Moving Backwards in Time

I wrote this blog last week and didn't publish it because I wanted to sit with it for a while and maybe revisit some points. So here it is and I hope it helps start conversation if anything.  

I don't have it in me to write a cohesive blog this week because the pain is too much, so you are getting point form thoughts of what is going on (see UDL works and different ways to frame things still gets the same learning outcomes).

• I am typing this standing up using some sort of set up that involves all the first year chemistry and calculus textbooks from my undergrad that I still have because those who work through pain find ways to reduce that pain.  
• I am extremely saddened and disappointed how Higher Education is moving backwards in time on accessibility and is not thinking of flexibility in their delivery
• All of higher ed has demonstrated that we have the technology, the pedagogy, and the expertise to support inclusivity in education (that aligns to learning outcomes) and yet there is a push to willfully ignore and bury the gains in accessibility that have been made. 
• The framing of the arguments around why no online can happen is not actually supported in the documentation they are citing in their case making. 
• Nothing is legally or logistically stopping choice for course delivery for some courses 
• If you are in education and have any kind of ethics to watch this happen hurts to the very core of one's being 
• If you are watching this happen and shrugging your shoulders you are sadly adding to the problem and we need more people to say and act on this instead of shoulder shrugs
• It is easy to say well things move at glacial paces in academe. However, we have just demonstrated in the past 19 months that things can move really quickly IF WE WANT THEM TO
• Many will give up, students, instructors, staff. Many have and will quit because of this. Talent will shift to places where talent is supported and acknowledged. Talent will go where they see their ethics being upheld. 
• The fact that a mental health crisis is almost systemically being used as an excuse for no choices in course modality being offered is a tragedy because the folk that are using this as an excuse don't understand the crisis and have not done the work to understand it. 
• Using the mental health crisis as a way to identify what the institution feels is "best" for students is very infantilizing and patronizing. A person's situation is extremely contextual. You cannot broad stroke declare what someone needs. To do so supports a medical model of disability that folks have been saying for years is an extremely problematic model and we should be supporting social models and disability justice models. 
• Interest Convergence which comes out of CRT but is also applicable to disability studies (you know cause intersectionality is a thing and folk should read about what that is as well) very well frames exactly what is going on here. 
• If you talk about trauma-informed pedagogy and care as something that we should uphold these decisions are the opposite of how we get there. In fact this lack of choice is actually creating more trauma for students, faculty, and staff.
• The systems in place cannot support the mental health and accessibility needs so why not alleviate the system a bit by actually designing supports into the pedagogy (see UDL)? (This includes modality, self-regulation opportunities, goal setting and check points, background knowledge checks and supports, reflection spaces, community building activities, choice in assessments that align to learning outcomes, authentic connection opportunities, the list goes on...)
• If you hire people to do and support a thing, but demonstrate that you don't actually believe in the thing you hired the person to do that is a problem (Ahmed wrote a book about that too)
• I am not sure how many tears need to be shed or backs broken or people sick and dying for the institutions to care. I don't think I have cried more than I have these last two weeks. I know I am not alone. 
• We cannot just let this happen. We need to make voices heard and work within the systems we are in to make sure that this erasure of access supports does not happen. If you have that time and space and positionality privilege to do this, I would like you to join me.