We can learn to talk about inaccessibility and ableism without fragility. When we are told that something in our course or program is inaccessible, it’s not meant as a personal affront. We may feel embarrassment or shame about the room for improvement in our course design, but what’s most important is how we keep our reactions student-centered and move forward in progress.
We educators need to be able to hear, and really listen to, things like this:
1. Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought.
As one of my favorite follows on Twitter, Gregory Mansfield (@GHMansfield) stated, “Inaccessibility for disabled people is not an oversight. It is a failure.” In other words, accessibility shouldn’t be thought of as an extra or an add-on; it’s an essential thing that we neglected to do in the first place.
2. It’s not accessible until our learners tell us it is.
If it’s only 10% inaccessible, it’s still inaccessible. It’s not a matter of degrees to a disabled learner. I believe there can be a gray area where something is better than nothing (I’ve written before about how it’s ok to aim for progress rather than perfection, particularly for instructors who often have had no training to support their inclusion efforts). But I also feel that becoming too comfortable with that gray area is a dangerous dance with complicity. 80% accessible is arguably better than 10% accessible, but we shouldn’t stop there and think our job is done.
3. Ableism is an ism, like all the rest of them.
Ableism is systemic. When we uphold ableist systems (often unintentionally), it has an inequitable impact on students.
4. Impact > Intention.
In the same way that it’s possible for implicit bias to lead someone to say or do something racist, humans are not immune from perpetuating ableism. We can be ableist without setting out consciously to do so.
One of my least favorite arguments commonly made for infusing Universal Design for Learning in course design is “it’s good for all learners.” Of course it’s good to anticipate needs and create flexible structures for as wide an array of learners as possible. But individual students deserve attention to their unique needs, too. The “good for everyone” argument is sometimes pitted against the notion of addressing specific needs for disabled learners, as if we shouldn’t need to spend time on specific needs if we can just be more efficient in our accessibility efforts by widening our scope. Depending on how the argument is wielded, it can have an impact (regardless of intention) in the same vein as an “all lives matter” response to the Black Lives Matter movement. (You can read more about why that is so problematic in this New York Times article).
I’m no more perfect than anyone else. I make mistakes that lead to inaccessibility often (because systems make it so easy to do even when you know what to plan for). I’m not aiming to eliminate 100% of my mistakes, although actively I try to do better when I know better. Where I put most of my energy is in making every effort not to let my fragility get in the way of my students’ learning—or my own.
Caitlin Cornell 