Well, I'd hope that stupid questions like "Is that yours?" are to some extent intended to imply better questions like "Is your disability temporary or permanent?" or even "Should I be offering you assistance with some things?", and so I suppose what they are hoping for is that you will answer those questions without them having to ask. But the fact that they are finding it awkward to ask should indeed cause them to wonder if it is appropriate to be asking...
If I didn't know you and read your LJ (and also have acquired some understanding by working in the voluntary sector...), I'm not sure I'd be much less ignorant than those people... although I would default to ignoring rather than asking silly questions. But on the other hand I guess you can go too far with the ignoring and fail to offer assistance when it would actually be appreciated, or ignore the person with the disability rather than ignoring the disability. Given that a basic understanding of what is and is not a good way of communicating with someone with a (visible) disability takes about 5 minutes to gain, you'd hope more people would have picked up that basic understanding and awareness from somewhere...
"I was bitten by a Sphinx for asking impertinent questions" is cool, but I can see that they might not get it. Being intentionally rude back to someone who is unintentionally rude might well be justified, but I'm not sure it would get them to be less rude in future, and if anything might reinforce whatever negative perceptions they have of people with disabilities... I like redbird's "It's really a secret weapon" which I think would get across the point that you didn't want to be asked the question and aren't going to answer, while still leaving them able to escape from the situation and talk to you about something else...
Certainly seems wise to wait and see how it goes before taking on more students, but I would suspect that you won't find the course difficult, except for complications caused by being one of only 2 people starting from a different basis...
Hrm... somehow that turned into a really long comment...
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-10-01 12:51 pm (UTC)If I didn't know you and read your LJ (and also have acquired some understanding by working in the voluntary sector...), I'm not sure I'd be much less ignorant than those people... although I would default to ignoring rather than asking silly questions. But on the other hand I guess you can go too far with the ignoring and fail to offer assistance when it would actually be appreciated, or ignore the person with the disability rather than ignoring the disability. Given that a basic understanding of what is and is not a good way of communicating with someone with a (visible) disability takes about 5 minutes to gain, you'd hope more people would have picked up that basic understanding and awareness from somewhere...
"I was bitten by a Sphinx for asking impertinent questions" is cool, but I can see that they might not get it. Being intentionally rude back to someone who is unintentionally rude might well be justified, but I'm not sure it would get them to be less rude in future, and if anything might reinforce whatever negative perceptions they have of people with disabilities... I like
Certainly seems wise to wait and see how it goes before taking on more students, but I would suspect that you won't find the course difficult, except for complications caused by being one of only 2 people starting from a different basis...
Hrm... somehow that turned into a really long comment...