Hello, colleagues,
As someone who worked with severely multiply handicapped students for 21
years, I object to the Guinness large edition's pictures of people with
deformities and handicaps. I don't think that the "show-off" nature of
Guinness makes this a good place for this sort of picture. It's not that
students should not ever see pictures of people with deformities and
handicaps, but that they should see them in a context of respect and
compassion. The idea that people should show off unusual ways in which they
have altered their bodies, especially in socially "private" areas, in this
kind of venue, also seems to make light of human dignity, and may encourage
the kind of self-damage that teens have been known to engage in. I usually
have had only the small paperback format of Guinness in my library. While
it is not totally absent of these pictures, the impact is less in size and
color, and there is more focus on the interesting and more appropriate ways
to set records.
Just had to sound off, here.
Yours, Roberta
Roberta Cole Lader, Librarian
St. Louis School
Alexandria, VA
rclader51@verizon.net
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage
to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
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