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Empowering Disabled Educators: Breaking Barriers in Special Ed · DiveIn: Diving into Special Education's Most Complex and Pressing Debates

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From the Division of Research of the Council for Exceptional Children,
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this is Dive In. I am your host,
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Federico Weitholder, professor at the University of Illinois
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at Chicago.
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Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to our fourth episode of the third season
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of Dive In. In this episode we'll return to our regular programming
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featuring a great conversation about a topic that is rarely discussed
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in special education circles. Questions about diversity
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of the student body of special education and how to implement cultural response in
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pedagogies have been an ongoing discussion in special education.
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Maybe not the central one, but it's a discussion that's been there.
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When we talk about cultural response in pedagogy, people tend to think about
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the cultural and linguistic repertoires, an asset that students bring to the
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classroom and can be capitalized and used to enhance student learning and
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to sustain and develop their identities. What is not
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as common is to think that students disability
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can be also a source of identity and cultural repertoire.
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Actually, my colleague Kathleen Quintorius and I have published an edited volume just
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on that topic called Sustaining Disabled Youth and leave a link
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in the episode description. But what is
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even less common is to think about how
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those special educators who identify themselves
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with disabilities also bring a set of unique experiences and repertoires
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and assets because of their disabilities, not despite
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of their disabilities. So in today's episodes
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we're going to discuss exactly that, the experiences and unique
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strengths of special educators who identify
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themselves as with a disability.
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We discuss the barriers that they face in teacher preparation programs
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and the workplace. And also we discuss how their unique experiences help
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them build relationships with special ed students, special education students,
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and enhance the design and implementation of meaningful learning
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activities to engage all students.
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And to do this, I'm going to have three guests today.
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With us today we have Dr.
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Amy Tondreau is an associate professor of elementary literacy
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at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research focus on
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critical literacy in children's literature and writing
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pedagogy, critical teacher education and the intersection of cultural sustaining
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pedagogies and disability sustaining pedagogies in elementary literacy instruction.
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We also have today Dr. Larry Laurie Larabinowitz,
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an assistant professor of education at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs,
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New York. Her research and teaching focused on preparing elementary educators who
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enact cultural sustaining and disability sustaining instruction. And I
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asked Lori and Amy to be with us today because they have a very cool
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project that I've done looking exactly that what we discussing a few minutes
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ago looking at experiences and and strengths of special
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educators who identify themselves with disability. But we have a third guest because
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we couldn't be talking about special ed teachers who identify themselves with disability
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without having one as well. So today we have
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Hannah Benson, which is a seventh grade humanities special educator at the public school
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in Manhattan. She has a master's degree in special education, identifies as someone
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with adhd, and we're going to present in some of her her very
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interesting experiences through teacher education programs as also as working with
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students. So this is it for the intro.
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Let's join. Enjoy the conversation. Let's dive
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Hey, Hannah, Laurie and Amy, thank you for being with us today.
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I'm so excited to talk to you about this topic that is usually not
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very largely discussed in special education or in schools, which is
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those teachers who are special ed teachers or teacher and general education classroom
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who also have disabilities or disabled teachers. So thank you for asking.
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And I want to start asking you because I know recently you published a book,
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but also out of that book came out of this project in where
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you were trying to understand the experiences of disabled
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teachers. Yeah. So thanks so much for having us. We're excited to
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talk to you about this topic. It's something that we've been thinking about
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for a long time. And Lori and I are friends from our doctoral
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cohort. We have been working together for a long time. And our
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experiences sort of brought us together to work on a book where
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we were thinking about what culturally sustaining pedagogy
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looks like in literacy instruction and as a part of that,
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realized how little attention we're really giving
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to disability as a component of
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that conversation. And so through working with some
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fantastic classroom teachers, one of them, Hannah, who's here with us today, and you'll
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get to hear from a lot later, we started to
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think about the role that teachers with disabilities play in creating
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disability sustaining classrooms. So classrooms where disability
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is treated as a cultural identity, as a part of culturally sustaining pedagogy,
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and how these teachers were drawing on their lived
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experiences, both as students and now as teachers, navigating systems
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that just weren't built for them and making schools more inclusive places
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by drawing on their own expertise.
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And Laurie and I worked with a bunch
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of those teachers while we were writing the book. We also sort of wrote
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an article that was an offshoot of that where we really shared some of those
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teachers narratives in a language arts article. And once
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the book was finished, we wanted to continue having those conversations. So we
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are sort of continuing that work. And I'll let Lori talk a little bit about
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what that looks like now. Yeah. And so that takes two forms of what we're
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working on right now. The first is that we're conducting a study that involves interviewing
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educators with disabilities from across the country. We currently have
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roughly 20 in depth interviews completed with educators who hold a
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variety of roles. We're defining educators broadly, speech and language pathologists,
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special educators, general education teachers, afterschool providers,
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community college educators, and also folks with disabilities
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who write children's literature. And we're doing in depth interviews
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with them to understand what their experiences were like in school, what it's like to
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be an educator today, and how they navigate working
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with youth with disabilities and without disabilities to build disability cultural
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competence in classrooms. And the other project that
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we are also in the process of launching is working on creating some videos
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of these educators that will be widely available so that
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they can be used in teacher education settings and that educators can view them and
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learn from the practices of these really thoughtful, brilliant folks
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that we're working with. And some initial findings from this research, Amy and I are
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doing some data analysis right now, is that there seems to be a population of
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late diagnosed neurodiverse female educators and non binary educators
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who in particular are leveraging their experiences and identities and their pedagogy
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in really intentional ways. And it's an under researched community. We can't find a
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lot on this from prior research about that particular, those particular intersectional
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identities. And in doing this research, we're finding that they
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talk a lot about the grief of not having been identified and how school
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was challenging and now that they understand more about their own identity and they become
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researchers of a particular neurodiversity,
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how it's easier to navigate educational
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settings. And there's a relief that comes along with that. So that's
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the project we're working on right now. And Hannah, as Sami said, is one of
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the educators who's willing to talk about her practice and experiences and share who
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she is with the world, which we're really excited about. Yeah, this is a fascinating
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topic. I'm very excited. I'm also a teacher educator. I work with a lot of
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teachers who are about to become special ed teachers. And I don't
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know what exactly the reason, but I have noticed an increase at
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least people disclosing disabilities, asking for accommodations,
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but which also makes me very excited because I've seen in my classes a
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pretty large increase of future teachers that
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have experienced a special education in the past, which is great because they have
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already the experience of what it means to go through that system and that
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takes us to what's going on in the classroom. Hannah. But I have
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a question for you that it's how did
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or if did? I'm assuming it did. So let's ask how and if
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did your own experience as having a disability or being a disabled
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person or disabled teacher shape your decision to work
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in schools, and particularly as a special ed teacher, had anything to do or have
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nothing to do with it? Yeah, for me, it was actually sort of the
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reverse. So I started getting my master's in special education
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when I was, I want to say, around 25.
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At that point, I was not yet diagnosed. So I'm a person
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with adhd. Really had no idea. Really kind of got through school
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okay without it ever being mentioned or brought
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up as something that I was struggling with and really didn't know much about.
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And it was actually through my studies in my grad school program that I started
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learning more about what ADHD is, how it can present. And I actually
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first kind of identified the qualities of it in my father.
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And so we went kind of down the path of getting him diagnosed,
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which was really supportive and helpful to him. Then about a year later,
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I actually lost my dad in an accident. And it was through, you know,
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kind of. It was almost that I finally had too much to handle that
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I could no longer mask kind of the symptoms that I was dealing with.
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So I was working full time, going to grad school at night, and then dealing
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with the grief of losing my father. And through that process, I really
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kind of started to see the cracks show up.
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So I saw ways that I'd actually been struggling for years,
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but was kind of just able to get through or cover up. I was no
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longer able to do that. And so then I pursued a diagnosis for myself.
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I think I was diagnosed at around 26 with my ADHD
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combined type. So it was actually through my process of deepening my understanding
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of neurodiversity and special education that I really came to a deeper understanding
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of myself. But what did get me into special education was I
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had a good friend who I actually met because I
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sort of randomly ended up working as a teacher's aide in my junior and senior
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years of high school in our special education 12 to
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one classroom, sort of working like a paraprofessional, but sort of
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on a volunteer basis. And I made some quite strong friendships with
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some of the younger students that I was tutoring at the time. One of them
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is still a very good friend to this day. And I've known her
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for, you know, a long time now. And something that she always had a
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goal, a dream set on was to go to the University of Washington after
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high school. But I kind of watched, you know, I graduated a couple years before
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her, and I watched her go through the process being in special education of
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kind of dealing with the barriers of not being allowed to take certain courses that
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would be required on a high school transcript in order to even have the ability
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to apply to university like uw. And so she ultimately
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kind of. I saw her and her family try to fight with the system to
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try to get into certain classes, and she really wasn't able to get the credits
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that she needed. So she still actually has not been able to
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apply for the type of college and university that's kind of always been her dream.
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So that seeing that process was what made me want to study special
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education and find ways to really fight to make our systems more inclusive.
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So that's what got me there. But then it also resulted in me learning a
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lot about myself. Yeah, it seems like that went in parallel. Right? You going
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through the program, special education program, and learning about yourselves and
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discovering these aspects of your life. That's very interesting.
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And I'm sure navigating the classrooms, but even I would
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say navigating, even the teacher preparation program probably
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came with some unique challenges. And you
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know, you can answer this, Hannah, but I know probably Amy and Laurie had also
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have hear other stories from other teachers. So what are the.
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Some of the challenges that comes that
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you experience either in your teacher
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prep program or once you went to the job,
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that you needed to start performing in certain ways, and maybe there
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were no supports or they were asking you to do things that not.
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Not maybe. Set up for success. Yeah, no, set up
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for success. Exactly. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I can speak
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quickly to my experience. And then I know the others have met with a
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lot of other teachers with various experiences, but for me,
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when I really noticed my challenges coming out in grad school,
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I realized that my ADHD really shows up in areas
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of executive functioning like impulse control, emotional regulation.
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I started noticing that affecting my personal life more and seeing
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the ways that had been part of my life growing up. But then professionally
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and academically, something I really struggled with was task initiation,
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which looked like bad procrastination. But essentially
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I would. You know, I was working full time, going to class at night.
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So the weekends I had to work basically full time and get myself to sit
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down and sort of regulate and get tasks done. And when I had
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bigger projects that I hadn't tackled before, I would see myself, for example,
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carving out the entire weekend. Right. I'd say, Saturday and Sunday, I can't have any
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plans. I have to sit down and get this project done. And rather than me
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starting to get it done, I would sit in my house basically
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feeling miserable and tell myself over and over, just do this. Just do this,
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Hannah. You got it. Do it. And it wouldn't happen. So it's not like I
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was off doing other things that I enjoyed. I was literally sitting there trying to
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force myself to get started and would just lose days.
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That was kind of the tipping point for me that made me realize, okay,
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this is disability. There's a real challenge here that I need support in.
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And so I was able to get my diagnosis and then go to my graduate
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school. They were really supportive, and they gave me the accommodation of extended.
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And even just being able to take off the pressure of, you know, I need
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to turn this in by the day, my professor says,
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helped me to get started more quickly and helped me to manage that challenge I
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have with task initiation. I also just learned that things take me longer
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than other people. I think part of it is perfectionism, which I think a lot
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of women with ADHD struggle with. And so just getting
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that accommodation of extended time was really supportive to me.
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Um, in the workplace, I would say I
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think there's a various kind of array of professional barriers that neurotyp,
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kind of like neurodivergent folks in general, I think, can struggle with in a professional
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setting. Not just a school, but any workplace. Um, I feel
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like we tend to be more direct and honest. Um, we don't really anticipate
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people, like, reading between the lines or not saying what they really mean.
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And so I oftentimes, you know, if I don't understand something, I ask really direct
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questions to understand better, maybe in meetings with my admin or my colleagues.
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Sometimes I feel like my questioning can be taken as an aggression or kind of
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questioning of authority or my directness is too much. I feel
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that way often in the workplace, like, I'm just too much. But really, I'm just
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a very honest, straightforward person. And I think that is a characteristic of neurodiversity that
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sometimes doesn't always jive with sort of the neurotypical
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world, the neurotypical work workplace.
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Yeah. And how that compares Amy and Laurie with. With other
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experiences, maybe people with different challenges. Yeah.
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What Hannah sharing sort of is that second example is really a pattern.
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Across a lot of the interviews that we've conducted thus far,
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we found that several people talk about this idea that school
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administrators in particular, or colleagues do not Understand the way that they're
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speaking in the workplace and the type of questions they ask.
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For example, some folks that we interviewed talked about having a colleague who
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interpreted them as being rud because they struggle with eye contact
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or they have a tendency to interrupt without meaning to. Or one
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person that we interviewed talked about how like before work he
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will be at the photocopier and he's trying to like regulate himself
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for the workday. And it comes across like he doesn't want to be friends with
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people, but he's really trying to self regulate so that he can get ready to
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focus on his students. And so when he has these like passing interactions that
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other folks in the workplace see as ways to build community
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and he might seem abrupt or like he's not paying attention,
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he has trouble. Then he, then people don't want to be his friend in the
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workplace and that results in having less support in the workplace because he's red is
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rude. But what he's really trying to do is get himself ready to work with
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his students. And he needs like he can't, he can't have those conversations in passing.
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It's going to be hard for him cognitively to do that kind of
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shifting before he starts working. And people don't understand that.
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And in particular we've heard a lot of folks talk about their relationships with
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school administrators and like a big finding for us is that school admin likely
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needs to be more educated and aware of what neurodivergence looks like in adults.
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You know, to your point, Federico and I see this in my own settings too,
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and I'm sure Amy does too. We have more people.
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I teach undergrads in a teacher ed context. We have more people in the undergrad
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setting who are becoming educators who are neurodivergent. And school admin are not really prepared
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to know what neurodivergence looks like in adults even though they may know what
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it looks like in youth from having been classroom teachers. I know from
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personal experience when I first started working as a teacher, one of
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my co teachers I co taught in an integrated co teaching classroom in New York
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City as the special education teacher of record. And my general ed teacher
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that I was working with was someone with a learning disability and he didn't want
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the school administrators to know because he was afraid that there would be consequences
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for him professionally that he would be seen as someone who wasn't capable of doing
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the job. So I would and he had a reading
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and writing based disability so it impacted the type of school reports he was writing.
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It took him more time to write reports. He's a really phenomenal educator. He's been
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teaching for a really long time. He's amazing. But I remember reading over
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his behavior reports for him before he submitted them to admin because he didn't want
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to have to face this kind of stigmatization.
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So I don't know. A big finding for us is that special education teachers
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are expected to see students as strength based, but we also need admin to have
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that capacity. And because having educators with neurodivergence and disabilities
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is so good for teaching and it's so good for students with disabilities to
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have role models and students without disabilities to have role models who are folks
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with neurodivergence and disabilities. That means admin need to be prepared to
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understand and colleagues need to be prepared to understand the diverse ways that folks
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present themselves in a school environment.
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Yeah, absolutely. It seems like your work has a
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lot of implications for training administrators, other teachers and
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creating working environments that are more
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welcome and inclusive of neurodivergent teachers.
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That takes me to another question that I have. We were talking
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a lot about cultural sustaining pedagogies and how we treat disability
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as a culture within that and as an identity. I myself also have
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done some work around that and the.
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We know we may have cited your. Work a little bit. You did,
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thank you. I have one citation now. That's the one citation appears on my
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Google Scholar. This is fantastic. I know where it comes from now.
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But you know, Hannah, I wonder how your, your, your.
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This, this journey that you have. Understanding yourself and.
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And becoming someone else to some extent right through understand yourself
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shapes the ways of two things. One is how do you relate
20:37
to your students and second, how impacts your practice. I mean, how you change
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your pedagogy, the things you do in the classroom. Yeah,
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that's a great question. I think to speak to the first one.
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So how does it affect the way I relate with my students? I mean,
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I think that is one of the most
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profound ways. I think it sets me up to be an effective teacher.
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Students with disabilities and without disabilities.
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I think because I've had to really self reflect and
21:08
focus on how I learn and what kind of supports I need to be successful,
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it automatically gives me sort of a roadmap to see how students themselves
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are also having to do that work. And I can kind of act as a
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guide for them to kind of get to know themselves better, know their brains better.
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And then also, you know, I have plenty of students with
21:29
executive functioning disabilities or adhd. And because
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I've done the work myself to figure out what works for me, I can very
21:36
easily model. Oh, sometimes, you know, I. You know, if I have
21:40
a task, I need to break it down into really small
21:44
steps. So why don't we try that together? Let's see if that works for your
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brain. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Or, hey, it really
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helps me when I am having trouble getting started on something to sit
21:55
next to somebody else who's already focused on a project. So why don't you just
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come sit next to me? I have this email I need to write up,
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and now I have that student who was struggling to focus sitting next to me,
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and we're both kind of locked in because that's just a fun thing about ADHD
22:08
that seems to help sometimes. So I think it's naturally given me sort of
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a lot of tools in my toolbox, as we like to call it in
22:16
the teaching world that I can kind of pull out and try out with students
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and sort of help them go through the process that I've been going
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through with myself of figuring out what I need to learn and what
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I need to be successful in school. In terms
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of how it's. I guess that sort of speaks to my teaching practice, but I
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think. I think some of it too, is.
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Is it gives me the opportunity to be open
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about my adhd. I don't necessarily build that
22:45
informally into my curriculum as of yet, but there are so
22:49
many opportunities during the school day, sort of an informal moments, like, I'll have a
22:53
student who I hear, you know, talking to their friend about their ADHD or
22:57
the medication that they're on, and I'll just bring it up. I'll say, oh,
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I have adhd, too. I also take medication. And we can
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kind of just so that they know that they're not alone and
23:08
that a teacher can also kind of relate to them in that way. And,
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you know, I've had kids say to me, like, oh, I can't believe you would
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struggle with that. And, you know, I can tell them, look, it took me a
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lot of work to build the systems for myself that I have to help me
23:20
be successful. And we can work on that together as a team. And.
23:24
And the last thing I'll say on it is, I think being
23:29
neurodivergent or having an understanding of what it is like to live in a neurodivergent
23:33
brain, I think gives you the ability to see students for
23:38
who they really are. Like, I'll give you an example I had a student
23:41
last year who was very hyperactive adhd, had a really hard time sitting
23:45
still, would often interrupt lessons, kind of make loud noises to himself
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that was seen as distracting. And you know, it is something that we were working
23:54
with him on so that he could be successful in an academic
23:58
community. But also I have the perspective of okay,
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well I'm actually kind of singing to myself in my head too. I'm just sort
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of suppressing it. So I understand where this is coming from. And it, and it's
24:09
not frustrating to me. It doesn't make me angry with him. I get that it's
24:12
actually a really strong coping mechanism for him. So I think in just the way
24:16
that I see students, it gives me the ability to very quickly
24:20
see them through a strength based lens kind of naturally.
24:23
Larry and Amy, have you heard different or similar experiences
24:29
from other teachers? Yeah, I think our research is full of really unique examples
24:34
that I'm just learning about from hearing from teachers. One example
24:38
that I'll just add is the concept of rejection sensitivity dysphoria.
24:42
One of the teachers that we work with, who we worked with in a
24:46
variety of different ways, but she has herself experienced this phenomenon in
24:51
a classroom where she doesn't get called on by the educator.
24:54
She assumes that there is something wrong or
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that educator doesn't like her and has resulted in like lack of participation
25:02
or getting dysregulated in the classroom. So she's very aware of how this can happen
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in neurodivergent students and she's done a lot of research on rejection
25:10
sensitivity dysphoria. So in her classroom she builds in supports to
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pre correct for rejection sensitivity. So she has
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her students have journals. Sorry, that's my email. Her students have journals
25:23
in the classroom where she's written notes in them, like if I didn't call on
25:27
you today, that doesn't mean that I don't care about you. Please write down
25:31
what you have to say. And the students know immediately to go to those journals.
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And that allows her then to be able to target the students who maybe need
25:39
more support or students she needs to talk to, who she can
25:43
sort of take care of the needs of a student who might be sensitive to
25:46
rejection, which is common for students with adhd, for example.
25:50
But also target a student who has more of a learning need or a student
25:54
who needs to an academic push and who she calls on in the classroom.
25:57
She's able to handle multiple things at once. And that ability to do
26:01
that comes from her sensitivity to having experienced this herself in the classroom.
26:04
And it also comes from. Because she's had that sensitivity, she's done research on it.
26:08
So a big piece, and I think you can hear it from Hannah here is
26:12
A lot of the teachers we've been doing research with become researchers
26:16
on disability and neurodivergence themselves. They're very curious about it.
26:19
And then they use the research they do on themselves, and they extrapolate that to
26:23
their students. And they also become researchers of other disabilities.
26:26
They're interested in understanding their own identity. And that is something that we
26:30
want all teachers to do, to have that inquiry approach. And this is a very
26:33
unique way that it's happening. And for some of our teachers that even
26:37
teachers we've done research with who have autism, for example, it's actually a
26:41
special interest to do research on their disability. So it becomes like
26:45
something that they're super, super knowledgeable about. I don't know if you want to share
26:48
another example, Amy. I was thinking maybe about Jay's work. It's an interesting example.
26:52
Yeah, I think, you know, we interviewed
26:58
a special education teacher, an autistic special education teacher who
27:03
was really conscious about both students who were sensory seeking
27:07
and students who were sensory avoidant and who themselves
27:12
had really gone through a process of experimenting with different
27:16
sensory tools to help keep them regulated in their own classrooms.
27:20
And so they had sort of a whole collection of
27:26
tools organized by the senses. So things
27:30
that were different tastes, they had different smells available,
27:34
they had different textures that students could
27:38
touch. And they developed a process with all
27:42
of their students that they worked with to try these different things out and
27:46
engage in a process of metacognition. Like,
27:50
did this help me focus? Was this distracting? And really
27:54
going through the process of figuring out what worked best for them.
27:57
And so in addition to kind of the inquiry and
28:01
the research that Lori's talking about that they do into their
28:05
own identities and their own disabilities, they're also engaged
28:10
in this process of creating curriculum around
28:14
how we learn and helping all kids to really reflect
28:18
on what works for them as a learner and what is
28:22
challenging or distracting for them as a learner. And they kind
28:26
of incorporate that process that they often have engaged in themselves,
28:30
that they model for their students and help students engage in that process as
28:34
well. Wow. Fascinating. It seems like a lot of, I hear a lot of,
28:38
like, empathy for one, a lot of,
28:42
like, really trying to understand who the students are, and a lot of, like,
28:45
drawing from your own experiences to drive your passion, your interests
28:49
further for. For learning more about how to. To teach or help
28:54
Students learn in better ways as well as very specific strategies.
28:59
I think our, our, our audience will, will, will benefit from that.
29:04
There is another issue that I think it is, you see it a
29:08
lot with people with disabilities or disabled
29:13
people in the workplace. You see it in universities, which is the issue of disclosure.
29:17
Right. How much. And I think Johanna, you mentioned some of this,
29:22
how sensitive that is, how sometimes people
29:28
are. There are benefits to disclose, of course, because you
29:32
are able to access, maybe in the university you get the disability Resource
29:36
center. But at the same time it can be a double edged sword.
29:39
Right. And people have a phrase sometimes to disclose. So what
29:44
have you found and what was your experience, Hannah, with you and what have you
29:47
found, Amy and Laurie, around issues of disclosure in the workplace for teachers
29:52
who have disabilities? Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to
29:56
sort of frame this question a little bit in the current political climate.
30:00
So, you know, when we started working on this,
30:04
it must be, I mean, I've been working on this type of work for a
30:08
while and different iterations, but this research project we started about
30:11
a year ago and then the article and book
30:15
about three years ago. And at that time this question of disclosure
30:20
looked really different than it does today. I mean, we're recording this a few days.
30:23
This is two days after the current presidential administration has
30:28
come forward with a claim that autism is linked to take to
30:32
a mother taking Tylenol during pregnancy. And despite the
30:36
fact that like large amounts of research suggests that that is not, there's no causal
30:40
relationship between that, that's still like
30:44
a large claim that's happening in our current political environment. And this
30:48
is, this is like tied to historical eugenical thinking. It's tied
30:52
to the history and the autism of blaming mothers
30:56
for, for their children having autism, despite the
31:00
fact that we know it's a largely neurodiver developmental phenomenon.
31:05
That's not the rhetoric that we're seeing in our current political environment.
31:08
So some of the data that we collected is prior to this rhetoric become
31:13
manifesting in such a way. And so this idea of disclosure does look
31:17
different than in some of the research that we've conducted. I think that there's more
31:21
tentativeness when I talk to, you know, friends today who have children
31:25
who are autistic or friends who are thinking about getting classifications for
31:29
their kiddos. The questions people are asking today are different than they were six months
31:33
ago, a year ago, and they really seem to also be different
31:37
depending on where you are in the country, what the
31:41
school district is like, where you work, what the community is like what the
31:45
families are like. I mean, one predominant thing, and Amy and Hannah can talk more
31:48
about this that we do see, though, is that when folks are choosing to disclose
31:52
in classrooms, it tends because they believe
31:56
it's for the benefit of their students and for the families. So, like,
31:59
one particular example I can think of in the research is someone that we've been
32:03
doing some work with for a while. He is someone who didn't used to share
32:07
this information about neurodiversity with his students, and he's
32:11
begun doing so. And the reason why he has is because he's had families
32:15
who are afraid to get their children classified. And so he uses
32:19
his own disability, the fact that he takes medication, as a way to. To show
32:23
families that this is like a path forward. And he's like, he's doing great.
32:27
He's a productive member of our society. He's got a beautiful life, who is a
32:31
teacher, has a master's degree. So he has chosen to become more active in
32:36
sharing this information, in part because he has now people he can talk
32:40
to who have similar experiences. So he doesn't feel alone. He has
32:44
other educators who also have disability identities, and also because he thinks
32:48
it's in the service of youth and families. So even in this contentious political
32:52
climate, we are finding that folks who disclose tend to
32:56
do it because they believe it's in the best interests of students. I don't know
32:59
if you want to add something to that, Amy. Yeah, I think,
33:04
you know, we are hearing from
33:07
different educators that their schools and the administrators
33:12
in their schools, going back to what we were talking about before, really set a
33:17
climate right and make schools environments
33:22
where there is safety and allow disclosure to happen.
33:26
And so, as Laurie mentioned, the cultures of
33:30
schools vary greatly across geography.
33:36
And it also matters where individual teachers are in their own sort
33:40
of diagnosis and identity exploration, how comfortable
33:45
and confident they feel, sharing with others, the interactions
33:49
that they have with their colleagues. You know, if they're in a place where colleagues
33:53
are sort of expressing ableist views or
33:57
microaggressions, that's obviously going to discourage them from feeling
34:01
comfortable disclosing. And so
34:05
the approaches that individuals
34:08
have to discussing their own disabilities are really contextual. And that also
34:12
carries over to social media context. We found that particularly folks
34:17
who have adhd, folks who are autistic often have robust
34:21
social media communities or online communities where they
34:25
feel seen, they feel supported, they see tiktoks and reels
34:29
that affirm their experiences, and that often contributes
34:34
to their sense of confidence and their sense of not Being alone and being able
34:38
to disclose. Folks who are members of other disability communities,
34:42
for example, folks who have OCD or bipolar,
34:47
necessarily find that same kind of community right now. And so
34:51
that often leads to a little bit more perception
34:56
of stigma or concern about disclosing. So I think it's
34:59
also important that we don't talk about teachers with
35:03
disabilities as though it is one thing. Right. There's so much variation in individuals,
35:08
experiences and identities within that.
35:10
But overall, I think the overarching theme is that the
35:15
educators that we're talking to are generally very committed to disclosing their disabilities
35:19
to students and families, with the goal of being a
35:23
safe place for students to disclose their identities
35:27
and discuss the things that they're grappling with with them,
35:30
and also are really committed to more broadly destigmatizing disability
35:35
identities and being a role model. One of the other things that's come
35:39
through really strongly in our research is that that to a person,
35:43
folks that we talk to cannot identify a mentor that
35:47
they've had who had a shared disability identity to them.
35:51
And they really would like that to be different for their students,
35:55
as Laurie was talking about with that particular example. Right. With a teacher who's
35:59
trying to show that, like, people with disabilities are happy,
36:04
they're successful, they're, you know, experiencing success.
36:09
And so having that opportunity to mentor
36:13
is. Is really important to the teachers that. That we talk to. I want to.
36:16
Just about personal life. Right. Not everybody needs to be successful. I mean,
36:20
we want to be successful, but even people like non.
36:23
Non neurodivergent folks are. Don't feel successful
36:27
sometimes or they're not successful. You know, life brings a
36:31
lot of stuff that. Well, and success means different things to different people too.
36:35
Right. Success can look a lot of different ways. But there is. Yeah.
36:39
I just want to put a word of caution, because I don't. There is,
36:42
you know, there is a lot of trying to put, like, great examples
36:46
and so you can be like, this person and,
36:49
you know, like kind of inspiration porn, as in
36:53
this. In disability studies, we call.
36:56
And, you know, the truth is,
37:00
like, we experience life in many different ways, and sometimes,
37:05
yeah, we don't need to be rock stars or successful or be the
37:09
best or whatever. This takes me also
37:13
to think about the. I mean, because you're.
37:17
You're speaking about how they.
37:20
They disclose, but also wonder about how that
37:24
translates in the classrooms in the sense of how they support their students to
37:29
figure it out, how well their own identities as students
37:33
with disabilities. So, for example, what do you do? I Mean, how do you,
37:37
what do you do? Any specific activities? It's more about the
37:40
relationship you have with them, how you help them to navigate.
37:45
And particularly. Do you teach high school, Hannah, or elementary?
37:48
I can't remember. I teach seventh grade. Middle school, seventh grade. Okay.
37:52
So, wow. Talking about developing identities, seventh grade,
37:57
very important stage. Right. They're trying to figure out who they are.
38:01
So what do you do? What, what, what are your, your experiences with that?
38:05
Yeah, I mean, I think my honest answer to the question is that I'm
38:08
still figuring it out. It's a priority for me, but I think
38:12
there's always places for me to grow. Something that I do very concretely
38:16
now. Well, especially in terms of disclosure. Right.
38:20
I. I am somebody who will talk about my ADHD if I'm in an
38:24
IEP meeting with a family to kind of,
38:27
you know, sort of lighten and normalize the conversation that we're having
38:32
and also, I think, make families feel more comfortable around
38:36
the conversation. I think because I'm someone who,
38:39
I'm naturally kind of quite open, comfortable, sometimes I say
38:44
things too honestly or overshare more than I would even want to. I think in
38:48
some ways that does create an environment with my families and with my students where
38:51
it kind of just shows this isn't. There's no reason
38:55
for these conversations not to being, not to be being had.
38:59
Right. There's no reason for us to keep it hush hush. Disability is not something
39:03
that we have to keep quiet. It's something that we can be proud of.
39:06
It's something that we struggle with. It's something that we can loudly kind
39:10
of figure out what we need from ourselves,
39:13
from our teachers, from our administration to help us be supported in
39:18
whatever it is that we're doing and that it's just normal that
39:22
there's so much diversity and ability and it's something that we shouldn't feel scared
39:26
to talk about. That being said, I think that I am quite
39:30
aware of the fact that, you know, my identity
39:34
is not the same as everyone else's. You know, I show up in my place
39:37
of work as a white woman. I know that people with other intersecting
39:42
identities wouldn't be interpreted the same way as I am when I speak openly about
39:46
disability. Even just the fact that I'm speaking about adhd, I think in some ways
39:50
is interpreted differently than if I were talking about having a reading
39:54
or writing disability or anything else. So I think I'm quite
39:57
privileged in the way that I'm able to be open at work about
40:03
my adhd. But I Don't think I directly answered
40:06
your question. What I also wanted to share is something concrete I do with students
40:10
is I am very intentional about making sure they're
40:14
included in their IEP meeting. So anytime we're having a conversation about
40:18
what a student's strengths or needs are academically, I want them to. To be present
40:23
for it and to prepare them for that meeting. I have a survey
40:27
that usually I'll sit down with students. Usually I'll get a sense of their reading,
40:31
their writing skills, so I have something to present to their families. But I also
40:34
have them fill out a survey that asks them, do you know what your disability
40:37
classification is? Do you know what an IEP is? Do you
40:41
know what accommodations and supports you are legally entitled to?
40:45
And most of the time, my seventh graders come to me and they say,
40:48
I have no idea what you're talking about. And so then that opens up the
40:51
conversation for me to talk about, you know, what disability is,
40:56
ways that we can see it. You know, I just want them
41:00
to know what their strengths are, what their struggles are,
41:03
and make sure that they know what to ask for. Right. Because, you know,
41:07
we have students who really should have the right to have a computer to
41:10
type with or be able to listen to text so that they're
41:14
not missing important content in the classroom. And if they don't know
41:18
that, they won't know to say to their teacher, hey, this is something that I
41:21
require to be successful in this setting. So. So, you know,
41:25
I want them to be able to advocate for themselves as much as possible.
41:29
I mean, the IEP is a great example of empowering
41:33
students and help them understand themselves, not just per
41:38
se, what disability they have, but what are the needs they have and what supports
41:42
they need. And also teach them to advocate for themselves. Right, exactly.
41:46
As they go through, because unfortunately,
41:50
they're going to need to as they go through high school and university and the
41:54
workplace, life, et cetera. Those are great examples.
41:58
I like, Hannah, you brought the issue of intersectionality and how,
42:02
you know, the huge diverse
42:06
experiences within this social group we call this
42:11
disability, and within that, how race
42:15
and class also plays a role and how people see
42:19
each other through a racial lens. Also within the disability experience.
42:23
Right. That maybe you will say something that we interpret as,
42:27
oh, she's very active and she wants to collaborate, and maybe some other
42:31
person says, like, oh, how aggressive is that person? Right. So that's.
42:35
That. That's. That's. That's right. Thank you for bringing that up.
42:39
You know, I want to finish. I always finish the show with something like looking
42:42
forward, something hopeful, not that we were not talking about hopeful things actually was.
42:46
This was one of the most hopeful shows we have in a while. We've been
42:49
talking a lot about politics and what is going on in D.C. so imagine
42:53
that. So this is a very uplifting show compared to ola.
42:58
I'm going to give you, like a few minutes or few time
43:02
for each of you to dream a little bit. And what would
43:06
you like to see in the next 5, 10 years regarding the teaching
43:10
and learning of students with disabilities? And now we're talking about also of disabled
43:15
special educators. What would you like to dream and see in five to 10 years?
43:19
I can go. I teach like an introductory
43:24
class to critical special education practices for
43:28
future teachers, social workers. It's an elective course, future child psychologists,
43:33
et cetera. And it is often the first time my students have ever learned
43:37
anything about the disability rights movement in the United States. We watch
43:42
Crip camp together. We read a little bit of Judy Heumann's biography.
43:47
We study a little bit on the eugenics movement.
43:50
And it's completely new to the majority of my students.
43:54
So for me, I would love curricular change where
43:58
disability history is taught as history, not as a separate part of history. It's part
44:01
of history. I think that disabled teachers can lead
44:06
the way in integrating that more into curriculum. Disability rights
44:10
is part of the civil rights movement. And I also think that disabled
44:15
students, to Amy's point before, should graduate from high school having had a mentor
44:19
somewhere in their academic career who had a disability.
44:24
Many folks, you know, with disabilities might not have a family member
44:28
who has a disability because it cuts across all different intersectionalities.
44:32
So having disabled folks in school who can serve
44:36
as mentors and foster pride.
44:40
I know. Frederica, you talked a little bit earlier about how,
44:45
from a DSC standpoint, we want to make sure that folks
44:48
know that you don't have to be successful. I am also an educator who's super
44:52
passionate about helping people be the best possible versions of themselves
44:56
and coaching them into that. So I want folks to. I want the kids that
45:01
my future teachers work with to have mentors that can
45:04
help them feel really good about themselves and that can look a variety of ways.
45:08
The college campus where I work right now, some of the students have put
45:12
together a disability club, and they have also disability representation on our
45:16
student government. So where they're advocating for
45:20
better. I teach in, like, the woods, and it's very icy and there's really bad
45:24
access on campus because you can, like it's bad because of the nature
45:27
of where I work and they're advocating for themselves. So all these different pieces of
45:31
having pride, mentorship, clubs,
45:34
representation and disability rights as curricular I think
45:39
could be really uplifting in this particular political climate.
45:42
Yeah, no, it's a great point and it's a great, you know, I think we
45:45
teach a similar class. I also teach a similar class and we also watch Crip
45:49
Cap. And I have exactly the same experience. I do. It's like I ask
45:53
the students, like how many of you knows about the civil rights movement? You know,
45:57
and everybody lecture had and you know, talked about Martin Rankin, you know,
46:01
Malcolm X, everybody knows. But when you start talking about the disability rights movement,
46:05
the have happened very, very, very close
46:09
to that people doesn't know about. So. Yeah,
46:13
and I like the success part. What I meant by that is like, you know,
46:17
I think sometimes we put these amazing examples. Now you can be this
46:21
despite your disability, right. When it's in change. We need to teach students that
46:25
you can be. Yeah, you can have fulfilling life not despite your disability,
46:30
but because of your disability. I think that's, that's a better way that I probably
46:33
didn't express myself very well. Any other dreams,
46:37
Hannah or Amy? You want to go or you want me to? Hannah, you go,
46:41
Amy. Okay, so I think one of the other things
46:44
that we hope for is,
46:48
you know, as you were alluding to, this can be kind of a bleak
46:52
time and having these
46:57
conversations and uplifting the work that teachers with disabilities are doing.
47:01
The teachers that we work with are incredible.
47:04
They are doing amazing, brilliant, groundbreaking work.
47:09
And you know, every time Lori and I get a chance to learn
47:14
with and from them, we are inspired, we are motivated and so
47:18
I think bringing more attention
47:22
to their expertise and the work that they're doing and seeing their
47:27
work uplifted as building all
47:31
of our disability cultural competence. You know, we are often thinking
47:35
about, from perhaps more of a deficit mindset,
47:39
thinking about needing to
47:43
or offering access to general ed
47:48
curriculum, general ed spaces, able bodied ways of
47:52
knowing and being for disabled folks. And you know, Lori and I have been talking
47:56
a lot in our work about thinking about that as
48:01
a two way conversation. Right. That it is also valuable for
48:06
everyone to learn about disabled ways of knowing and being and
48:10
developing disability cultural competence in that way so that
48:14
the teachers with disabilities, the knowledge, the lived experiences, the expertise,
48:17
the incredible work that they're doing, you know, we really hope
48:22
to see gain more traction and gain more attention
48:26
and have their expertise be respected for the
48:30
powerful, strong work that it is. And that hopefully in
48:34
doing that we start to decouple disability from shame.
48:38
Right. And all of these conversations that we're having about disclosure
48:43
become experiences to disclose with
48:47
pride as being a part of this expert community rather than,
48:52
you know, something that we're, we're. That teachers are afraid they're going to be judged
48:56
for or viewed with stigma. And so
49:00
really hoping that, that teachers have their identities valued for
49:05
their expertise. That's, that's one of our dreams for sure. Well, Hannah, you got the
49:09
last one. I don't know, I feel like that was a really great closing place.
49:14
But I mean, I do have a very sort of far fetched
49:18
big long term dream, which is that, you know,
49:22
I think just systemically I'd like to see our education systems
49:26
turn more inclusive. You know, one of the
49:30
challenges that I feel being a special educator in our public
49:34
school system or just our education system in general, is that in order to receive
49:37
these types of accommodations and supports, you have to
49:41
be labeled as having a deficit, which, you know, I think it's
49:46
the whole balance of disability. Right. We hold our disabilities with pride.
49:50
I think getting diagnosed for me was such a positive and there is
49:54
so much pride in that. And also we are
49:58
requiring ourselves to be labeled in order to get the supports that we're looking for.
50:01
And so I love the idea of
50:06
education just being education. And all teachers who are trained in
50:10
bachelor programs or graduate school programs are being trained in how to work
50:14
with students with all different types of learning profiles,
50:18
all types of disabilities. And that, that's something that's just widely known in the general
50:22
education community. I would love if every single classroom was co
50:27
taught by a gen ed teacher and a special ed teacher. But those are
50:30
sort of the long term big dreams for me.
50:34
Well, I asked you to dream, I didn't ask you to be frank.
50:38
Yeah, I mean something smaller that I've been really kind
50:42
of of irked about lately is in New York City or perhaps
50:47
it's a New York state issue, or perhaps it's a federal issue, but I know
50:50
it happens at, in my specific school district,
50:53
students who really struggle with executive functioning challenges,
50:57
unless they have a doctor medically diagnosed them with adhd,
51:02
they're not allowed to receive a disability label and therefore support through
51:06
special education. So right now when I work with our school
51:10
psychologists and identify a student whose clearly their executive functioning
51:14
challenges are impacting their ability to show up in the classroom and do their best
51:18
work, if that family doesn't have access to taking their
51:22
child to a doctor and getting a medical diagnosis. With adhd, there's really
51:26
not much a school psychologist can do in terms of adding mandated
51:30
supports for that student. So I think in
51:34
some ways the field of psychology is ADHD is kind of like the
51:38
wild, wild west, and we're just catching up. So I hope to see change there.
51:42
But that's sort of a smaller thing I think could be more easily fixed
51:46
in the short term. Thank you. Well, Hannah,
51:50
Laurie, Amy, thank you so much for being with us today.
51:53
This was a great conversation,
51:56
a great project that you have, and I look forward to seeing
52:00
that polish around. Thank you for having me.
52:03
Thank you so much. Much.
52:07
Thank you for listening to Dive In. I hope
52:11
you learned from this episode as much as I did. Please help
52:14
us to spread the word about the show. See you next time.