Transformative Access

This week's blog post is inspired by something that I read in a great article by Travis Chi Wing Lau on access practices in classroom spaces during the pandemic. In the article Lau speaks to the need to move and need to centre transformative access as opposed to a more consumptive access. Consumptive access as I understand it is more like the accessibility name dropping that we do but with empty gestures. For example, speaking of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) but not having actual UDL practices in the courses one teaches, or the concept that access and inclusion is putting one book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on your reading list (shout out to Lol my Praxis for this great discussion on inclusion in reading lists). 

So this got me thinking about what transformative access looks like in my world. Whenever I hear the word transformative I think about Wendy Sutherland-Smith's work on academic integrity and how to get to an educational space that focuses on integrity there needs to be a movement from transmission as pedagogical practice (more like information dumping) to a more transformational pedagogical practice where learners are given space and opportunity to make learning meaningful and authentic to them and thus transform the concept which can also be a powerful transformative moment. 

As you may know, I spend a lot of time shaking my fists at clouds on Twitter for folk not alt-texting their images. This weekend it has been all the academics creating their own versions of that xkcd cartoon about academic publishing without any alt-texts. Yes I know it's annoying, but I am not going to stop doing it because it is important to me that folk be more inclusive and accessible in the way they engage with the world. Academics should be modelling accessible practices and not creating more barriers. But I also know that me alt-text bot shaming folk in Twitter does not a transformative access practice make. I mean it could be the beginning of something for some folk, and I have had people email or message me and say that my Twitter has made them more aware of accessibility and now they think about it more than they used to (fun questions for my UK readers: would this be something that is REFable?). If my Twitter has added awareness then I am glad, but that is not the end of it nor should it be. 

What Lau frames in his article is the need to move beyond this checkbox mentality. It is not sufficient to say, well I wrote a tweet, check the box on access advocacy and call it a day. This kind of hashtag activism if anything is a start and not an end point. Advocacy must be both proactive in anticipating issues that will arise and reactive and iterative to issues that happen in context. My relationship to transformative access happens in different ways depending on the hat I am wearing (keeping in mind I wear all the hats). In my educational developer work I promote and support UDL practices and relate concepts of multimodal representation, multiple access points for engagement, and multiple ways to express learning that attains goals and outcomes in every consultation or workshop. In fact this week I spent some time modifying my Educational Development Philosophy statement to reflect some of the things that I have read and incorporated during the pandemic that have become important to the work I do. As an instructor I always have a lesson that focuses on accessible communication and I model this accessible communication practice throughout the term. 

The outcomes of this is varied of course, some instructors still believe that UDL principles mean more work that they don't have time for and this is where I introduce Tobin and Behling's +1 principle. But interestingly for the students they are usually really appreciative of the discussions we have around access, especially if they are studying in business, because they can see the direct applicability to their future work. They know that if they are creating proposals for clients or trying to build a client base that comprehensive access is going to be a factor. As I have mentioned before, I have previous students who keep in touch and email me to let me know how in the courses they are enrolled in now at university or college the slide decks are not accessible or there are aspects of course design that are not accessible and that they now think of this and it's because of what they experienced in my class. If this leads them on the path to their own advocacy then I am happy. 

However, I believe that where we need to get to, to be truly in a space of transformative access, is to be in a space where folk are addressing and including accessible framing because it supports everyone and not because it is a "good business practice" or "the AODA/ADA said so." Other arguments that are used to make connections are things like "we will all experience disability, especially as we age" which okay, sure, but also no that should not be the only reason why you do things because this centres your experience as the only important reason to do something. When I lost my sense of smell and became anosmatic a few years back after a long illness, it never occurred to me to say "well golly am I glad I already advocate for accessibility because here I am without a sense."  But again maybe that is just me.

I am very much about supporting things that make one a good and ethical human. Sadly, there is less and less discussion on how important it is to be a good and ethical human, regardless of what you do for a living. Maybe I am a dreamer with this and if so then so be it, but this pandemic has really brought out the importance of being good and ethical humans and how sadly there's way fewer of them in the world than I originally thought. So I guess to get to transformative access we first need to get to a transformative societal mindset and I am very much committed to making that happen, every day, in whatever way I can and I hope you are too.