Disability in the Arts & HE

Article for Deaf-Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons learned from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill (Khairani Barokka)

This written piece by Barokka powerfully depicts the (often covert) bouts of pain she experienced while touring her performance piece, to illustrate the very nature of that same pain as a result of chronic illness. In her own words, she created the tour to ‘illuminate the pain where the sighted saw none’.

Barokka has approached the production of her work holistically in the context of accessibility for the disabled by making it accessible to all including those with verbal or hearing impairments. In my own teaching practice, adopt some of the elements of Barokka’s approach to the delivery of her production, including:

• Performing in wheelchair accessible venues
  • Although my teaching practice does not involve performance, it is possible for me to consider the use of wheelchair accessible rooms for teaching or ensure places visited/recommended to visit for assignment-related tasks are wheelchair accessible for those with physically disabilities
• Provided the script via a Google document and link provided for the deaf/hearing impaired audience members, who were also given iPads/phones to read the poetry
  • I will consider providing teaching materials/session resources via early digital access for those who are hearing impaired. Although it is most likely that any teaching budget provided may not include the provision of iPads/iPhones, I can seek to incorporate the students own digital devices into the teaching session content to improve engagement of those with specific learning requirements.

Other small but crucial changes that I can implement in my own teaching include:

• Not making assumptions about a person’s illness just because their pain does not physically present itself to the eye
• Being empathetic to those who are experiencing chronic pain or any other disability-related pain (physical, emotional or psychological) and acknowledging the mental health issues of those

Nowness: A film by Todd Selby interviewing Christine Sun-Kim

In the short film ‘Nowness’ by Sun-Kim, she explains how she was confused about the ownership of sound growing up, describing how it ‘belonged’ to those who could hear and not herself as a deaf person. For me, this provokes thoughts around perception within the teacher/student relationship; as the teacher, am I aware of how those with visual/hearing impairments perceive my teaching content? How can I adapt my work to ensure that it can be interpreted comfortably by those with visual or hearing impairments?

Sun-Kim goes on to explain how she wanted to ‘explore sound without a mediated interpretation of what sound is’. Immediately, this draws my attention to the historical pedagogic practices and narratives around disability that have been exclusive and oppressive of disabled students. Why have those who are not hearing-impaired assumed ‘ownership’ of the perception of their own sounds and other senses? In order to challenge this and take a step towards dismantling socio-economically constructed relationships between the perhaps dominant (able-bodied) and the dominated (disabled), a more inclusive learning environment for both teacher and students must be created in the classroom. This could be done by introducing more inclusive teaching practices, for example:

• Introduce the works of critical pedagogy academics (e.g. Paulo Freire (1968). Pedagogy of the Oppressed ) to dismantle oppressive perceptions around disability
• Referencing work of artists/academics who are considered disabled for an alternative narrative and encouraging students to do the same in their own work
• Varying teaching methods to include ways of learning through visualising, listening and/or doing

Interview with Vilissa Thompson, creater of #DisabilityTooWhite

The viral hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite was created by Vilissa Thompson. Thompson calls out the lack of representation for disabled people of colour from the ‘organisations that are supposed to empower us’. This is a very impactful statement, because it begins to put into perspective the scale of social injustice experienced by disabled POC – the organisations that are supposed to empower us are most certainly those within large organisations such as education systems and media outlets for example.

In my own experience, during 18 years of UK state funded education, I would say I know how it feels to have no representation as a POC within the learning/teaching environment and also within employment settings. I have been conscious of this for as long as I can remember and I would say from experience it has moulded some of my expectations and perceptions of the world and certainly my personal identity. I feel as though I can connect in some way to Thompson and her concerns. However, this is exacerbated, as there are people who are black AND disabled and are experiencing another layer of intersectional marginalisation beyond what I have experienced – that’s two fundamental pillars of the equation of identity to be overlooked and undervalued.

Thompson goes on to say ‘We feel isolated and outcast when you don’t see people who look like you, not just racially but disability-wise’. The fact that her hashtag went viral with much support but also with many critiques shows that there are a silenced, but wide-spread group of people who feel marginalized, but then there also exists a group of people who have institutionalized narratives engrained into their core and wrongly disagree with another person’s (subjective) feelings. Furthermore, the disparities between being black and being disabled are highlighted as Thompson discusses the gap in ‘minority’ communities when it comes to representation of disabilities; she calls out African American organisations in particular.

In reflecting on some of the advice that Thompson offers, I can apply some of these suggesting to my personal character, but also myself as a teaching in the learning environment:

• Understanding my able-bodied privilege or encouraging others to acknowledge their white and/or able-bodied privileges
• Speaking up when I see things that aren’t ok or perhaps could better represent disabled POC
• Become allies for disabled POC by acknowledging and taking the time to understand their truths

UAL Disability Webpages

The UAL disability service provides support those who are considered disabled or with specific learning differences e.g. dyslexia. As someone who is entitled to the help that this service provides myself, I find these pages to be very useful.

One thing that has made my experience of this service easier, is the complete lack of judgement or bias from the support team. Those who provide the support service are understanding, compassionate and accommodating to your needs and I did not feel ashamed to discuss my support requirements. This is important as I do not feel like I could be so open and honest with perhaps a tutor or teacher who may not be so experienced in dealing with someone with specific learning requirements.

Moving forward, I will be encouraging all of my own students to explore the UAL disability pages and/or actually visit the office for face-to-face discussions. I feel as though it is important to offer this to all students and not just those who are knowingly disabled or with specific learning requirements as there may be someone who is not aware that they could be entitled to support that hasn’t had this realised yet.

I would also consider explaining to my students my own experiences with the UAL disability support team to show that like them, I am human and I do need to make adjustments in the learning space – this may then be less daunting and could encourage students to seek advice.

To conclude on summarising all reference material discussed above, an awareness campaign on dominance vs. marginalisation of those that have disabilities is needed to progress past the marginalisation that disabled POC experience today (Applebaum 2001).Ultimately, I feel as though as a teacher, more exploration is needed on my behalf to grasp a better understanding of the experiences of disabled POC. As a teacher, it is important that I can model the correct behaviours that improve accessibility and encourage inclusivity and diversity and dismantle the institutionalised concepts that innately exclude and oppress marginalised groups. In doing this, I would expect a trickle-down effect on my students, which I hope can encourage them to adopt similar behaviours which they can also apply beyond education and into the creative work field.

References

• ‘Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having coffee while chronically ill’ – Khairani Barokka (PDF on Moodle in ‘Blogging Tasks’ Reading materials’)
• Nowness: A film by Todd Selby interviewing Christine Sun-Kim
• #DisabilityTooWhite article / interview with Vilissa Thompson
• UAL Disability Service Webpages

Additional references:

• Applebaum, B, 2001. Raising awareness of dominance: Does recognising dominance mean one has to dismiss the values of the dominant group? Journal of moral education. Vol. 30, No. 1.
• Anthony J. Nocella, 2008. Emergence of Disability Pedagogy. Journal For Critical Education Policy Studies, 6, (2), pp. 77 – 94. DOI: http://www.jceps.com/wp-content/uploads/PDFs/6-2-05.pdf
• Beckett, A.E., 2015. Anti-oppressive pedagogy and disability: possibilities and challenges. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 17(1), pp.76–94. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1080/15017419.2013.835278