Countering the Primacy of the Visual in Pedagogy

Today's post in the continuing series on embodiment, the sensory, and accessible pedagogy asks you: How much visual is assumed in your pedagogical design? Are there assumptions made about the level of visuality and are there other ways into the content, the activities, and assessments for blind and low-vision learners?

There are many ways that a primacy of the visual happens in educational spaces just like it happens in other public or private spaces that we navigate each day.  I want to start by noting that statistics from 2017 show that 1.5 million Canadians have reported sight loss. I am also linking to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind Foundation (CNIB) website that has many advocacy resources that you may want to know about to advocate in the spaces you are in. 

I mention this to start because there are so many conversations that happen around accessibility where folk think that supporting disabled folk or those with different sensory disabilities is about supporting edge cases, in the vein of "there are no blind students in my class" and this is not the case. This is not edge case work, this is important work that impacts many people in our educational spaces and beyond. And vision loss can also be something that can impact anyone depending on the situation. For example, the wild fires in Northern Ontario cause a lot of smoke in my region this week. My eyes were burning, even in the office, because the filters could not keep up with the smoke and particulates in the air. This impacted my ability to look at the screen for longer periods of time. The more we reflect on the dynamic nature and impact on sensory, the more we can stop thinking of this as edge case work but rather design and implementation work that has the possibility to impact everyone at any time.

With that, there are many ways the visual is prioritized in our educational spaces. One of the most obvious ways that the visual is prioritized in eduspace is through resources, in particular through slide decks or other documents shared with learners. I know that many are learning daily about how to make their slide decks and other materials more inclusive and to remember that folk may be using screen readers to access materials. This resource from Microsoft can help guide you through some considerations around materials like slide decks. 

But it is not just the deck itself, but how we speak about the deck and the words we use when presenting information. Statements like "as you can see" when speaking about something that may be up on a screen, assumes that the folk in the space with you will see what you are referencing and that is not the case. So shifting language away from the primacy of the visual towards "this chart shows" or something like this instead and then going on to give a verbal description of the chart in question, is a more inclusive way to frame information. We often have words in our everyday discourse that make sensory assumptions around visuality or hearing or smell (as someone with anosmia, the amount of times people assume I can smell a thing weekly is far from n=1, as well I am someone who masks in public spaces). So taking a moment to reflect on the kinds of words we use that assume a sensory way of being or a certain bodymind is important. 

We also have other things that supplement the visual in our educational spaces that are not necessarily digital in nature. For example, how folk may use hand gestures to supplement what they are saying and help get a point across. These kind of hand gestures may support engagement, but there also needs to be a non visual way to do this, either by intonation of voice (for those who can hear or perceive intonation) or again by describing gestures. 

The educational space, especially on-campus, also needs to be one where we reflect on sight-lines in the class. Are there assumptions made that everyone in the room will be able to engage or see the material being written on a blackboard or whiteboard, or projected on the screens in similar ways? In larger lecture halls, taking time before the semester starts to look at the room and position yourself in back of the classroom while having something on the screen will allow you to see if your fonts need to be larger, if you need to write larger, and how you will provide the material in a different way so that everyone can engage. Similarly if you are showing a video this may assume that everyone will be able to see what is happening on the screen. Therefore, videos need to either be given with audio description or described verbally by members of the teaching team to those in the eduspace. This resource from Harvard about audio description of video may be helpful. 

Connected to sight lines is also light in the classroom. Because we assume that everyone would need the same level of light, or would experience the light in a room or space in the same way, we often don't think about light. In fact many of our classroom spaces on campus do not allow those in the room to adjust light in different ways, there are only off or on options. When sharing a video often some instructors will dim or turn off the lights, but you may be in a classroom space where that is not possible, or some students may need the light to take notes. There is no one solution to these situations, which I know is often frustrating to members of teaching teams who want to have more checklist type ways to engage with accessibility, however every context, learner, and situation is different. Therefore, I raise these primacy of visual situations that are common in eduspace to raise awareness of how light in a space for example, impacts student experience and is dependent on sensory needs. 

If you are interested in thinking more about the visual, you can also listen to Episode 12 of my Accessagogy podcast [9 minute episode] that talks about sensory bias in general. There are transcripts provided as well so you can engage that way as well. I will be back next week with another post that will talk about the sensory and engagement in accessible pedagogy.