical, economic, or environmental outcomes. This study adds a new component by seeing the human side of that technical process. This report is a companion study to another; Deconstructing Disaster;  Economic and Environmental Impacts of Deconstruction in Post-Katrina New Orleans, which provides a quantitative analysis of material salvage from the Mercy Corps program.

Deconstructing Disaster: Economic and Environmental Impacts of Deconstruction in Post-Katrina New Orleans

Denhart, H. (In Press). Deconstructing Disaster: Economic and Environmental Impacts of Deconstruction in Post-Katrina New Orleans. Resources, Conservation & Recycling.

Within weeks of the 2005 hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, along the Gulf region of the United States, Mercy Corps implemented a deconstruction program to reclaim building material from some of the 275,000 destroyed homes. In contrast to machine demolition where massive flows of construction debris are directed into landfills, hand deconstruction of buildings diverts materials out of landfills by redirecting them back into reuse or recycling. This study reports findings of reclaimed material from four deconstructed houses. Over 20,000 data points revealed salvage rates of 38% to 75% of the buildings by weight. A total of 44 tons of material was redirected back into the local building material stream (enough to build three new homes out of the four that came down). This included 32,342 board feet of reusable lumber among the $60,000 worth of products returned to a devastated local economy. In this study the cost/profit of deconstruction varied from a net cost of $3.80 to a net profit of $1.53 per square foot. This compares to an estimated net cost of demolition at a steady $5.50 per square foot. Also, deconstruction in post-disaster New Orleans revealed better efficiency of labor than in previous non-disaster situated studies. This report includes a review of scholarly and non-scholarly literature in the deconstruction field to provide a snapshot of the emerging industry. This report is one of two sponsored by Mercy Corps on the use of deconstruction in post-disaster New Orleans. The companion study (Denhart, 2009) conducted as a phenomenology examines the psycho-social impact of deconstruction in disaster response. These two studies support the use of deconstruction among countries seeking to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals of reducing the human and environmental impact of disasters by 2015.
Keywords: deconstruction, demolition, disaster, material reuse, construction, Katrina, Gulf Coast, recovery, waste, Mercy Corps.

Snapshot of Service Learning Literature: a smorgasbord of ideology, perspectives, and hard cash

Draft

Scholarly conversations and research trends in Service Learning (SL) in the past few years illuminate a paradigmatic shift in the field. In order to identify this shift a broad review of literature was conducted between January, 2007 and July 2008. This snapshot of the field in a narrow strip of time provides insight into SL: history, definitions and functions, paradigms, and research on effectiveness; as well as perspectives from institutions (including funding and marketing), faculty (including deterrents and overcoming deterrents), and communities.
Out of a list of several hundred articles from the scholarly press, 57 were reviewed in depth. Articles were located through the ERIC database using a Boolean search of the terms “service learning” and “education. Literature included research reports, case studies, book reviews, and commentary on Service Learning at all levels of education in both the public and private sectors.

Service Learning Snapshot: a smorgasbord of ideology, perspectives, and hard cash for revising the University of New Orleans Community Engagement Program

Report

In the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 the University of New Orleans (UNO) faced multiple, unique and pressing crises unlike any in the history of American education. The university’s infrastructure was completely destroyed, its buildings battered, flooded and uninhabitable, its funding gravely reduced, and its faculty, students and staff scattered outside of the region. Even so, the greater New Orleans’s community turned to UNO for desperate assistance to which the university replied by opening its few doors a month after the storm. Returning UNO students and faculty brought with them a strong desire to help the wider New Orleans community through a formal service learning program. Immediately after the storms, UNO’s chancellor responded by appointing a service learning taskforce to develop a program enabling UNO to assist the wider community. Increased capacity to provide community services remains a great need in organizations and agencies that provide a variety of social services, economic development assistance, and environmental recovery services. To assist UNO in its early effort to re-establish its SL tradition, Mercy Corps, an international non profit humanitarian relief organization, funded a Service Learning consultant from Portland State University to facilitate the process. This paper summarizes UNO’s early vision for a Service Learning program and the process undertaken to establish it in context of the time. The paper also offers a lengthy review of Service Learning literature upon which to situate recommendations for program design and “next steps” in implementing that design. Recommendations include developing a program based on attraction rather than institutional mandate; beginning with a few model courses taught by highly respected professors and high profile enough to attract wide media attention (these courses should include a few from the hard sciences); seeking funding from alumni to demonstrate local commitment to the program; establishing a grant writing Capstone to seek out funding for the early years of the program; further developing already established peer program relationships with high ranking universities acting as mentors to faculty; creating a Service learning office to offer training and liaison with the Chancellor.

Deconstructing Barriers Perceptions of Students Labeled With Learning Disabilities in Higher Education

Denhart, H. (2008). Deconstructing Barriers; perceptions of students labeled with LD in higher education. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 41(6), 483-497.

This phenomenological study investigated barriers to higher education faced by 11 college students labeled with learning disabilities (LD) using their voice as the primary data. Data were analyzed and interpreted through a disability theory perspective revealing barriers stemmed largely from external social causes rather than individual pathology. Barriers included being misunderstood by faculty, being reluctant to request accommodations for fear of invoking stigma, and having to work considerably longer hours than nonlabeled peers. Findings indicated barriers could be overcome through raising faculty awareness about LD issues, engaging the assistance of the college LD specialist, and participation in a LD democratic empowerment community on campus.

On the Nature of Dyslexia: A Dyslexic Researcher's Perspective

Published by Boys and Girls Clubs of America 2007

Dyslexia is a natural part of our human community flowing into all the world’s cultures and languages through many different genetic pathways (Biotechnology, 2007). Although statistics vary widely from source to source, estimates suggest about one in every seven people have some of the attributes of dyslexia (Eden & Zeffiro, 1998). We know that 10 percent of US children have been clinically identified as having some form of “learning disability” (Altarac & Saroha, 2007). Considering that clinical diagnosis is expensive and difficult to undertake, chances are that a larger percentage of people go unidentified. Many dyslexics manage to go through k-12 and even well into college before discovering it. Eighty-five percent of the informants in one of my studies did not know they could be labeled with any kind of LD until they were well into college. One of them discovered it in her senior year. Ultimately, we cannot know the exact frequency of dyslexia until geneticists identify the specific genes carrying it into the human population. We know that people with dyslexia encounter the world differently as they see, listen, speak, remember, and use their muscles. They also have more allergies or other autoimmune system issues like diabetes or thyroid imbalances (Benasich, 2002). On the positive side, we know that dyslexics are better at humor as well as creative approaches to problem solving (LaFrance, 1997).  Still, even after 50 years of medical research we know very little about how people with dyslexia view the world. Up to this point research has almost entirely been a matter of observing people with dyslexia and assuming their experience rather than asking them for their perspective. However, an exciting new research field is emerging to seek the voice of those with dyslexia and it is doing so with gusto. Early findings from the new field suggest that dyslexia might not be so much a dysfunction as it is a normal part of healthy, human variation misunderstood as disabling. Findings suggest that in the right context it is not a disability at all. The new field redirects us to understand dyslexia as something that serves humanity.
This paper reviews findings from medicine and other traditional fields of research, then moves into the critical perspective of Disability Studies where brain research is interpreted very differently and LD is demonstrated to be a socially constructed disability. Here, the barriers arise from misunderstanding, intolerance, and discrimination rather than physical pathology. In this view democracy is considered the most important tool for remediation.

The Invisible Intellectuals

Doctoral Dissertation

This phenomenological study investigated what students labeled with learning disabilities (LD; also called learning differences) view as barriers to their access of higher education and what they see as their accommodation needs for full participation in education. Eleven college students labeled with LD engaged in long interviews providing for the voice of those labeled with LD to be used as the primary data. Findings were interpreted through emerging theories in the new field of disability studies. Findings indicated barriers to education were seen as socially imposed rather than emanating from individual pathology. Informants indicated they were blocked from moving effectively through higher education by: (a) being misunderstood and misrepresented by their institutions, (b) feeling reluctant to use accommodations for fear of invoking stigma, (c) devaluing their work accomplished with accommodations, (d) needing to work significantly longer hours on homework than their non-labeled counterparts, (e) feeling their extraordinary workload was unrecognized by faculty, (f) finding their hard work did not produce a product commensurate with their efforts (leading them to believe faculty doubted their work effort) and, (g) not being consulted by clinicians in determining their accommodation needs. Strategies used by some of these informants to overcome these barriers included: (a) rejecting the disability label, (b) establishing interpersonal relationships with their professors in order for professors to see past the stereotype of LD and recognize the capacity of the individual within, (c) having the assistance of an LD Specialist who advocated for informants with faculty and bureaucracies, and (d) establishing empowerment communities with others labeled with LD. Data strongly points to the need for faculty diversity training on LD issues to be implemented by universities. This study also offers an insider’s view of how findings in medical research map to the context of everyday life, classroom learning, and social interaction. Informants describe how difficulties with visual, phonemic, semantic, memory, and kinesthetic functioning appear and disappear in the context of social situations. This study recommends colleges provide for social and political empowerment of those labeled with LD by recognition of an autonomous LD community on campuses similar to minority student groups.