Students are workers and the conditions of faculty and staff are reflected in the conditions of students themselves. In the context of disability, human resources and accessibility services both tend to focus on legal compliance and limiting institutional liability, not systemic change or the rights of the marginalized. They exist to control access to the perceived “scarce resources” of accommodations. But if students were really getting what they needed structurally, they wouldn’t have to go through an accommodations process. It would just be a given of how teaching and learning were done. The neoliberal capture of higher education is only intensifying, and so this reality is not going to change any time soon, so then what can be done until the revolution comes? 

In this talk I reflect on the relational nature of teaching in the context of neurodivergence both inside and outside the classroom. Given how many faculty and staff have justifiably felt the need to hide their disabilities, this robs neurodivergent students of the ability to imagine possible futures for themselves and be in educational spaces where their needs are understood by people who share some of those needs.

Using several examples of my own work with students at TRU and some recent scholarship on accommodations and neurodiversity, I argue that we can’t just focus on the corporate narratives of good grades and jobs to motivate students (that’s basically just a veiled threat), but instead on interest-driven human connections. This is doubly so for neurodivergent students who often have a much harder time with extrinsic motivation than their neurotypical counterparts. We need to be people our students want to learn with and are in community with and speak to their interests and needs.

Please note: This session will be recorded.

Dr. Ben Mitchell's Biography:

Dr. Ben Mitchell is a librarian, curator, editor, and scholar in science and technology studies and the history of science, technology, and medicine.

They have published on topics such as the relationship between authority, psychology, and the occult in the nineteenth century and are completing a book on Friedrich Nietzsche’s physiological relativism.

As an assistant curator at the Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre, they worked with members of the LAMP Community Health Centre and other disability advocates in Etobicoke, Ontario, to develop, deliver, and evaluate tours, exhibits, articles, and public programs that reflected the diversity of views surrounding the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital.

They have given over a dozen talks on neurodiversity and advocacy at institutions such as the Waterloo Public Library, the Ontario College and University Library Association’s “Neurodiversity in the Library” conference, and Aucademy, an autistic-lead educational organization based in the UK.