The Future of Education

In 2015 April Reign started the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag to raise even more awareness of the Oscar's racism. In the last two weeks I have been contemplating about various parts of academe, education, and accessibility that are really so or too an inequitable thing and it has been really upsetting to watch the sheer lack of acknowledgment, and actively avoiding any reflection on how there are real real issues that need to be addressed, let me give you some examples. In these examples I will use the discipline noun as representative of the group and discipline in question :

• UDL is too white
• UDL is ableist
• UDL is really US-Centric
• UDL is really elitist
• UDL is really really heteronormative
• Accessibility is too elitist
• Educational development is really ableist
• Conference planning is ableist
• Conference planning is elitist

I could go on. As I scroll through Twitter and I see all these announcements of books, keynotes, projects, I wonder if the folk stop to realize how these look to people from the outside. My guess is not, because I would like to think that if they did they would actually course correct and apologize. But instead what happens is more of the same. More people being excluded. 

People are starting school years and sharing resources and asking for design suggestions on how to be more inclusive, and yet this is all happening with the backdrop of these discipline areas doing their thing, rolling out their one or two representative people to say but no not really Ann look we have *this person* showing that none of them have ever read a thing that Sara Ahmed wrote.

So what do we do? What is next? What is the future of education? I mean is this the future of education, because if so, this is really bad, and if you can't see how bad it is I am sorry, it is probably because you are part of one of those bullet points above and have not taken the time to reflect. I am a white cis queer settler woman with dynamic disabilities (thanks to @bennessb for this term) and acknowledge that my white and cis and settler positionality gives me privileges in certain spaces, privileges that I use to support advocacy and awareness. I wish more folk would reflect on what their positionalities do.

I am publishing this now because I have a week off next week. I won't be blogging for the next two weekends and I am going to desperately try to get some rest. I wish I had an answer besides, hey just stop and reflect for a second, but I know this is not going to work for so many because the benefits (especially fiscal ones) are more important to folk than the actual ethics of the work. There are so many resources out there, so many practitioners with actual  experience (community, research) that folk could reach out to. Instead people's ideas and work become co-opted by others who are already in the clique and the circle continues. What kind of example does this set for others who may want to join colleges and universities in whatever role? Is this our course correct for burnout- more elitism and ableism and racism? Help me think this out folks, I want to have some kind of hope or some kind of faith but I have neither. I just have bile and sadness at what could be but is always instead being funneled to the same pockets and not the equity-deserving folk.