Dawn's story
Inclusive teaching and learning practice, student stories > Dawn's story
Below is Dawn's story in her own words. We have changed the student's name to protect her privacy.
Dawn worked as a digital accessibility intern over summer with the PDLT team.
During the project, I have learned a huge amount. Somethings have been practical, like what alt-text is, how to add headings to a document, and how to format a table correctly. Others have been more profound, and will have an impact on my life beyond creating documents. Of course, a better understanding of the visually impaired study experience is a huge part of this, but I want to put the less tangible developments onto paper.
I have learned to trust my own opinion and beliefs more. Just because someone is a professor or has a permanent job does not mean their experiences are more valuable. It’s often said knowledge can be obtained at any point while wisdom is developed over a lifetime of experiences. However, if we take wisdom to mean ‘the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience and good judgment’, then I believe this can be achieved at any age. Applying your experiences to make a good, just decision does not require a wealth of knowledge. Older people may have more experiences but they do not have all experiences. They do not have my experiences.
Some argue that humans are born with an intuitive understanding of right and wrong that is bullied out of us by a corrupt society. Young children unquestioningly share and play indiscriminately with children of other races, genders, and abilities. Perhaps this is the kind of wisdom we ought to listen to.
What I am trying to say is that you don’t need a qualification to understand that education should be accessible to everyone and that worrying over ‘making it too easy’ is actually worrying that too many people might have information and job prospects. For all their scientific knowledge, some academic staff seem to lack that wisdom.
Academic institutions should not be the gate keepers of knowledge, but its advocates, aiming to spread critical thinking and trustworthy information.
The competitive nature of the education system plays a key role in gatekeeping. You should not have to be in the top 10% of your cohort to access a university education. The only prerequisite should be that you a) want to learn, and b) have a good enough understanding of the basic material to make progression meaningful. Surely more people learning can only create a better, more scientifically advanced society? Why do we prevent perfectly capable students from learning just because they’re not quite a quick as some of their peers?
This leads me onto another shift in my thinking – this time around language. I feel that the terms ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ do more than describe an educational relationship. ‘Teacher’ implies someone of higher status who not only knows more, but who is better (academically and morally) than their ‘student’. This term is closely linked to ‘child’ making it harder for university learners to be treated as and act like adult. Instead, the terms ‘educator’ and ‘learner’ are more appropriate. They are more accurately and flexible. I can be a learner at university, but an educator elsewhere. They also help to create the feeling of a learning community rather than school. ‘Teacher’ and ‘student’ are identities while ‘learner’ and ‘educator’ are roles.
