Skloot, "A Measure of Acceptance"

Discussion questions: Skloot (2005)

Note: the bottom lines on page 180 got cut off. The left side should read "ways. I shed what no longer fit my life: training shoes and road-racing flats,"; the right should read "Carlton indicates–but it does allow me to appreciate detail and nuance."

1. What does Skloot mean by "reciprocity between self and world" (155)?

2. What kinds of disabilities are you familiar with from personal experience, the experiences of others, or your studies? To what extent are the humiliations Skloot undergoes common to the experience of disability?

3. How could people in the medical system, from doctors to insurers, learn to be more supportive of persons with disabilities? How could all of us? What would it mean to "see" the disabled, as Skloot talks of Dr. Avilov finally seeing him (182)?