Episode 35- Accessibility And/As Interruption
0-0:12 Orthotonics Accessible as Gravity plays and fades out
0:13 Hello and welcome to Accessagogy a podcast about accessibility and pedagogy. I’m your host Ann Gagné and this podcast is recorded on land covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and within land protected by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Agreement, which is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples.
0:34 Welcome to episode thirty-five and the beginning of the second part of season 3. This episode is going to focus on interruption and the many ways that accessibility and interruption intersect. I want to give us a space to reflect on the different ways that accessibility awareness interrupts status quo and the normative narratives about pedagogy. But I also want to talk about how some educators may see accessibility and inclusion work as interruption work and interruption to the design and the framing of courses or content that they taught for many years.
1:11 I want to talk about how we can frame interruption for good, but also how interruption is a real concept in eduspace that we need to work with and not necessarily against. A lot of academic spaces are premised on the need for constant and consistent production of thought, goods, materials, and ultimately labour. I have been thinking about this a lot over the winter break, when interruptions to our workflow happen and as folk take well deserved breaks when they can.
1:42 Interruption is not something that eduspace looks at or appreciates kindly. However, there are some particular spaces where interruption as a discourse is used as a way to demonstrate a movement towards progress. This is one place where accessibility can intersect with interruption. We can think about accessibility awareness as a needed way to interrupt the way things are done in an exclusionary manner.
2:10 Accessibility awareness and a movement towards creating accessible eduspaces then becomes a way to interrupt status quos that assume that disabled folk already are excluded from college and university learning spaces. Or more granularly to interrupt the assumptions that are made around who is disabled in eduspaces. A lot of the focus is to support for learner-centred inclusion and accessibility, but in the work that I do, I also like to remind folk that disabled instructors and staff exist. It is a way to interrupt the basic ableist narratives that we see, that the systems should have already made sure that disabled folk would not be in the positions of power in higher ed.
2:57 Another way that interruption is understood or heard in eduspaces is often around the implementation of inclusive design principles needed to make education more accessible. Often when accessibility is needed in spaces the refrain that’s heard from educators is well I don’t have time for that, or more specifically, that it will interrupt or interfere with the content of the course, that there’s already so little time to cover everything, you’re asking me to find more space in a very compressed course. And in this case interruption is not always a welcome thing. There are things that need to “get done” quote unquote and so there’s also an assumption that there is no time to also get accessibility and inclusion done as well.
3:43 This is where a more holistic approach to inclusion, one that understands the many layers and systems of oppression that are part of our educational systems can help. The interruption discourse in this case comes from a belief that accessibility work is an add on, just like any diversity work is seen as add ons when in fact it should be foundational.
4:04 However, I think it’s really important to acknowledge that accessibility work is work. There is no magical checklist to make things just happen as much as we want them to be. So when explaining the feelings, you know, that go into the realm of interruption narratives one has to pause and ask why that is. Why is it seen that, you know, accessibility work is an interruption of course curricula and content in the first place? And that is often because of real systemic issues and that, there needs to be bigger support for that than just what should or could happen in a class to make it more inclusive.
4:43 This becomes a workload issue, this becomes an expectation issue, but in some cases it also becomes what institutions and systems feel comfortable interrupting if anything. Because interruption work needs real conviction to it as well. So the question is what big picture thing can be put in place so that this accessibility ask, and more accessibility awareness is not seen as an interruption so much as a foundational to what is already happening within the instructor’s workflow and the learners learning? In addition to what is seen as really foundational to the core values of the institution.
5:21 So as you can see interruption has some real positive possibilities because if we really care about inclusion and we want that as praxis in our spaces, we need to interrupt the expectations that are part of those systems. New years and the turning of annual or academic calendars is often a time that’s really ripe for the possibility of interruption. Just think about all the folk who do New Year’s resolutions in an attempt to make things different for them or the spaces they’re in in the next calendar year.
5:53 So I wanted this episode to be a little bit of a reflection space about how interruption works, or doesn’t, in your eduspaces. Even the etymology of interruption, which I’ll put in the episode page, from the Latin for a breaking of continuity or a breaking apart, should give us a bit of pause. This focus on interruption has also been important to me and the work that I do as I have been thinking about work schedules, blog schedules, and ultimately this podcast schedule over the winter break.
6:24 I’ve set up time in my calendar in the term from now, early January, to the end of April or May to have the podcast every other week as usual. However, as I pause, and interrupt my ebbs and workflows, I’m realizing that maybe I can move the podcast to a monthly release or continue with the blogs every other week. I do realize however that having a monthly schedule for the podcast may mean that less folk listen, because podcasts or any media that you produce, you know you have to have that consistency, and that continuity for folk to engage. However, I’m also deeply aware that we have a lot of competing interests and for that engagement right now, and a lot of things, systems, and spaces are in real crisis where our energies should be supporting our peers and our microcommunities.
7:14 So I would like to leave this episode with a question to those of you who engage with this podcast. What kind of schedule would you like to see the podcast? I acknowledge that writing my blog is a lot less labour intensive for me than producing this podcast in the way that it is now, and I’m also noting that I don’t have a lot of the bells and whistles that the other folk do to this podcast because I’m really committed to making this a reflection of accessibility in the way it’s done and shared. But tell me what you would like to engage with in terms of frequency? Especially if you’re someone who also reads my blog content.
7:51 So that’s it, that’s episode 35 of Accessagogy, with ideas around accessibility and interruption and accessibility for interruption. Ending with a question about the podcast and the possibility of interrupting the usual schedules for the episodes.
8:07 Remember that I want this to be a space where you can ask questions and share concepts that you’d like me to discuss. So if there’s anything that I mentioned here that you would like me to elaborate on please ask.
8:18 As always if you have any ideas or aspects of your pedagogy that you would like me to address in this podcast, please feel free to send me an email at Accessagogy so that’s acc e ss a gogy at gmail dot com. I’ll try to include as many of these suggestions as possible in the podcast because ultimately, this podcast is for you. So that’s it, that’s episode 35 of Accessagogy, thanks so much for following along and asking how can I make my space more accessible today? Have a great week!