Inclusive Teaching and Learning in HE: Disability

Task

Review the following resources and critique their inclusivity and approach in relation to the arts and HE sectors. Consider how these will/do affect your arts/teaching practices and how artists can navigate or influence Art and Design industries in the future.

Resources

• Christine Sun Kim Film
• UAL Disability Service links
• Confronting the Whitewashing Of Disability: Interview with #DisabilityTooWhite Creator Vilissa Thompson
• Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies: Lessons from touring Eve And Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill – Khairani Barokka

Christine Sun Kim Film

In this short video describing her practice we see Kim explore a number of methods of recording sounds that do not necessarily exclusively involve using an audio device. She signs, “While growing up I constantly questioned the ownership of sound. People who have access to sound naturally own it and have a say in it.” (Kim 2012) This question of who owns sound totally fascinates me, particularly when we consider the semantics of the English language, Kim signs in American Sign Language (ASL) and the inherent ableism in everyday phrases such as “I hear you” “I see” etc. d/Deaf people make/create sound, and are expected to respect the audio-sensitivity of hearing people but frequently do not have their needs around sound considered or acknowledged. This being the case, Kim’s desire to reclaim sound for herself and other d/Deaf people is necessary in dismantling the privileged presuppositions we have around audible media/interactions.

In her 2015 TED Talk The Enchanting Music of Sign Language Kim states “I am hypervigilant about sound.” She learned not to slam doors, scrape her cutlery on plates, burp etc, but for whose benefit did she acquire these quiet skills? It reminded me of the viral 2018 news story of a teacher in a school for d/Deaf and hard of hearing children who needed to explain to one of her students that when a person breaks wind they make noise. Funny and sweet, the exchange illustrates the point that what we consider to be polite/ acceptable behaviour can and does change with what we have access to and our experiences around the privilege of that access.

Processing these ideas, I began to remember the numerous talks, events and concerts I as a hearing person have attended with no compunction but which were not made accessible for d/Deaf or hard of hearing people as a matter of course. E.g. no speech to text apparatus, no British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters, no documents sent to attendees of talks in advance – the list continues ad infinitum. There are an increasing number of rappers and musical artists who hire ASL/BSL translators to work their concerts. Sadly the art world has yet to catch up with offering accessible alternatives. This particularly applies to older and smaller galleries which have not undertaken work to make themselves wheelchair accessible as well as making reasonable adjustments for the d/Deaf or visually impaired. However, even major institutions fail to do this as a matter of course, and it is up to artists and curators to factor in accessibility when designing shows, creating work and programming events. This is where allyship also comes into play, visitors who are not disabled can and should demand that spaces and events become more accessible and provide feedback when they are not.

Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies

As a woman of colour living with a chronic illness (Lupus), working in the arts who recently created a multi-sensory accessible performance engaging with the topic of disability this text resonated with me in many ways. In Barokka’s deliberate and steadfast resolve to create an accessible environment for those who had need of it, her sense of solidarity and allyship with other sick/disabled people, I saw echoes of my own strong feelings on the subject:

“I’d made sure to enforce rules on Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee: it would be D/deaf and hearing-impaired accessible, and only performed in wheelchair-accessible venues.” (Barokka 2017)

Following on from this, Barokka’s frank, vulnerable and matter of fact account of the personal physical cost/toll that performing and creating takes on her is striking. From her desire to be a “model minority”, to her discussion on the ways in which the pain of womxn, especially womxn of colour, is largely ignored/undermined/trivialised by medical professionals, colleagues etc. she builds a picture of the kinds of conditioning that fed into her “hiding it well” – concealing her pain and needs from others for so long. She describes being “traumatized” by taking Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee on tour, despite making the performance as comfortable to deliver as possible, and I was struck by the irony of that: a performance designed to alchemise pain unintentionally creating more of it.

The toll that chronic illness exacts on the body is extreme, all encompassing and requires a deeper/different understanding of accessibility than most Higher Education and Arts institutions are willing to consider or act upon. Toxic environmental factors inherent in most institutions such as uncomfortable chairs, poorly ventilated rooms, fluorescent lighting etc can push the sick body beyond merely being uncomfortable and straight into the region of agony in a matter of minutes. Not only are these barriers to learning for students, but they are barriers to teaching for staff as well.

“…academia and the arts, for some of us, are contact sports. What we do literally bruises us, maims us, and brings to bear how intellectual and artistic curiosity, our intelligence and our know how may face head-on the fact of not being the recipient of proper healthcare for years. ” (Barokka 2017)

Barokka’s account of the cumulative effects of pain, fatigue and emotional exhaustion culminating in her bursting into tears while delivering her paper “Flightpath to Inclusion” is also a scenario I know very well. Describing the empathy of the academics in the room she highlights an aspect which is a key, yet often overlooked, aspect of teaching – empathy. “I remember a deeply empathetic group of academics and artists being kind enough to listen, and Petra Kuppers asking me what I do for self-care.” (Barokka 2017)

The importance of empathy and asking curious questions in teaching (and learning) is, in my opinion, essential and can open up entirely new dialogue about presupposition. It can be as simple as the ability to “read the room” and see the signs of a class/student struggling to receive the information you are giving them. Or noticing when a student is doing well and needs some encouragement and reassurance. Last, it could be about asking curious questions as a prompt for further discussion and discovery, after reading this text I have been pondering this question:
In an “Occular-centric” (Barokka 2017) artworld, as all artwork in a medical model of disability must be in order to qualify for the term, what would art “look” like if our culture were not so vision obsessed?

#DisabilityTooWhite

Reading through this interview with hashtag creator Vilissa Thompson I was reminded of this infographic created by the Invalid Artist, Mary. As a Lupus advocate and as someone who runs my own platform/meetups for chronically ill people once a month – Chronic Creatives – I am consistently struck with the lack of visibility of people of colour with disabilities and chronic illness in the media. Considering that people of colour are only a minority in the West, and that disabled people are the biggest global minority, the persistent erasure of BIPOC who are sick/disabled only reinforces for me how interlinked ableism and colonialist racist ideology are.

Something that struck me was Thompson’s sadness at the lack of understanding non-disabled members of the black community have shown for disabled black people:

…I think that there is a big gap when it comes to members of minority groups who are not disabled understanding us in general and particularly when it comes to being of color and disabled. So there’s a very big gap in minority communities when it comes to the inclusion of disabled voices…I am really disheartened that a lot of African American organizations do not talk about disability, or if they do, it is not in our experience or our voices. They talk about it in the way of the medical model of disability. [Our] experience is as important to the black experience as every other part of blackness.

This lack of understanding highlights the need for intersectionality as praxis and for media representation as standard. Mentioned in the article is the conspicuous absence of any discussion of Harriet Tubman’s seizures in the wider discourse about the “disability activist & hero”. Relating back to Barokka’s words in Deaf Accessibility for Spoonies, the conditioning to “hide it well” when it comes to disability is pernicious on all sides, from both the disabled and non-disabled. However, this pretence at “normalcy” is damaging to the mental health and physical wellbeing of disabled people.

Echoing my earlier point on reasonable adjustments, it is worth noting that these can go beyond the physical needs of disabled people. In a teaching/classroom example, it is as simple as ensuring that perspective and resources come from proper research and referencing of academics and artists whose identities form multiple intersections. The intent should be to ensure that students receive the benefit of varied perspectives and so are enriched by the experience, and not from a tokenistic “show” of diversity in order to meet KPI objectives.

Disability and Dyslexia Student Service

Overall I think that the Disability Student Services webpages are clear, concise and easy to understand – but I am largely neurotypical and not dyslexic. Putting myself in the shoes of a dyslexic learner, being confronted with pages of text and multiple links could be intimidating especially if I was already stressed about my access requirements. A series of short videos with closed captions for d/Deaf students could resolve this issue easily.

It it worth noting that the worlds of bureaucracy and accessibility do not mesh particularly well with the result that there will be consistent jostling between what disabled students require and what University Chief Executives require. For example, asking disabled students to prove their disability by obtaining costly letters of proof from their GPs or consultants. A student who may have to endure consistent mishandling of their healthcare by medical professionals may find this difficult to do. Due to NHS red tape and shortages, waiting times for these letters could be very long, and it is important to ensure that students are aware that there is support available to them in the interim.

Web Sources

• https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12161337
• https://vimeo.com/31083172
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Euof4PnjDk
• https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/disability-and-dyslexia#
• https://www.huffpost.com/entry/confronting-the-whitewash_b_10574994?guccounter=1
• https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/accessability/staff/accessabilitytutors/information-for-accessability-tutors/the-social-and-medical-model-of-disability

Citations

• Khairani Barokka (Okka) (2017) Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while chronically ill, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance