Le trou-ble with learning!!

 

Each time I do a disability equality presentation, workshop or supported conversation I observe those learning going through some stages. It wasn’t until I’d heard James Nottingham speak several times that I noticed these mirrored the stages of the Learning Pit.  Encouraging a comfort with the emotional challenge of questioning the meaning of disability has certainly become part of a more intentional way of working. That is to say, I now sit more easily in the pit, resisting an urge to simplify, explain or correct thinking, before I support people to find a way out. 

 

Starting top left, with the orange baby! When asked to talk about disability, people are often fearful.  Because they can’t yet grasp the ideas they may need to consider, they can react to the fear, instead of naming the assumptions they’ve picked up across a lifetime. These assumptions often include the idea that disability is a personal, or a health issue, maybe a problem for social care, but not within the remit of professional commitment or organisational duty. Sadly, beliefs such as these often sit far deeper in our hearts than in our heads, as worded thought. Therefore what is assumed aren’t even ideas we challenge for ourselves, they are often hidden so deep they can’t be questioned. The landscape we live in, the culture around us in conversation, text and media, informs our mindscapes, as we bathe in words and images we rarely question. When attention is drawn to certain distortions in storytelling, patterns will emerge they may not have been considered previously.  As we bathe in society’s culture, we pick up the very ideas that can prevent us from thinking about disability as a concept. Because many negative ideas slip past our attention, yet lodge in our hearts over the years, few appreciate disability as a knotty and complex discipline. Most will not be aware that assuming disability equates to illness, for example, tends to prevent them from approaching learning about it as they would other characteristic discriminations. Because viewed as a medical/ individualised problem, said assumptions place responsibility outside their professional duty… For a few, personal experience will trump alternative evidence, with the feeling ‘i know’ interrupting a search for more on the subject. For others, it simply has never been a question they’ve had to consider.

 

Moving on to blue baby, many will gasp when statistics, ideas and evidence are articulated. "OMG, I had no idea!" people whisper, when it is suggested that disability, for many can be a discipline, a form of activism, the personal experience of pain, hate speech or functioning. To align it to sexism, racism, classism, for example, viewed as multi-tiered oppression, ableism more specifically requires an understanding of bias, prejudice, discrimination, inequality and injustice. To be fair, I completely get that people may want to run for the hills. The magnitude of what needs to be understood, leaned through theory and evidence, and put into practice, can seem monumental.  The feeling also strengthens an initial reaction to dismiss, reject or select only parts of information - particularly if it resonates with their assumptions.

 

Green baby understandably is a confused, and fearful tot. Negative emotions can block learning, by extinguishing curiosity, playfulness and confidence. In the pit it’s easy to give in, moving back into our comfort zone. Returning to daily activity feels safer, more important, less disruptive to our professional lives. It’s an understandable response, but likely to stop people moving forward.  And move forward is imperative to redress the lack of parity - developing wider acceptance of diversity, fair working practice and systemic inequality.

 

Red babies know Big jobs aren’t necessarily harder than small ones, they just require far longer to get done. Hard work may take a little time but typically gets easier as the learning-change loop becomes a habit. Doing 30 mins a day, or 5 hours a week, soon adds up. Linking disability equality, to best practice, to better practice, will change understanding and culture over time. Equating ableism to sexism, racism, homophobia… does seem overbearing, but what starts as a mind-phase soon becomes a more cohesive landscape in which our own identities find belonging and respect.

 

 

Working together, blue babies makes light work of large tasks, it’s far easier to build shared knowledge in a frequent conversation than in one tedious talk. As teams share new ideas in regular dialogue, the team or organisation’s terms of reference change. Development of alternative terminology will enable more nuanced articulation of disability, more intentional interest in meetings and text and growing ability to challenge existing assumptions… orange babies remember them? Within a short time, not only does explicit direction grow, but so too does professional confidence. This will begin to allow practice, policy and ultimately culture to change in its acknowledgement of D/deaf and Disabled People’s 

 

Purple practitioners will feel increasingly confident, able to identify ableism in situations where it was previously hidden in plain sight. This sensitivity, available to all disabled or non, is a real benefit to those wishing to act as allies. Furthermore, on boards and in management teams, the ability to be critical of systems and institutional know-how, can lever huge progress towards equality within, and equity towards, society more widely. In line with the Sustainable Development Goals strategic conversation need to consider worldwide impact and sustainable development.