In Search of Better Angels

J. David Smith is Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor at the University of Virginia′s College at Wise. He earned both baccalaureate and graduate degrees from Virginia Commonwealth University. He was awarded a second master′s degree and his doctorate from Columbia University. His professional experience includes a work as a public school teacher and as a counselor. He and his wife, Joyce, served two years in Jamaica working as Peace Corps volunteers. Before coming to The University of Virginia′s College at Wise as Provost, he served as Dean of the School of Education and Human Services at Longwood University. He also served as Chair of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of South Carolina. He began his higher education career at Lynchburg College. Smith has made numerous invited presentations to national and international audiences and regularly contributes to the professional literature on education, human services, and public policy through journal articles. He is the author of ten books. One of the integrating themes of his research and writing has been a concern for the rights and dignity of people with disabilities. Smith has devoted much of his scholarship to the study of the history of eugenics and its impact on social and educational policy, and he has also been active in addressing contemporary problems and issues in education.

"We must first understand others before we can care about them and we must care about them before we can love them. In this book, J. David Smith takes us on a fascinating journey from understanding to caring to love." Long version:"This is not just a book about special education or people with disabilities, this is a book about humanity and what it means to be human!J. David Smith carries on in the best tradition of the great Southern storytellers. He will make you laugh, he will make you cry, but most importantly, he will make you think!There are insights in this wonderful book that, if taken to heart, can make us all "better angels!"We must first understand others before we can care about them and we must care about them before we can love them. In this book, J. David Smith takes us on a fascinating journey from understanding to caring to love."

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Power and Epiphany - Reflections on the Personal and Cultural Value of DisabilitiesPart I: My Own Journey1. Disability and Revelation: Lessons Learned and Flying Squirrels2. Learning to Love, Loving to Learn: Mike and the Clown Faces3. Inclusion, Exclusion, and Other Matters of the Heart: The Story of Nan4. Disabling Prejudice: Aunt Celie and the Marble Cake5. Lessons in Patois: Learning to Be a Jamaican6. A Father′s Proud Moment: The Day My Daughter Became a Gifted Samaritan7. Recapturing the Spirit of Caring: Uncle, Brownie, and Sausage BiscuitsPart I: Questions to PonderPart II: Disability, Science, and Pseudoscience8. Eugenics, Old and New: Mensa and the Human Genome ProjectThe Tragedy of Involuntary Sterilization EugenicsEugenics: A Continuing LegacyThe Human Genome Project and Mental RetardationMental Retardation, "Felt Necessities," and Ethics9. Euguenics Revisited: Buck Versus Bell and The Bell Curve10. Old Texts, Disabilities, and the Persistent Argument: For Whom the Bell Curves11. Different Voices of Advocacy: Helen Keller and Burton BlattHelen Keller: A Magnificent ExceptionHelen Keller and the Parameters of AdvocacyBurton Blatt′s Advocacy: The Golden Rule and BeyondLegacies and Challenges12. A Place or No Place for Disabilities: Disney′s Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs′ Eugenics, and Visions of Utopian PerfectionTarzan and the Triumph of HeredityBurroughs on Genetic PredeterminationBurroughs on Breeding for UtopiaUtopia and Disabilities13. The Polio Vaccine Research and Children With Disabilities: Sacrifices for the MiraclePersonal Reflections on PolioThe Salk Vaccine and "Institutionalized" ResearchFeeding Live Polio Virus to Children With DisabilitesResearch and Disabilities: Other CasesClaiming a Place of Value for People With Disabilities: The Continuing StrugglePart II: Questions to PonderPart III: Disability in Historical and Literary Perspectives14. Disability and the Need for Romantic Science: Darwin′s Last Child15. Words of Understanding, Concepts of Inclusiveness: The Wisdom of Margaret Mead16. The Question of Differential Advocacy: Laura BridgmanConstructing the Disability of Mental RetardationDisability and InvisibilityLaura Bridgman: The First Miracle17. Disabilities and the Challenges of Equality: Looking Backward, Looking ForwardLooking BackwardLooking Forward18. Diversity and Disability: Individuality and Mental RetardationA Memory From Ignacy GoldbergJack London′s "Told in the Drooling Ward"The Typology of Mental RetardationMental Retardation: Redefining or Disaggregating?Part III: Questions to PonderEpilogue: Finding a Voice - The Story of BillIndex