Name of Activity: Timeline of ableism and disability justice

Instructional Purpose Category:

8. Exploring history
9. Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: To explore the history of ableism and collective action against ableism, with a focus on the United States

Learning Outcomes:After this activity participants will…

• Be familiar with major events and themes in the history of disability in the US
• Identify connections between major events in disability history and concurrent events on the national stage

Time Needed: 75+ minutes

Materials Needed: Timeline posters, sticky notes

Degree of Risk: Low- medium risk (very little personal sharing, but exposure to upsetting ideas)

Procedure:

1. In advance, prepare a timeline that the whole group can view simultaneously. The timeline posters provided can offer a foundation, but we encourage facilitators to add recent events that may happen after the publication of this book, as well as events relevant to the local context. The timeline should include key events in disability history (such as legislation enacted, organizations formed, etc.), as well as themes that are larger than a single event (the deinstitutionalization movement, early 20th century eugenics, etc.). Additionally we find it helpful to include historical touchpoints that participants may be more familiar with, not specific to disability - such as the Civil Rights Movement, WWII, etc. This can be displayed on a different color paper, or on a different level of the wall, etc. Consider what you know about the group, and what they are likely to already know and care about, in deciding what to include in the timeline.
2. Introduce the activity by explaining that participants will be considering a historical overview of disability and disability activism in the US. Explain the intentions of the activity: to demonstrate the historical progression of understandings, practices, institutions, and activism relevant to disability in the US, and to highlight common themes that connect ableism in the US with other forms of oppression.
3. Gallery walk (~20 min): Either individually or in pairs, participants peruse the timeline. If the group is large, people may need to start at different points on the timeline rather than all starting at the earliest date. If in pairs, encourage participants to discuss the timeline as they go, and especially to share immediate reactions and feelings that come up. Provide sticky notes, and invite each participant to use sticky notes to comment on the timeline by adding their reactions (feelings, thoughts, questions) as well as additional information they may know about relevant to items on the timeline.
4. Small group discussion (25-30 min): Organize participants into groups of 4-5. (If they viewed the timeline in pairs, simply combine two pairs.) Ask them to discuss the following prompts:
• What are your general reactions to the timeline?
• What did you learn?
• What similarities and differences did you notice between historical events and current or recent events that you’re familiar with?
• What patterns and themes did you notice between the disability timeline and the broader historical touchpoints?
• How may some of the items on the timeline relate to your and your families’ experiences with ableism, ability privilege and survival strategies?
5. Large group discussion (25-30 min). Returning to the large group, first invite small groups to report out highlights from their discussions. Then lead discussion on themes that come up across the small groups. If needed, use follow-up questions to draw participants’ attention to:
• How institutional policies and practices lead to disability (both in the sense that they create the social expectations that make an impairment a disability, and in the sense that they increase the likelihood of impairment through experiences like combat, workplace injuries, untreated chronic illness, etc.)
• How disability activism has coincided with, been inspired by, and contributed to other social justice movements
• How the same events, practices, and beliefs that contribute to ableism also contribute to other systems of oppression
• How the historical context explains some of the socialization experiences and widely held beliefs discussed in earlier activities
6. Conclude by noting how the next activities (whether in the same session or a future session) will build on this one.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

When facilitating in person we like to display the timeline physically on the walls of the training room, and leave it up for the entire session. This supports participants who favor kinesthetic as well as visual learning. If facilitating remotely, or depending on the learning needs of the group, you may instead display the timeline electronically. There are a number of free web-based timeline creators available for this purpose.

To access this activity participants need to be able to move around the room and read. Make sure there is ample space to move around (including for participants who use mobility aids and/or have balance issues). Make the timeline available in advance as a screen reader-accessible document so that participants who use screen readers (whether because of visual impairment, learning disability, or any other reason) can access the text. The pictures in the provided timeline are meant to illustrate the text but not to convey additional meaning; however, a best practice for visual accessibility is to provide a text description of every picture. (When creating a screen reader-accessible document, the description will be embedded so that it’s not visible but is recognized by the screen-reading software.) If you use the option of having participants share reactions on sticky notes, and there are participants who can’t see and/or read handwritten text, you can have the group voice their reactions in between the gallery walk and the small group discussion.

For all participants, learning about the history of disability can be upsetting. People often have strong reactions to learning about physical and reproductive abuses, and may be surprised at how recent some of the historical abuses are. Providing opportunities to express emotions is important.

For groups that include international students and/or immigrants, it will be helpful to make connections to disability history in other parts of the world. Facilitators can do research in advance to add such content to the timeline, and/or can invite all participants (not just those who are from outside the US) to add information they know about disability internationally.

Recommended Readings/materials for Students: Any reading or other assignments that provide additional information about history are supportive for this activity.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor or Facilitator: The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko and Hillary Monague-Asp

Name of Activity: Film discussion on ableism and disability justice

Instructional Purpose Category:

8. Exploring history
9. Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: To explore the history of ableism and collective action against ableism, with a focus on the United States

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will…

• Be familiar with major events and themes in the history of disability in the US
• Identify connections between major events in disability history and concurrent events on the national stage

Time Needed: 2.5 hours (1 hour 45 min to show film; 45+ min for discussion)

Materials Needed: Crip Camp film -https://cripcamp.com/; reflection question handout; visual presentation medium (marker board, easel sheets, etc.)

Degree of Risk: Low-risk

Procedure:

1. In advance, prepare to show the film in a way that is accessible to all participants. (For example, make sure you have access to captions, an audio description track for visually impaired participants, and a space with comfortable seating and a low level of visual and audio distractions.)
2. Introduce the activity by explaining that the film covers some key moments in disability activism beginning in the 1970s. Explain that the purpose is to gain familiarity with this slice of disability history, while also making onnections to other historical themes (that people may already be familiar with, or that they may have encountered in assigned reading), and with stereotypes, beliefs and norms discussed in previous activities.
3. Offer some questions for participants to hold in mind while watching. Provide them on a handout (which participants can use to make notes if that is helpful to them) and also post them on the wall. The questions should be tailored to the particular group’s learning needs. Here are some examples of questions you might use:
• General questions
• What are your initial reactions (emotions, sensations, thoughts, questions)?
• What information is new for you?
• What connections are you making with stuff you already know?
• What questions come up for you?
• What do you want to discuss with the group?
• Ableist stereotypes and beliefs
• What stereotypes or beliefs are referenced in the film?
• How do people in the film internalize ableist beliefs, and how do they contest them?
• What connections do you see with the stereotypes, beliefs and norms we discussed in earlier activities?
• How do events or images in the film challenge or confirm your own beliefs or assumptions?
• Historical themes
• What was the general approach to disability at the time the film starts?
• What else was going on at that time in the US? What trends, changes, social movements, etc. might have been relevant to how the campers understood their experiences?
• What was so special about Camp Jened? How was it like and not like other institutions for disabled people that we’ve learned about?
• Identity and community
• What do you notice about the self-identification of people in the film? What does it mean to “identify as” disabled (and other ways characters describe themselves)? How is that different than being described or categorized by others as disabled?
• What other identities were relevant to the experiences of people in the film? How?
• What is the relationship between disability identity and disability community?
• Activism and social change
• What were the core goals and ideals of the disability activism depicted in the film? How did the short-term objectives relate to the core goals and ideals?
• What tactics, strategies, and frameworks did the people in the film use to advance their agenda?
• What is the relationship between disability community and disability activism?
• What role did coalitions with other communities and other social justice movements play in the disability activism depicted in the film?
• What did the disability activism depicted in the film accomplish? What has not yet been accomplished?
4. Small group discussion (20 min): Organize participants into groups of 4-5. Ask them to discuss the same prompts you provided earlier, along with anything else that came up for them while watching the film.
5. Large group discussion (20 min). Returning to the large group, first invite small groups to report out highlights from their discussions. Then lead discussion on themes that come up across the small groups.
6. Conclude by noting how the next activities (whether in the same session or a future session) will build on this one.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

Viewing films as a group presents a number of accessibility challenges. It will be useful to have asked participants about their access needs in advance so that you can make sure to meet them. The film can also be assigned as homework (allowing people to use accessibility features they may have access to at home).

For all participants, learning about the history of disability can be upsetting. Although the tone of the film is mostly hopeful, people may be surprised to learn how limited the options were for disabled people in the 1970s, and how recent some of the disability rights protections are that we now take for granted. For abled participants, this may prompt uncomfortable reflection on their own privileges. For some disabled participants, it could also prompt uncomfortable reflection on how much worse off they might have been if they’d been born a few decades earlier, or anger at how little has changed in some ways. Providing opportunities to express emotions is important. Depending on the group, it may be helpful to offer the option to discuss the film in affinity groups.

This film takes a specific approach to a moment in disability rights activism. There are many other moments and themes in disability that it does not cover. Time permitting, and depending on the group, it may be useful to supplement it with readings and/or a lecture providing additional historical context.

Recommended Readings/materials for Students: Any reading or other assignments that provide additional information about history are supportive for this activity.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Instructor or Facilitator:

• Additional discussion guides are available at https://cripcamp.com/curriculum/.
• The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko and Hillary Monague-Asp

Name of Activity: Current Events and Disability History

Instructional Purpose Category:

4. Exploring institutional-level oppression
5. Exploring individual/interpersonal-level oppression
6. Exploring cultural- or societal-level oppression

Instructional Purpose: Using examples drawn from current news and social media, participants draw connections between current manifestations of ableism and themes from disability history. Participants then use the same examples to describe how the interpersonal, institutional, and societal levels of ableism reinforce each other.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Understand some connections between between current manifestations of ableism and themes from disability history
• Be able to do recognize ableist themes in current news and media
• Be able to explain how the interpersonal, institutional, and societal levels of ableism reinforce each other.

Time Needed: 75 min

Materials Needed: The same timeline used for the Timeline of Ableism and Disability Justice in quadrant 2. Sticky notes. Painters tape.

Degree of Risk: Low to medium risk

Procedure:

1. In advance, gather and print screen shots of current/recent headlines and/or social media posts (“current manifestations”) related to ableism and disability justice. They can be examples of ableism and of resistance to ableism or action toward disability justice. Be sure to collect a variety of examples that also highlight intersections with race, gender, immigration, colonialism, etc. (This can also be assigned as homework for participants.)
2. In advance, set up the disability history timeline as for the previous timeline activity.
3. Arrange participants into groups of 2-3, and distribute printed “current manifestations” so that each group has a roughly equal number of them.
4. Small groups (15 min): Ask participants to read their current manifestations, and discuss as a small group what events or themes from the timeline each reminds them of. If space permits, the groups should move around the room and add their current manifestations to the timeline next to the events they see a connection with (e.g. by taping the current manifestations to the wall). Simultaneously, if the discussion leads participants to think of other current manifestations that aren’t represented in their printed items, they can write them on sticky notes and also add those to the timeline.
5. Large group debrief/discussion (15 min): Returning to the large group, invite participants to share and discuss:
• What themes from history did they recognize coming up in current events? For example:
• Eugenics is evident in recent reports of involuntary sterilization in ICE custody
• Dependence/independence/interdependence comes up in current discussions about meeting the needs of disabled people in evacuations due to natural disasters
• The intersection of racism and ableism is evident in current news stories about racial disparities in special ed
• Colonization is relevant in recent news articles about epigenetic impacts of trauma on metabolism and health
6. What emotions and sensations came up for you while discussing these connections?
7. Presentation (10-15 min): Briefly present an explanation or reminder of the “levels” of oppression - individual/interpersonal, institutional, and cultural/societal. Talk through at least one example in which the three levels uphold each other. The “gears of systemic oppression” graphic (Think Again Training & Consulting, used with permission) can be helpful for visualizing the relationship. (Make sure to describe the illustration while explaining it, to create access for participants with visual impairment.)


In this graphic, the individual/interpersonal level is called “individual beliefs, attitudes and behaviors,” the institutional level is called “structures and policies,” and the cultural/societal level is called “widely held beliefs and norms.” Each level is depicted as a yellow gear with black spokes. The three gears are arranged in a circle with smaller black gears in between, such that if one of the “level” gears were to turn, the other two would have to also turn in the same direction. Clockwise arrows show how the gears turn each other; however, it’s important to note that this isn’t a cycle that goes in one direction - any gear in the system influences the other gears. For example:

• At the individual/interpersonal level, say a teacher has a student in their class who uses a wheelchair. The teacher may believe (consciously or unconsciously) that disabled people are lesser than non-disabled people. As a result the teacher may have low expectations of the student, and may not provide the appropriate supports or challenges to foster the student’s learning.
• The teacher’s beliefs aren’t only their own, but come from a widely held belief and norm at the cultural/societal level.
• Structures and policies such as standardized curriculum, large class sizes, and classroom furniture not designed with wheelchairs in mind, reinforce the widely-held beliefs and make the individual behavior of neglecting the student’s needs likely (or the path of least resistance).
• Simultaneously, all these influences also flow in the other direction - individual beliefs and behaviors feed into widely held beliefs (e.g. by modeling them to other students), and contribute to structures and policies (e.g. by setting classroom rules). Widely held beliefs and norms influence what structures and policies are likely to be in place, and also are reinforced in turn by those structures and policies.

While the gears depict a single ism, in reality all the isms are “turning” each other simultaneously. In the above example, one might point out how racism and classism lead to disparities in school funding (structural), to different expectations of students across race and class (cultural/societal), and to bias in decision-making regarding school discipline (individual/interpersonal), all of which complicate and magnify the impact of ableism in the situation.

8. Small groups (15+ min): Returning to the same small groups as before (or combining into slightly larger groups, e.g. 2 pairs combine to form a group of 4), have participants discuss:
• How does this model of “levels” or “gears” help you make sense of any of the current manifestations you just worked with? For each manifestation, discuss:
• Which level/gear does this example fit into?
• What must be going on in the other levels/gears that reinforces and/or is reinforced by this example?

Optionally, have participants use the handout on the last page of this document to make notes about each example they talk through.


9. Large group discussion (15 min): Returning to the large group, invite participants to share highlights of their discussion in small groups. Facilitate discussion using questions like:
• What does the levels/gears model help you understand about why people act in ableist ways?
• What does this exploration make you think about in terms of actions you can take against ableism? Where do you have the power to throw a wrench in the gears of ableism?
• What emotions and sensations come up for you when you think and talk about ableism in this way?
• What new questions does this bring up for you?
10. Transition to next activity

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

When scheduling permits, it is valuable to assign homework for participants to gather their own examples based on media (news, social media, and others) that they already access. This ensures that the examples will be relevant to the participants and their communities. On the other hand, participants may have difficulty finding any examples. That challenge is a learning experience in itself, and facilitators can discuss what structural and cultural factors make it so hard to find examples of such content in media. To ensure that there are enough examples to use for the activity, facilitators should prepare a variety of examples themselves, in case participants don’t find enough examples or don’t find enough of a variety of examples.

The first part of the activity, connecting current manifestations with historical themes, may bring up feelings of hopelessness. It’s important to acknowledge such feelings, but not to dwell in hopelessness for too long. Including examples of disability activism (both current and historical) can alleviate hopelessness to some extent. It may also be helpful to suggest a reframing of hopelessness as grief. While hopelessness implies a belief about the future, grief can capture the deep sadness and loss of recognizing the pervasiveness and durability of ableism, without predicting what will or won’t continue into the future.

The second part of the activity, using levels or gears to discuss how manifestations of oppression reinforce each other, can likewise lead to feelings of overwhelm at the magnitude and complexity of systemic oppression. On the other hand, the model also offers some hope in that it shows how action against one manifestation of oppression ultimately impacts other manifestations as well.

The gears model also offers illustrations of some key points about the roles of individuals in systemic oppression. It shows how our past attitudes and behaviors are not our “fault,” but are the result of our positions in systems that need us to take up and act on widely-held beliefs and norms. At the same time it shows that our own beliefs and intentions are not the only factors driving our behavior, and so good intentions are not enough. In this model there can be no neutral action; if we don’t actively resist ableism, the other gears will drive our behaviors (and even beliefs) in an ableist direction.

The gears model relies on a visual metaphor and so may be less useful for participants with visual impairment. For these participants, as well as for others who prefer a more kinesthetic learning style, it may be helpful to bring actual gears (such as from a children’s building set, or simply cut out of cardboard) as a tactile illustration.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students:

• “Core Concepts for Social Justice Education,” selection 6 in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4th edition, or any other source that explains oppression at different levels of analysis (individual/interpersonal, institutional, cultural/societal)

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator:

• Chapter 1, Theoretical Foundations
• Chapter 4, Core Concepts

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Hillary Montague-Asp and Davey Shlasko. Credit for the “gears of systemic oppression” is Davey Shlasko at Think Again Training & Consulting.

Name of Activity: Identifying Ableism in Your School/Workplace/Community

Instructional Purpose Category:

4. Exploring institutional-level oppression
5. Exploring individual/interpersonal-level oppression
6. Exploring cultural- or societal-level oppression

Instructional Purpose: Beginning with a framework of ableism at the interpersonal, institutional, and societal levels, participants identify and analyze examples from their own contexts.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Identify examples of ableism in institutional contexts familiar to them (such as their own school, workplace or community)
• Be able to explain how the interpersonal, institutional, and societal levels of ableism reinforce each other.

Time Needed: 60 min

Materials Needed: Handout “Using the Gears to Think Through Examples” (attached), multiple copies per participant. The same image on a slide or poster. (Sample slides are provided.)

Degree of Risk: Low to medium risk

Procedure:

1. Interactive presentation (20 min): Briefly present an explanation or reminder of the “levels” of oppression - individual/interpersonal, institutional, and cultural/societal. Talk through at least one example in which the three levels uphold each other. Use the “gears of systemic oppression” graphic (Think Again Training & Consulting, used with permission) to visualize the relationship among these three levels. (Make sure to describe the illustration while explaining it, to create access for participants with visual impairment.)

In this graphic, the individual/interpersonal level is called “individual beliefs, attitudes and behaviors,” the institutional level is called “structures and policies,” and the cultural/societal level is called “widely held beliefs and norms.” Each level is depicted as a yellow gear with black spokes. The three gears are arranged in a circle with smaller black gears in between, such that if one of the “level” gears were to turn, the other two would have to also turn in the same direction. Clockwise arrows show how the gears turn each other; however, it’s important to note that this isn’t a cycle that goes in one direction - any gear in the system influences all the other gears.

For example:

• At the individual/interpersonal level, say a teacher has a student in their class who uses a wheelchair. The teacher may believe (consciously or unconsciously) that disabled people are lesser than non-disabled people. As a result the teacher may have low expectations of the student, and may not provide the appropriate supports or challenges to foster the student’s learning.
• The teacher’s beliefs aren’t only their own, but come from a widely held belief and norm at the cultural/societal level.
• Structures and policies such as standardized curriculum, large class sizes, and classroom furniture not designed with wheelchairs in mind, reinforce the widely-held beliefs and make the individual behavior of neglecting the student’s needs likely (or the path of least resistance).
• Simultaneously, all these influences also flow in the other direction - individual beliefs and behaviors feed into widely held beliefs (e.g. by modeling them to other students), and contribute to structures and policies (e.g. by setting classroom rules). Widely held beliefs and norms influence what structures and policies are likely to be in place, and also are reinforced in turn by those structures and policies.

The facilitator should provide one example, such as the above, and then talk through a second example with the group’s input. For the second example, choose a manifestation of ableism that the group has already discussed, that is apparent in one of the gears/levels. Then ask the group what must be going on in the other two gears/levels that would relate to that example. For example:

• Individual/interpersonal: The example above starts with individual beliefs and interpersonal behaviors. With any other individual/interpersonal example, you could similarly ask “What are the widely held beliefs and norms that make it likely someone would internalize this belief?,” “What structures and policies make this behavior likely?,” “How does this individual belief/behavior reinforce widely held beliefs and norms, and how might it contribute to reinforcing structures and policies?”
• Widely held beliefs and norms: In this level/gear you could start with the widely held belief that disabled people can’t work, or the widespread norm that disabled people receive personal care assistance from relatives. From there, ask “What happens when individuals internalize this belief? What do they say/do?,” “What policies and structures are premised on this norm, and how do they also reinforce this norm?”
• Structures and policies: In this level/gear you could start with an organizational policy, such as the requirement that students submit medical documentation to be eligible for testing accommodations, a structure such as a school district’s special ed budget, or a law such as the way that household income is calculated when determining eligibility for federal disability benefits. Then ask, “What individual behaviors does this policy/structure make likely? What must people believe if they willingly participate in this policy/structure? How do individual’s actions in turn have the potential to change this policy/structure?,” and “What widely held beliefs and norms does this policy/structure seem to be based on, and how does it also reinforce them?”

Continue the discussion until there are a few examples in each gear, and you have touched on how each gear influences both of the others.



While the gears depict a single ism, in reality all the isms are “turning” each other simultaneously. In the first example above, one might point out how racism and classism lead to disparities in school funding (structural), to different expectations of students across race and class (cultural/societal), and to bias in decision-making regarding school discipline (individual/interpersonal), all of which complicate and magnify the impact of ableism in the situation. This can be illustrated with several sets of interlocking gears. (A larger image of the interlocking gears is provided in the slide deck.)

In the course of the interactive presentation, look for opportunities to highlight these key points about the roles of individuals in systemic oppression, which the gears metaphor helps to demonstrate:

• Our past attitudes and behaviors are not our “fault,” but are the result of our positions in systems that need us to take up and act on widely-held beliefs and norms.
• Our own beliefs and intentions are not the only factors driving our behavior, and so good intentions are not enough.
• We like to think that our behavior is based on our beliefs, but just as often, we modify our beliefs to justify our behavior and reduce cognitive dissonance. Someone who implements an ableist policy because it’s their job may be tempted to believe in it, at least to some extent. It takes work to discern what we want to believe and to act on our own beliefs and values.
• There is no “neutral” action; if we don’t actively resist ableism, the other gears will drive our behaviors (and even beliefs) in an ableist direction.ge
2. Small groups (20 min): Arrange participants into small groups based on the context, or kind of context, they’d like to focus on - usually, their own school, workplace, or community organization. Ask each group to generate one or more examples and record them on the gears handout, using the same kinds of questions you have just posed while generating an example in the large group. Each example should start with a manifestation of ableism apparent in any gear and relevant to their context.
3. Large group discussion (20 min): Returning to the large group, invite participants to share highlights of their discussion in small groups. Facilitate discussion using questions like:
• What emotions and sensations come up for you when you think and talk about ableism in this way?
• What does the levels/gears model help you understand about why people act in ableist ways?
• What does the levels/gears model help you understand about how ableism functions in the specific context you chose to focus on?
• What new questions does this bring up for you?
• What does this exploration make you think about in terms of actions you can take against ableism? Where do you have the power to throw a wrench in the gears of ableism?
4. Transition to next activity

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

Discussing how manifestations of oppression reinforce each other can lead to feelings of overwhelm and hopelessness at the magnitude and complexity of systemic oppression. On the other hand, the model also offers some hope in that it shows how action against one manifestation of oppression ultimately impacts other manifestations as well. It is important to follow up this activity with tools and strategies for making change.

The gears model relies on a visual metaphor and so may be less useful for participants with visual impairment. For these participants, as well as for others who prefer a more kinesthetic learning style, it may be helpful to bring actual gears (such as from a children’s building set, or simply cut out of cardboard) as a tactile illustration.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students:

• “Core Concepts for Social Justice Education,” selection 6 in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4th edition, or any other source that explains oppression at different levels of analysis (individual/interpersonal, institutional, cultural/societal)

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator:

• Chapter 1, Theoretical Foundations
• Chapter 4, Core Concepts

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko, Think Again Training and Consulting. Enclosed images including handouts and slides are © Think Again Training and Consulting, and may be used with attribution for the purpose of this activity.

Name of Activity: Sculpting Disability Justice

Instructional Purpose Category:

9. Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: Participants use an embodied, applied theater approach to explore and envision how disability justice feels

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Consider the role of embodiment in resisting ableism
• Articulate what would need to change to transform a scenario from a manifestation of ableism to an example of disability justice

Time Needed: 60+ min

Materials Needed: none

Degree of Risk: Medium- to high-risk. Appropriate for groups with a high degree of trust and the ability to communicate clearly about bodies and consent.

Procedure:

Setting the stage (20-25 min)

1. Introduce the idea of the role of the body in liberation and activism by showing a piece of art, performance or writing by a disabled person in which the body plays a central role. We like to use Sonya Renee Taylor’s talk, “Being Bodies of Resistance” (9 minutes): https://youtu.be/MWI9AZkuPVg. As with any material, facilitators should view it in advance and decide whether it’s appropriate for the group as well as what if any content warnings might be needed.
2. Invite participants to reflect individually for 2 minutes using these prompts:
• How do you feel in your body during and after viewing the video?
• What emotions, thoughts, or other reactions come up for you?
• How is the speaker’s approach a disability approach? How isn’t it?
3. Organize participants into groups of 2-3. Invite them to share their reflections from the previous prompts. (5 min)
4. In the large group, invite participants to share examples of what came up in their reflections and small-group conversations. (8 min)
5. Transition to the next part of the activity by posing the question: Will we use our bodies to uphold systems of oppression or to defy them?

Sculpting (40+ minutes)

1. Frame the activity by explaining that one part of resisting ableism in academic spaces is to embrace our bodies as a source of wisdom. Therefore, this activity explores ableism and disability justice through embodied practice.
2. Explain that participants will be creating “body sculptures” representing ableist messages, themes, or situations that have been discussed during the course/workshop. For each sculpture, one participant will serve as a “sculptor,” and several others will volunteer to be the sculpture itself. The remaining participants will be active observers. The sculptor will direct the sculpture volunteers in arranging their bodies into a tableau representing the sculptor’s chosen message, theme, or situation. Then a second sculptor will revise the sculpture to represent disability justice, by directing the sculpture volunteers to move their bodies into new positions. The group will then discuss the sculptures and the experience.
3. Establish communication norms for the activity. Identify specific words, phrases, and gestures that the sculptor can use to ask a volunteer to move in a particular way, and that volunteers can use to say what they are comfortable with and what they need. The point is not to limit how people can communicate, but to give them some easy options, since direct communication about consent is challenging for many people. Also establish whether touching (between the sculptor and sculpture volunteers, or among the sculpture volunteers) will occur, and if so how consent will be communicated. For example, people need to be able to say things like:
• May I touch your elbow to show you where I want your arm?
• Please show me with your arm rather than touching my elbow.
• Is this position comfortable for you?
• I can’t hold this position for more than a few seconds.
• I need to change something to make my joints comfortable.
• Invite the first sculptor to build a tableau. Ask the sculpture volunteers and observers to note their own emotions, sensations and thoughts throughout the process. (<5 min)
• Ask the sculpture volunteers to remain in the sculpted position for at least thirty seconds while observers view its finished form. Then the sculpture volunteers can relax, but stay near their sculpted positions.
• Briefly discuss observations and reactions to the sculpture (~10 min) using questions like:
• Where did you see power in the sculpture? How did you see power negotiated?
• How was it for you (sculpture volunteers) to be in this scene?
• Where do you see yourself in this sculpture?
• How does this relate to messages you’ve received about disability?
• How does this relate to messages that you enact?
• What other identities/systems were coming up for you?
• Ask the sculpture volunteers to return to their sculpted positions. Invite the second sculptor to revise the scene to transform it from one of ableism to one of disability justice. Invite everyone to observe their own emotions, sensations and thoughts throughout the process. (<5 min)
• Ask the sculpture volunteers to remain in the sculpted position for at least thirty seconds while observers view its finished form. Then the sculpture volunteers can relax, but stay near their sculpted positions.
• As a group, discuss the sculptures and the experience using the same discussion questions above (~10 min).
• Time permitting, repeat the whole process with two new sculptors.
• Final debrief: Discuss in the whole group:
• What have we learned from this activity about ableism and disability justice?
• How does disability justice feel in our bodies and emotions?
• How did we do disability justice in this activity? (e.g. through access considerations and consent communication practices)
• How does embodied practice change the possibilities for learning about and doing disability justice?

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

This activity presents many accessibility challenges, which can be valuable opportunities to practice disability justice through collective access. Sculpture volunteers will have different needs and abilities in terms of holding positions within the sculpture. But all bodies are capable of expressing meaning - if the position a sculptor had in mind is not going to work for someone’s body, the sculptor will have to find another way to express that idea. Participants may also have different needs around personal space, which may lead some to choose not to volunteer. If some participants have visual impairment such that they cannot observe the sculpture, facilitators should add a step inviting other participants in an observer role to describe the sculpture aloud.

This activity exercises a kind of thinking not often valued in academic or training spaces. Some participants may especially thrive with the opportunity to express concepts spatially and visually rather than verbally. Others may struggle. Only a few participants will play the role of sculptors, and it is okay if those are participants who happen to already feel comfortable with this kind of thinking, or if the sculptors include people who are trying this out for the first time. To make the activity less intimidating for potential sculptors, it may be helpful to introduce it in advance so that people have time to consider how they might express course concepts in this medium.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Participants: none

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None required. Facilitators who are interested in performance and embodied practice as methods in SJE should explore the work of Augusto Boal.

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Hillary Montague Asp and Davey Shlasko

Name of Activity: Exploring current disability organizing

Instructional Purpose Category:

9. Exploring liberation and social action

Instructional Purpose: Participants become familiar with current disability organizing and gain inspiration for potential actions they may take

Learning Outcomes:After this activity participants will …

• Be familiar with a range of current disability organizing relevant to their contexts
• Identify their possible roles in disability organizing

Time Needed: 75+ min (less if some is assigned as homework)

Materials Needed: internet access

Degree of Risk: Low- to medium-risk

Procedure:

1. As a whole group, have participants brainstorm current disability organizing they have heard of. Examples may include existing institutions like Independent Living Centers and Offices of Disability Services, as well as grassroots, disability-led organizing; they may include efforts focused on disability culture, on legal rights, and/or broader conceptions of disability justice; and they may include efforts whose scope is a single institution, a city/town, or larger. (10 min)
2. When participants begin to run out of ideas, especially if the list is still short, use questions about likely needs (many of which will have been discussed in previous activiti4es) to uncover other possibilities where disability organizing probably is happening even though participants haven’t heard about it. For example you might ask, “What accessible housing options exist on our campus / in our town? Are they sufficient? How could we find out who might be organizing around that?” (5-10 min)
3. Arrange participants into groups of 3-5, based on what example or topic from the brainstorm they want to focus on.
4. Instruct the small groups to conduct internet research to learn more about their example or topic (20-30 min). They should seek to learn:
• What is the problem (the manifestation of ableism) addressed?
• What is the scale of the problem - organizational, local, national, something else?
• How long has the problem been this way? When was attention called to it?
• Who is involved in addressing it? Who is in leadership?
• How is it being addressed? What are the tactics, strategies, and actions being taken?
• What language is being used about the problem and the efforts to solve it?
• How intersectional (or not) is the approach?
• What models or approaches are apparent? (e.g. religious model, medical model, rehabilitation approach, institutionalization/deinstitutionalization, social model, independent living approach, disability justice model)
5. Still in small groups, after they have gathered as much information as they can, invite participants to discuss their relationships to and potential roles in the efforts they have learned about. How are these efforts relevant to their lives? In what ways might they join, support, or amplify those efforts, or act in solidarity with them? How do the efforts connect with work that participants may already be doing? Participants should consider their positionalities including disability identity as well as race, class, gender, etc., and how those might impact their appropriate roles as participants, allies, leaders, supporters, etc.
6. In the large group, report out and debrief:
• What did you learn?
• What comes up for you as you think about your relationship to these efforts?
7. Transition by noting that the next activities will explore concrete ways to take action.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

Depending on the group’s learning needs and scheduling constraints, steps 1-4 may be assigned as homework (individually or as group projects), leaving more time in session for the discussions.

It will be helpful for facilitators to have done some research in advance in order to share examples of disability organizing that is local and/or especially relevant to participants’ focus (academic fields, jobs, etc.). It is often easiest to identify organizing that is relatively “official” and institutionalized, but a lot of the most meaningful, intersectional and disabled-led work is more informal. Look for groups organizing via social media even if they are not organized as a nonprofit; look for student groups that may be organizing to get their needs met even if they’re not framing it as activism; where you find an effort that appears to be led by service providers, look for where the most-impacted people are involved in those efforts.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Participants: none

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko

Name of Activity: Mapping Disability Justice in Your Context

Instructional Purpose Category:

9. Exploring liberation and social action
10. Developing Action Plans

Instructional Purpose: Participants identify what would need to change in their context (school, professional, or community) to move toward disability justice

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Have a vision for a (school, community or workplace) characterized by disability justice
• Have some ideas of concrete changes that are needed to move toward disability justice

Time Needed: 60 min

Materials Needed: easel pads, markers and/or other art supplies

Degree of Risk: Low- to medium-risk

Procedure:

• Frame the activity by explaining that participants will be asked to develop a detailed vision of what disability justice would entail in their own context. Depending on the participants, their context might be their school, their workplace, or their community. Facilitators should specify which context they want participants to focus on, and/or what options participants have. Organize participants into groups of 2-5 people who will focus on the same context as each other, or at least the same kind of context (e.g. an elementary school even if they work at different elementary schools).
• Give participants a few minutes to reflect silently on the following questions:
• Imagine your specific context (your office, area of the university, classroom, neighborhood center, etc. - not something like “schools in general” but rather the specific school you are part of). Imagine you are rebuilding this school, organization, etc. from scratch, with a disability justice approach. How would you design it?
• Consider 3 lenses: 
• interpersonal communication & relationships
• content (curriculum, services, what the institution actually provides)
• structure/policy
• Provide paper and markers, and instruct small groups to draw (or map) their collective vision of disability justice in their context. (~20 min) Building on the prompts above, they should seek to represent what the setting would look like, feel like, sound like, etc. Their representations can be literal maps and/or metaphorical. Additionally instructions that can be helpful are:
• We want you to be creative, idealistic and detailed.
• You don’t need to figure out how to get from the current situation to your ideal situation - the goal is to imagine disability justice.
• Every person in your group needs to contribute in some way.
• Remember universal design.
• Returning to the whole group, invite small groups to report back by showing and describing their creations and explaining some of the thinking that went into it. (2-5 min per group). If time permits, invite other participants to ask questions and/or share responses about each group’s work.
• When everyone has presented, invite participants to notice what other groups came up with that was different from their visions/solutions. Ask what they think of those differences. Ask, what gets in the way of imagining particular solutions sometimes?

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

Envisioning disability justice can be challenging because it is so far from the norms of most institutions. It may be helpful to prompt groups to think more ambitiously - not only in terms of making sure a context works as well for disabled people as abled people, but even further to consider how disability justice can inspire a context that works even better than that for everybody. Refer back to earlier activities and resources, especially those related to disabled community wisdom and strategies for surviving ableism.

This activity presents access challenges in terms of vision and dexterity:

• If one or more participants cannot see well enough to participate in the activity as written, consider alternative formats such as creating a soundscape, poem, textured collage (with string, noodles, sand paper, felt, etc.) or sculpture (with play doh or pipe cleaners).
• If one or more participants cannot hold a marker, there are several options:
• Messy drawing is absolutely okay for this activity! Someone may say they “can’t draw,” but if it’s a matter of holding the mark steadily or controlling it precisely or quickly (rather than a matter of gripping the marker at all), the person can absolutely still contribute to the drawing. Collaborating across differences like that is a practice of disability justice;
• If a different kind of marker or tool would be easier, for someone, try to provide it! (This may require planning in advance.)
• Consider alternative formats such as creating a soundscape, poem, textured collage (with string, noodles, sand paper, felt, etc.) or sculpture (with play doh or pipe cleaners).
• Ideally, find a way for all groups to express their vision in a way that is not purely verbal/prose - even if different groups use different media. Getting outside of the linear, logical communication patterns valued in most schools and workplaces can support us to imagine new possibilities.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Participants: none

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: None

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Hillary Montague-Asp and Davey Shlasko

Name of Activity: Mapping Disability Justice Here

Instructional Purpose Category

9. Exploring liberation and social action
10. Developing action plans

Instructional Purpose: Participants explore their current physical and social location - often, the institution hosting the workshop - and identify opportunities for change through a disability justice lens

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Identify and “map” specific resources for and barriers to disability justice in their current context
• Identify opportunities for change through a disability justice lens

Time Needed: At least 75 minutes; some can be assigned as homework

Materials Needed: easel pads; markers; handout (optional) tailored to the particular context; other art/office supplies (optional) such as stickers, sticky notes, glitter, yarn, etc.

Degree of Risk: Typically low-risk; may feel riskier if participants are people with decision-making power in the institution the group is exploring

Procedure:

1. In advance, define the scope of inquiry for the activity - the physical and social location that participants will explore and assess. The For example:
• If the workshop is part of a university course, the scope might be the entire university, a division within the university, an area of campus, or a single department.
• In a K-12 setting the scope might be a whole school district, a high school, or a particular school building.
• In a workplace the scope might be the whole organization, a particular division, or a particular location.
• In a community setting the scope could be a whole town, a neighborhood, a few blocks surrounding the workshop’s location or encompassing key resources, etc.

If you decide on a relatively broad scope, like a whole university or a whole town, the participants can work together as one large group, with smaller groups taking on different pieces of the task. If the scope is narrower, you might decide to have small groups work independently of each other, and compare results at the end of the activity.

2. Explain that the group will making a collaborative “map” of ableism and disability justice in the location you have selected. The map will include both barriers to disability justice and resources for disability justice. Give an overview of the entire activity so that participants can manage their time and tasks, and arrange participants into small groups.
3. Explain the first task: to identify those barriers and resources. Arrange participants into groups, give them a time limit (at least 20 min), and provide some questions to guide their exploration. These questions will depend on the particular context and group. For example, if the workshop takes place in the college of education, a relatively open-ended approach could offer questions like:
• What barriers to participation do disabled students, faculty and staff face within the college of education? (Be sure to consider a variety of disabilities including those affecting mobility, cognition, energy level, etc.).
• What resources would support disabled students, faculty, and staff to participate fully in the college of education? (Be sure to consider a variety of disabilities including those affecting mobility, cognition, energy level, etc.).
• In what ways do those resources align, or not, with the 10 principles of disability justice? (Are they intersectional, are they led by disabled people, etc.)
• Where could something change to shift toward disability justice?

If the group needs more specific guidance, you might add questions like:

• How do people with wheelchairs get into this building?
• How do people with hearing impairments receive announcements?
• Where can people go to get a sensory break or to calm down?
• Where can people go for assistance with access technology like captions, lecture recordings, etc.
• Is the Office of Disability Services equally welcoming and useful for all students? How does it meet the needs of students who are BIPOC, who are LGBTQ+, who are low-income, who are non-traditional-aged students, etc?
• Where do disabled people have leadership roles in designing and implementing the resources that are available?
• What could it be like if the Office of Disability Services were focused more on interdependence rather than individual responsibility?
4. Explore (20 min): Send the groups out to observe and collect information based on the questions you’ve provided. Participants should actually leave the room and move around the building/campus/area to explore these questions. They should make notes about what they find including specific locations. Depending on the scope of inquiry, they might also explore the organization in other ways, such as by looking things up on the website.
5. Discussion and mapping (30 min): When participants return, have them discuss their findings, focusing not only on what they found but also on what opportunities for change they identified. Using the easel pad and markers (along with any other art/office supplies they want to use), they should create a map, not of what they actually observed but of what they would have observed, if the context were more oriented toward disability justice. If the scope of their inquiry is a physical area, they can create a literal map of the area. If the scope is a whole organization, the map might be more metaphorical.
6. Share (20 min): If multiple small groups made separate maps, invite each group to share their map with the rest of the participants. Lead discussion using questions like
• What did you observe that surprised you?
• What opportunities for improvement seemed obvious? Which were harder to recognize?
• What changes toward disability justice did other groups imagine that you did not? What sometimes gets in our way of imagining disability justice?
• What changes toward disability justice did you think of that you would not have imagined before participating in this workshop?
7. Transition to action planning

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: Envisioning disability justice can be challenging because it is so far from the norms of most institutions. It may be helpful to prompt groups to think more ambitiously - not only in terms of making sure a context works as well for disabled people as abled people, but even further to consider how disability justice can inspire a context that works even better than that for everybody. Refer back to earlier activities and resources, especially those related to disabled community wisdom and strategies for surviving ableism.

This activity presents access challenges in terms of mobility, energy, vision and dexterity:

• If the physical location of the workshop is not especially accessible, people with mobility impairments may have challenges mapping the location. Of course, that’s part of the point, and in some cases a participant may feel somewhat empowered to know the answers their peers don’t know (like where the nearest door with a ramp is). On the other hand, a participant won’t learn much from mapping barriers they’re already extremely familiar with. If you have participants who may be in this situation, it may be helpful to assign them an area of focus that’s not only or primarily about physical access, and/or invite them to really focus on imagining what could be better, specifically and ambitiously.
• For participants whose disabilities affect energy levels, making it hard to move around the space, offer them an opportunity (with a small group) to investigate the questions in other ways, such as through the organization’s website. Their “map” of policies, information that’s available, etc. can complement rather than duplicate other groups’ physical maps.
• If one or more participants cannot see well enough to participate in the activity as written, consider alternative formats such as creating a soundscape, poem, textured collage (with string, noodles, sand paper, felt, etc.) or sculpture (with play doh or pipe cleaners).
• If one or more participants cannot hold a marker, there are several options:
• Messy drawing is absolutely okay for this activity! Someone may say they “can’t draw,” but if it’s a matter of holding the mark steadily or controlling it precisely or quickly (rather than a matter of gripping the marker at all), the person can absolutely still contribute to the drawing. Collaborating across differences like that is a practice of disability justice.
• If a different kind of marker or tool would be easier for someone, try to provide it! (This may require planning in advance.)
• Consider alternative formats such as creating a soundscape, poem, textured collage (with string, noodles, sand paper, felt, etc.) or sculpture (with play doh or pipe cleaners).
• Ideally, find a way for all groups to express their vision in a way that is not purely verbal/prose - even if different groups use different media. Getting outside of the linear, logical communication patterns valued in most schools and workplaces can support us to imagine new possibilities.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: The 10 principles of Disability Justice, from Sins Invalid, (2019), Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People (2nd ed.). [Digital version]. Retrieved from sinsinvalid.org.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: Sins Invalid. (2019). Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People (2nd ed.). [Digital version]. Retrieved from sinsinvalid.org.

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Hillary Montague-Asp and Davey Shlasko

Name of Activity: Scenarios for Taking Action Against Ableism

Instructional Purpose Category:

9. Exploring liberation and social action
10. Developing action plans

Instructional Purpose: Participants generate ideas and practice strategies for interrupting ableist situations.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Have increased confidence intervening when they observe an ableist situation

Time Needed: 60 min

Materials Needed: easel pads; markers; handout with scenarios

Degree of Risk: Medium to high

Procedure:

1. Prepare several scenarios in which ableism is playing out in a specific, observable way, in a context that would be familiar and relevant to the participants. (The examples below focus on a higher-education context.) Each scenario should include at least one bystander.
2. Organize the participants into small groups of two to six people. Give each group a scenario to work with and enough copies for each participant to have their own. To promote greater access and participation, one participant in each group should read the scenario aloud. Then the group should discuss questions like these (feel free to adapt them to meet your group’s learning needs):
• How is ableism playing out in this situation?
• What other systems of oppression might also be relevant in this situation?
• What options does______ (the bystander character) have?
• What should ______do in the short term? In the long term?
• What might get in ______’s way? (For example, consider policies, social norms, power differentials, etc.)
• What support or resources might _____ need to be addressed in the situation?
• How can the 10 principles of disability justice inform ______’s response?
3. Give participants 15–20 minutes to discuss their scenarios and be prepared to report back.
4. Have the participants return to the whole group and ask each small group to read their scenario aloud and then summarize a few key points of their discussion. Lead a discussion based on their reports.
5. When relevant, add information about resources that participants may not be aware of, such as a disability services office, support available through an Ombuds office or Dean’s office, and benefits available through an HR office.
6. Transition to action planning.

Sample Scenarios:

Chris is an upper-level graduate student who is teaching a summer course at a large public university. One of the students is Deaf and needs accommodations for the course, including transcription of audiovisual material and writing support from a learning specialist. Ordinarily the student would receive these services through the Dis-
ability Services office, but the office is unstaffed for the summer.

Michael is a TA for one section of a large lecture course. One of the students in Michael’s section, Marlene, is experiencing ongoing symptoms of pain and fatigue that her doctor does not know how to diagnose. She has frequent absences from class, and the course policy is that students need medical documentation for an absence to be excused. Marlene explains to Michael that when she is too sick to come to class, she is also too sick to walk to the doctor’s office to get a note. Her doctor has refused to provide documentation of her overall health situation, since there is no diagnosis. Marlene is keeping up with her work, but she is in danger of failing the class due to her number of absences.

Connie is a transgender sophomore who has a back injury that makes it very difficult for her to walk up and down stairs. As a freshman, Connie had a first-floor room for this reason. After Connie transitioned over the summer, she requested a single room in a mixed-gender hall because she did not feel comfortable rooming with a cisgender man or woman. The college obligingly assigned Connie to a single room in the only mixed-gender
hall, which is on the third floor of a building with no elevator. Connie’s neighbor down the hall, Flo, sees how much pain Connie is in after walking up the stairs, and asks what’s wrong. Connie tells Flo the whole story.

Max, Jenna, Phil, and DeeDee have all been assigned to an “allergen-reduced” housing unit together, as accommodations for their environmental illnesses. The problem is that they all have different environmental illnesses. Jenna is allergic to mold and wants to use chemical cleaners to ensure the space is free of mold; Max has chemical sensitivities and wants everyone to avoid toxic chemicals in the cleaners and personal care products they use in the space; and so on. Amy, the staff supervisor of the residence, gets a complaint for one or another of them nearly every day about how the others’ behavior is impacting their health.

Dan and his friends are walking together after philosophy class, joking around and complaining about their professor. Dan comments that a lot of what the professor says is hard for him to understand—meaning that the content is difficult. His friend JJ starts mimicking the professor, performing an exaggerated parody of the professor’s lisp. Everyone else laughs, and Dan feels uncomfortable for having started it.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

Facilitators should have a basic understanding of legal protections relevant to their context as well as services and resources available.

As always, facilitators should consider the known and possible access needs of participants when planning the activity. Any written materials (e.g. the scenarios handout) should be provided in advance in accessible, electronic formats. Facilitators should ask for volunteers to read aloud during the session, and not call on people to read aloud.

Some participants may recognize themselves in the scenarios, having encountered such ableism in their own lives. This may bring up feelings of anger or resentment. Other participants may recognize themselves in the ableist behaviors presented in the scenarios, which may bring up feelings of guilt or shame. Facilitators should validate participants’ feelings, and make space for participants to acknowledge each other’s feelings. In particular, participants who may experience guilt or shame should be invited to listen deeply and try to empathize with other participants’ anger or resentment, understanding it not as a personal attack but rather as an understandable reaction to the universal human experience of not getting one’s needs met. While guilt and shame are also understandable reactions, they can often lead to avoidance rather than action; helping participants recognize how they can do better in the future can make it possible for them to acknowledge their own guilt and shame without getting stuck in it.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students:

• The 10 principles of Disability Justice, from Sins Invalid, (2019), Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People (2nd ed.). [Digital version]. Retrieved from sinsinvalid.org.
• “Developing a liberatory consciousness,” Barbara Love, Selection 128 in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4rd edition.
• “The Cycle of Liberation,” Bobbie Harro, Selection 131 in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4th edition.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: Same as the above plus the rest of Sins Invalid, (2019), Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People (2nd ed.).

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko

Name of Activity: 4As for Self Assessment and Action Planning

Instructional Purpose Category:

9. Exploring liberation and social action
10. Developing action plans

Instructional Purpose: Participants use Barbara Love’s “elements of a liberatory consciousness” to explore how to become more prepared to take effective, accountable action.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Understand the four “Elements of a Liberatory Consciousness”
• Accurately assess their own preparedness to take action for disability justice
• Identify some next steps they can take to further develop their own learning and begin taking action

Time Needed: 30 min

Materials Needed:

• If reading is assigned in advance, participants should read and bring with them to the workshop: “Developing a liberatory consciousness,” Barbara Love, Selection 128 in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4th edition.
• If no reading is assigned in advance, facilitators should provide a handout or slide outlining key points of the article, particularly the definitions of the four elements. Even if participants have read the article, a handout or slide can serve as a useful reminder during the session.

Degree of Risk: Medium to high

Procedure:

1. Using the handout, slide, and/or article (if participants have read it), define each of the four elements of liberatory consciousness, and ask participants to generate examples of each element with regard to ableism (5-10 min). For example:
• Awareness includes knowing about some common manifestations of ableism and noticing your own assumptions about disability.
• Analysis includes understanding how some historical legacies of ableism play out today and understanding how ableism intersects with other systems of oppression.
• Action includes interrupting ableist language and working to change ableist policy.
• Accountability includes supporting the leadership of disabled people in deciding on actions to take, including people with a variety of different kinds of disabilities and intersecting identities.
2. Individual reflection (5 min): Ask participants to assess themselves with regard to how they embody each of the four elements, and how they could do better. (For example, many participants might say they are pretty aware and have an analysis, but don’t have any relationships of accountability and haven’t taken any action beyond self-education. In other cases participants may admit they have taken action without accountability or analysis.) The self-assessment can be in the form of a written reflection, a list, a doodle, or just thinking quietly.
3. Pair share (5-10 min): Invite participants to organize themselves into pairs or threes, and share their reflections. Time permitting, they can also begin to think about how they might fill in the gaps in elements where they could be doing better (e.g. what practices will help them become more aware, how can they practice accountability, etc.).
4. Large group discussion (10-15 min): Invite a few volunteers to share highlights of their individual and group reflections. Facilitate discussion about how participants might fill in the gaps in elements where they could be doing better. Help participants identify the similarities and differences in their self-assessments and in what they need to work on next.
5. To conclude (5 min), ask each participant to write down one thing they will commit to doing next to improve their awareness, analysis, accountability or action, and one thing they can offer to the learning community to support their peers’ next steps. These reflections can be shared aloud as the conclusion to this activity, or later as part of a closing activity for the whole workshop.

Facilitation Notes & Considerations:

If this is participants’ first exposure to the “elements of liberatory consciousness,” the activity can be quite cognitively demanding - it asks participants to learn a new, abstract framework, apply it to other material they’ve just recently learned, and then apply it concretely to themselves. It may be helpful to scaffold the task by introducing the framework earlier, or by assigning it as reading and/or reflection to be done before the workshop. This makes the activity more accessible for people with a variety of processing speeds.

Some participants may assess themselves quite harshly, and get stuck in feelings of guilt or shame. It can be helpful to acknowledge these feelings and then redirect participants to the question of what they can do now to improve.

Other participants may assess themselves too generously. This is often a sign their awareness is not as deep as they might think - they feel like they’re already doing all four elements because they lack awareness of how much more is possible. During the large-group discussion, follow-up questions can help to clarify how far participants’ awareness, analysis, accountability and action really go. Even if someone thinks they are already doing all four elements, they should be able to recognize ways they can continue to improve.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students: “Developing a liberatory consciousness,” Barbara Love, Selection 128 in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4rd edition.

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator: “Developing a liberatory consciousness,” Barbara Love, Selection 128 in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4rd edition.

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko

Name of Activity: Backwards Planning and Goal Setting

Instructional Purpose Category:

9. Exploring liberation and social action
10. Developing action plans

Instructional Purpose: Participants identify stakeholders, barriers, resources and steps to pursue complex actions toward disability justice.

Learning Outcomes: After this activity participants will …

• Have a concrete goal for taking action against ableism toward disability justice
• Have a detailed plan for accomplishing their goal

Time Needed: 45 min

Materials Needed:

• Backwards planning handout

Degree of Risk: Medium to high

Procedure:

1. Setting goals (10 min): Explain the concept of backwards planning: Starting at the “end” with a medium- to long-term goal, we work backwards to identify the resources, steps, and support needed to get to our goal. Ask participants to select a goal they will work on, inspired by prior activities related to imagining disability justice. Have a few participants share their goals with the group. If some participants can’t think of a goal, use the group discussion to help them find one. Goals should be at a scale appropriate to the capacity of the participants. For some it might be a goal that could reasonably be accomplished in a few weeks, for others it might be a project that will take a year. The goal should be specific, realistic, and have multiple steps. For example, some goals participants might identify include:
• Create a petition and collect signatures to ask the school to install a ramp on the front door
• Add 20 new books to the school library that have positively-portrayed disabled characters
• Bring a guest speaker to talk about neurodiversity with the student teachers
• Create a peer-led disability culture group
  
  
2. Once all or most participants have a clear goal in mind, give them ~20 min to work on the handout, individually and/or in small groups. (Some participants who have ongoing relationships outside the workshop may want to work on the same goal together; others may work on different goals but may benefit from thinking aloud together as they work on the handout.)
3. Large group discussion (15 min): Reconvene the whole group and invite volunteers to share their plan. Time-permitting, this can be an opportunity for the group to help hone each other’s plans with constructive questions, feedback, suggestions, and offers of support. (For example, if someone names that a resource they will need to complete their plan is a photocopy machine, and someone else has access to free photocopies, this is a great time to make that connection. If someone’s plan requires buy-in from a particular stakeholder, and someone else has a relationship with that stakeholder, this is a great time to make that connection.)

Facilitation Notes & Considerations: Depending on the group’s experience with advocacy and/or with any kind of project planning, participants may need a lot of support from facilitators and/or each other. If you know or guess that the group is relatively inexperienced, presenting an example of a completed plan (or even better, a plan that has already been successfully executed) will be helpful.

Recommended Materials/Readings for Students:

Recommended Supplementary Materials/Readings for the Facilitator:

Name(s) to credit for this activity: Davey Shlasko