Paulo Freire and a Manifesto for Disability Pedagogy

Looking Ahead

What Now? Here Are Your Action Items:

When you read news and other media stories, be conscious of how you are ingesting the content. Ask yourself, What is this saying about people with disabilities? How does it portray them? What effect is the media having on me? This applies to the Freirean Revolutionaries who are both people with disabilities and allies. For the former, we cannot continue to internalize our oppression and condition ourselves to accept the imposition of our inferiority. For non-disabled allies, you cannot continue to let yourself and others passively absorb media which negatively portrays people with disabilities. Be critical and challenge it. Start the discussion with your peers.
If you are an ally, always begin your activism and pedagogical dialogism with others by thinking critically about how you describe people with disabilities. Watch your language and note how it is might be hindering the efficacy of your advocacy. Get into the habit of using person-first language as a common default unless someone with a disability tells you they identify otherwise. It is just like being aware of your language to make sure you are using someone's pronouns.
Find a local or national disability rights advocacy organization with local chapters to volunteer a few hours of your time a week or month to disability activism and ally ship. Some examples and ideas can be found here.
You can learn more about the disability rights movement's thematic universe by watching films like Crip Camp or amplifying disabled voices by reading memoirs from activists like Judy Heumann.

Wondering what someone's real world journey looks like as a Freirean Revolutionary hopeful?

Your journey to becoming more fully human as a Freirean Revolutionary will be alongside those who are oppressed, but your reflection and action may manifest in diverse ways. I didn't know where to start my disability pedagogy when I first began studying Freire, but here are some of my real-world efforts so far:

In November of 2018, I first started a club for students with chronic illnesses at my university to provide more of a community and in the hopes of educating our campus about disability and disability issues. You can keep up with our activism on Instagram: @thechapmanspoonies.
I fought many uphill battles on my own with figures of authority at my institution.
I took ENG 446 Topics in Rhetoric: Freire, Praxis, Dialogue and I began thinking more deeply about structures of oppression and how they effect the oppressed in the spring of 2020.
Along with the vice-president of The Spoonies, we urged our members to think more critically about our university. We started sharing our stories of inaccessibility and discrimination and we became passionate about addressing these issues together.
I joined my university's group Advisory Group on the Status of Disability and Accessibility and now work with students, faculty, and staff alike to take action on disability issues in 2019.
I became a part of my university's Cross-Cultural Center (CCC) Room Transition Advisory Committee. The CCC hosts four different identities in four different rooms. In 2019, we redesigned the room to feature the disability community.
In January of 2021, I joined The Chronic Illness Advocacy and Awareness Group (CIAAG) as an advocacy intern. I engage in legislative and policy advocacy through rigorous research projects on state and federal activities, in addition to coordinating with CIAAG's founders to prepare memos, reports, and action plans to assist the chronically ill community through the digital organizing of a nationwide membership-based advocacy coalition.
Finally, the unending process of building this manifesto and engaging in activist work makes me feel that I truly am engaging in critical reflection and action simultaneously to become a Freirean Revolutionary.

Some of my club's recent activism and community awareness work:

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