Nota Bene:
This is a personal issue for me, absolutely. On the one hand, I am aiming to enter the ranks of the professoriate, and care deeply about both pedagogy and the plight of university teaching staff in a professional capacity. On the other hand, I have the deeply personal experience of being older sister to a wonderful, amazing, talented young man who is on the spectrum. He has received his Associates degree from a local branch of a state college. However, it is clear to everyone who has ever met him -- or heard his highly technical music, which has made its way onto two internationally syndicated television shows! -- that he is fully capable of the intellectual task of completing a bachelor's degree. One of my parents has also been deeply involved in multiple aspects of higher education (though never as professor, working closely with professors) at two different institutions. To this, I also add my own years at Lawrence University and then the University of Delaware. It is this body of experience and evidence that informs my thoughts here.
Reflecting on Inside Higher Ed's article, "Students on the Spectrum"
This morning, I woke up and read my daily digest of InsideHigherEd articles, to help me keep abreast of national events shaping academia. I don't always agree with the opinion pieces, but I read them anyway; of course I clicked through an article about autism and post-secondary education. The authors, Elizabeth Finnegan and Margaret Finnegan, open with some troubling and undoubtedly true statistics, and come to a sound conclusion based on them:
A 2015 Autism Speaks report found that only 30 percent of high school graduates with autism ever attend a two- or four-year college, and those that do fare poorly. Research suggests that 80 percent of them never graduate. Furthermore, only 32 percent of high school graduates with autism find paying work within two years of graduating high school. This need not be. Half of all individuals with autism have average or above-average intelligence. They can do the work. The problem is not the students. It’s the colleges. [....] Together, we have seen the many ways that colleges fail students with autism.
My fist was raised in the air! Yes!
We are talking about making Higher Ed more accessible, not for those who cannot do the work or maintain the intellectual standards of the institution, but for those who can and are not given the institutional support to do so. The authors went on to make another slam-dunk point:"if autism is indeed a social disability, then denying the social needs of autistic students is inherently unreasonable". Carry on with the structural critique, I cried! Lay it on me, and I will broadcast your message from the rooftops!
As the article went on though, something went deeply wrong. Perhaps you can spot a trend:
We are talking about making Higher Ed more accessible, not for those who cannot do the work or maintain the intellectual standards of the institution, but for those who can and are not given the institutional support to do so. The authors went on to make another slam-dunk point:"if autism is indeed a social disability, then denying the social needs of autistic students is inherently unreasonable". Carry on with the structural critique, I cried! Lay it on me, and I will broadcast your message from the rooftops!
As the article went on though, something went deeply wrong. Perhaps you can spot a trend:
When students felt their social needs were met -- in particular when faculty members proved willing to modify their teaching style -- students had much more positive experiences. But American professors are not required to modify their teaching style for disabled students
[....]
It would help if faculty members understood how autism affects learning. But professors are busy [...] professional development seminars are often poorly attended, especially those focused on helping students with special needs. [...]Even when given the opportunity to learn more about the needs of disabled students, professors turn those choices down.
What happened to institutional critique? Then again, why delve deep into causes of underfunding, problems of administrative support, societal stigma around neurodiverse individuals, or what is making the professors so very busy, when you can simply lay the lion's share of the blame and responsibility at the professors' feet???
Don't worry: professors can present work, research in archives around the world, publish books, articles and materials meant for public audiences, mentor higher-level students, teach introductory classes AND spend significant amount time finely honing pedagogical skills! [/s]
All these things are not possible at once. Furthermore, from a shallow political perspective, dumping on faculty like this is just justification for more budget cuts. What we need -- and will not get by simply denigrating university teaching staff-- is reform and justice in the academic labor market. This would actually help faculty to help students.
Don't worry: professors can present work, research in archives around the world, publish books, articles and materials meant for public audiences, mentor higher-level students, teach introductory classes AND spend significant amount time finely honing pedagogical skills! [/s]
All these things are not possible at once. Furthermore, from a shallow political perspective, dumping on faculty like this is just justification for more budget cuts. What we need -- and will not get by simply denigrating university teaching staff-- is reform and justice in the academic labor market. This would actually help faculty to help students.
To Be Fair...
I also know that terrible professors can be a big portion of the problem and definitely exist. The article details the experience of one its authors interacting with a faculty member:
Elizabeth, for example, struggles with understanding if professors are being sarcastic or rhetorical. Uncertain, she often responds too much or too little. When one professor expressed frustration at her eager hand raising, she asked privately if he would signal her when he wasn’t being serious or didn’t require a response. “No,” he said. “I don’t need to change my teaching for you, and you need to learn sarcasm.”
You cannot just ask someone on the spectrum to 'learn sarcasm' on top of your course load; this is truly atrocious! Yet,I believe this story whole-heartedly. I've heard stories of the same and worse levels of appalling callousness; I have seen them unfold. In some cases, the adjuncts have given up on ever getting tenure, never were trained to teach during their masters or doctoral degrees, and/or don’t get paid enough to care between their commutes and second (and third and fourth) jobs. The tenured professors just don’t have to care and/or are bitter over being stuck at a community college instead of an R1; some should have retired years ago. Some of the tenured professors who aimed for R1 also never learned how to teach, spending all their time on research. I'm not saying all university instructors are infallible, above critique, or even good at teaching. But do these anecdotes represent a majority, or even a statistically significant percentage of professors??
Furthermore, I also hold pedagogy important. Yes, I feel personal responsibility for the well-being of students within my classroom, and have made a point of personally seeking out all the tools available to me to make myself a better, more inclusive and welcoming instructor. I would be one of the three faculty attending those workshops on dealing with disabilities in the classroom; UD offered an excellent opportunity to do so just last year,
Why do I disagree so vehemently then, if I agree that faculty can be major causes of failure for autistic children -- and yes, also major parts of the solution???
Because this article stops at blaming professors.
What if I told you the reason I couldn't attend the disabilities in the classroom workshop last academic year was because I was trying to grade 87 mid-term exams in a single weekend, while also finishing another draft of my dissertation prospectus?
The problem is the university teaching labor system, and this article doesn’t address or even acknowledge the underlying causes at play, of which overworked and under-dedicated university instructors are often mere symptoms. How about the fact that 70% of university teaching staff across the United States today fall under the classification of non-tenure-track-faculty??? The vast majority of those are adjuncts; they are underpaid and overworked. Many are not even offered offices, let alone professional development opportunities. And how can they attend these unpaid 'opportunities' when over a quarter rely on food stamps to make ends meet, and many more still fall below minimum wage in their annual earnings. There are myriad articles detailing the crisis of labor in higher education, and how this issue lies at the very heart of the corporatization of the university, budget crises, disappointing student learning outcomes, and more. Educate yo'self!
Furthermore, I also hold pedagogy important. Yes, I feel personal responsibility for the well-being of students within my classroom, and have made a point of personally seeking out all the tools available to me to make myself a better, more inclusive and welcoming instructor. I would be one of the three faculty attending those workshops on dealing with disabilities in the classroom; UD offered an excellent opportunity to do so just last year,
Why do I disagree so vehemently then, if I agree that faculty can be major causes of failure for autistic children -- and yes, also major parts of the solution???
Because this article stops at blaming professors.
What if I told you the reason I couldn't attend the disabilities in the classroom workshop last academic year was because I was trying to grade 87 mid-term exams in a single weekend, while also finishing another draft of my dissertation prospectus?
The problem is the university teaching labor system, and this article doesn’t address or even acknowledge the underlying causes at play, of which overworked and under-dedicated university instructors are often mere symptoms. How about the fact that 70% of university teaching staff across the United States today fall under the classification of non-tenure-track-faculty??? The vast majority of those are adjuncts; they are underpaid and overworked. Many are not even offered offices, let alone professional development opportunities. And how can they attend these unpaid 'opportunities' when over a quarter rely on food stamps to make ends meet, and many more still fall below minimum wage in their annual earnings. There are myriad articles detailing the crisis of labor in higher education, and how this issue lies at the very heart of the corporatization of the university, budget crises, disappointing student learning outcomes, and more. Educate yo'self!
But at least not all the responsibility for fixing the problem falls on faculty; the authors move away from faculty alone when they talk about solutions. They point out just how helpful social support from other students can be, and how meaningful:
For Elizabeth, the greatest support has often come from students who have chosen to act as social interpreters. A whispered word or two is often all she needs to better and more appropriately engage with her curriculum. Colleges like California State University at Fullerton already have mentorship programs that pair neurotypical and neuroatypical classmates. We recommend expanding such programs so that peer mentors -- perhaps those offered the coveted privilege of priority registration -- work side by side with autistic students in the classroom.
I agree; such programs are wonderful, and peer support can be fantastic. However, this also side-steps the fact that universities are broken in their very bones. The whole problem cannot lie with university instructors, and the whole solution cannot be instructors teamed with student aids. The worst thing we can do for all students - neurotypical and neurodiverse alike - is to shallowly malign instructors for systemic problems of which their pedagogies are effects, not causes. This article is yet another that side-steps the deep crises of higher ed to focus on bad-mouthing professors, the face of the university, and offer glib, no-reform-needed solutions. But faculty and students alike deserve better. We deserve more. We need to demand more from our institutions to serve the needs of all.
RSS Feed