Nothing About Us Without Us: Practical Strategies for Accessible Pedagogy
Nothing About Us Without Us: Practical Strategies for Accessible Pedagogy
Jennie Baker and Heath J. Wooten
Key Takeaways
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This chapter explores practical strategies based on the lived experiences of the authors, who are disabled graduate instructors.
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Theoretical approaches to accessible pedagogy should be rooted in praxis that accounts for the material realities of the disabled people it professes to be for.
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Most classroom interventions at present are accommodations, which are based on the medical model of disability; this chapter describes an approach to accessible pedagogy rooted in the social model of disability, and an ethics of disability justice.
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Instructors can explore ways of implementing accessible praxis by rethinking the ableist assumptions inherent in such areas as time, space, grading, participation, and technology.
We are writing this chapter from the firmly held perspective that accessible pedagogy should build from the experiences of disabled people. In other words, “nothing about us without us.” In the following chapter, we share our personal experiences, theoretical backgrounds on accessibility and disability, and practical suggestions for the accessible classroom. This chapter is organized as an orientation to accessible pedagogy, as we understand it, from our experiences and relative positions. We hope that our narratives will lend shape to the nebulous menace of “academic ableism.” To do this, we begin from a place of sharing stories before moving into theoretical frameworks and, finally, invitations to reflect on opportunities for (re)thinking classroom practices to make them more accessible.
Authors’ Positionality
Heath
As a chronically ill graduate instructor, accessibility and accessible pedagogy are constantly on my mind. My experiences as a student are marked by a pervasive brain-fog and fatigue and a struggle to complete assignments in a timely manner. As a graduate instructor, my illnesses manifest in an anxiety that I am failing my students if I do not deliver course content enthusiastically, which is difficult to live up to.
The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded many of my anxieties in regards to teaching. I did not begin teaching until August 2020, when the pandemic at my institution had yet to reach its peak. Because I had recently relocated to the other side of the United States, I did not have a local doctor, and I would not be able to get an appointment for several months; however, graduate teaching assistants were required to prove disability in order to move to an exclusively online course delivery. I was unable to secure such proof, so I was required to teach in person. While we eventually were given the opportunity to teach online without conditions the next semester, we were offered few mental health resources. Most of my non-classroom time was spent alone, unable to motivate myself to do anything other than sleep and attend class. Time felt like a luxury I could not afford.
These experiences prompt