Intersectional Disabilities: Thoughts & Notes

As an educator, it is important and paramount that equity and equality is presented, embodied, and demonstrated within one’s own teaching practice. Thus, ensuring your classroom, but particularly the course you teach on, is made equal and as inclusive as possible for any and everybody. Though, particularly within this context, one has to ensure any student or students with any disability is not made to feel different, but rather made to feel equal. Hence, conducting various researches and applying the different resources gathered to help improve factors such as accessibility, clear understanding, and inclusivity to students with disabilities, is utterly important not even for one’s teaching practice, but rather for the students’ learning experience, which ultimately adds to their overall University and student experience.

Furthermore, another method of applying these resources to one’s own teaching practice is by having open conversations. If you as an educator notice there is a student within your class or course whom might have a form of disability, it is vital to create an open space for said student or students to feel welcome and free to discuss whatever they think is impairing their learning and educational experience. In scenarios as such, the student or students might not even know they have a disability, but by creating said open space of conversation, you provide the opportunity for discovery which ultimately helps the student or students. I.E. a student might be dyslexic and he/she/they might be aware that they spell differently or have difficulty putting certain things together coherently, but by noticing this yourself as an educator and building a conversation, you can they direct them toward the right resources e.g. UAL’s Disability Service; where the student or students can receive the appropriate and required help. That being said, if the student or students feel that UAL’s Disability Service is not helpful enough or inclusive and this is reported back to you through honest and open conversation, then it is one’s duty and responsibility as an educator to help the student/students find a way to get the full and proper help they should have received. This can be done by having internal conversations with admin at the Disability Service dept. to find out what can be done, but also why the student was made to feel their help was adequate and/or inclusive. 

It is not only essential that as an educator you do research into disability, in order to apply your findings into the classroom and your teaching practice, but it is equally important for students to delve and research around disability, as to add to an inclusive and equal classroom and educational experience. With that being said, taking in and integrating the research and work students do on the subject of disability within my teaching/professional practice can be done through involvement of discussion. As such, this can be looking at the resources used by the student in gathering their findings, analysing their material and prompting them to question the potential impact of their intersectionality within their research and work, and looking at their position when it comes disability; whether they are disabled themselves or have close relationship with those that are disabled. Additionally, by embedding this form and culture of critical thinking, critical discussions/debates, analytical research, and honest and open viewing; as an educator I encourage inclusivity and information by integrating the students’ work and research into my own teaching and professional practice, whilst adding ways to enhance my teaching methods, ultimately favouring both me and the students. 

Conclusively, embedding great points of references, such as the aforementioned UAL Disability Service, as well as other points of literary references; e.g. film and literature, these resources can be integral to ensuring inclusivity and equality is achieved, particularly when dealing with the subject at hand. Todd Selby’s audiovisual film on deaf performance featuring Christine Sun Kim; delving into the methods Kim, a performance artist with hearing disability, uses to develop and translate sound through experimentation and translating it into movement and vision (Nowness, 2011). Such a short film can be used within one’s teaching practice as a resource to inform, educate, and include. Likewise, recent film Sound of Metal (Marder, 2020), featuring British actor Riz Ahmed, can be used as a resource; with the film focusing on relations toward developing disability and its impact upon it surfacing. 

Overall, we’re all here to learn, dissect, digest, and regurgitate. Thus it is importantly the learning field is equal, meaning it is paramount the teaching is inclusive and equally equal. 

Speak soon, 

T.

NB. The below is my response to two feedback/comments made on the back of the initial published blog post.

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On the note of the opportunities for creating mutual and universal spaces for students without having to declare their abilities, I believe this has to be embedded and rooted within an institution and University’s policy and culture. A lot of universities, UAL included, claim to be inclusive to all abilities and enable all to achieve, however, silent or “non-visible” disabilities are long ignored as though they are not real.

On the potential challenges of integrating the aforesaid material, it is key to ensure that these material and resources are not enforced nor deposited onto students. It has to be mutual and form an organic, and hopefully positive, action and pro-activity from students.

Resources

Todd Selby x Christine Sun Kim (Nowness, 2011) – https://www.nowness.com/story/todd-selby-x-christine-sun-kim

UAL Disability Service (2020) – https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia

Sound of Metal (2020) – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5363618/